I hit $100 a month in grocery savings just by switching stores

I started keeping a real budget about 6 months ago and noticed I was spending nearly $150 a week on food for just me and my wife. That seemed way too high so I made a change I never thought I would. I stopped going to the big chain grocery store and started shopping at Aldi and a local Mexican market instead. After three months I added up all my receipts and realized I saved exactly $104.17 per month on average. That number shocked me because I didn't feel like I was eating worse food or spending more time shopping. The trade off is that I have to go to two stores instead of one and some brands I liked are gone. But saving over a hundred bucks a month just for driving a few extra miles feels like a no brainer. Has anyone else run the numbers on switching grocery stores and found a big difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

cooper.nathan15d ago

Man, my budget looked at $150 a week and laughed before running away crying. That's basically my entire food budget for me, my wife, and my dog who thinks he's a person at dinner time. Switching to Aldi cut our spending by about $80 a month but the real kicker was losing my favorite brand of salsa. Now I'm sitting here with store brand chips trying to figure out what life even means. Did you have to give up any weird specific item you actually missed?

jordan30515d ago

That store brand salsa struggle is real, man. For me it was this specific garlic aioli from a local deli that basically made my sandwiches feel complete and now I'm just eating plain turkey like some kind of animal.