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See I told you, this would help!

Coupon Abbreviations
  • SC = Store Coupon
  • MC = Manufacturer Coupon
  • SS = Smart Source
  • RMN = Retail Me Not
  • PG = Proctor and Gamble
Coupon Terms
  • WYB = When You Buy
  • B1G1 = Buy One Get One Free
  • .75/1 = 75 cents off one item
  • .75/3 = 75 cents off three items
  • EXP = Expiration Date

Going Nuts? I can help you understand coupon terms and abbreviations

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As I teach couponing workshops or even on our weekly Q&A time online I always hear “What about Aldi?”  I was intrigued and shopped their regularly before learning to save with coupons, almost 10 years ago now.  Aldi has become the trendy store in more recent years.  Folks feel like they are getting a bargain with no work of watching sales and cutting coupons.  While it takes no time to get ready for the store, you may be surprised at what the savings at Aldi really look like.

To help show you the savings winner lets look at just the Buy One Get One items from this weeks Publix list.  There are 73 BOGO sales in the weekly ad.  Twenty-one items Aldi doesn’t have a similar product for. For the 52 products that there is a close enough match Aldi beat the Publix sale price on 3 of them.  Three…

Factoring in using coupons along with the sale, if we pretend you bought one of each of those 52 items…

Publix: $63.21
Aldi:  $99.40

That’s a huge difference!  You would save $36.19 to shop at Publix.

That’s just assuming you bought one.  The real savings behind grocery shopping is to follow the sale cycle and remember that items that are BOGO today won’t be back on sale for 6 weeks, so you really want to get enough to last till the next sale.

Some Examples of the Savings

What Aldi Was Cheaper On

Pasta Sauce
Publix has Classico Riserva Sauce on sale for $2.49. This is one of the higher end organic varieties. Aldi only has two “brands” of pasta sauce that are both targetted to be more like Ragu. The Aldi price is $1.19.

Canned Vegetables
You’ll find Green Giant canned vegetables on sale at Publix for 69¢. The Aldi “Happy Harvest” canned beans are 49¢. While we will find canned vegetables cheaper in the grocery store, this is one week that Aldi beats the sale.

Laundry Detergent
Most of us aren’t brave with house brands when it comes to detergents. If you are up for it, the Aldi brand “Tandil” does beat this week deal on all Detergent by 10¢. They are the same size bottle. I’m going to stick with all on this one… call me a laundry snob.

The One Example Everyone Uses

If you ask anyone what Aldi is known for being the cheapest on, you’ll always hear Produce.  Generally that is correct and comparing this weeks produce deals (not bogo sales) Aldi win’s by $2 if you bought 1 lb of everything.  Publix beat their prices on tomatoes, onions (and strawberries in the bogo section) and Aldi beat every other price.  Keep in mind though comparing “apples to apples” here can be tricky as the size of items tends to be much smaller at Aldi and they sell things not per pound but in pre weighed bags of set amounts.  So to compare prices you need to make sure you are really comparing the same thing.

The other area that Aldi wins is dairy and eggs.  These prices vary greatly from one store to the next with some having milk for $1.50 and eggs for 39¢ and others with milk at $2.19 and eggs for 79¢.  No matter the variation though the price is always cheaper than other stores.  That is to be expected.  With no real sales/promotions or national brands to bring you in, part of their marketing scheme is to win you with the price of milk.  For both Aldi and their competitor Lidl (coming to the US later this year) milk and eggs are a loss leader for them.  They pay more to buy the milk than you do!  For example current average price of a dozen eggs across the US according to the USDA is 95¢ per dozen.  Is their milk and eggs steal enough to make you keep coming back?