Aldi - 9 stores opening up in the Houston Area by Thursday April 11th

I have been hearing so much about Aldi from several friends that live in Dallas, Chicago and Missouri and all of them RAVE about the produce, milk and egg prices.  You can imagine my excitement when the Aldi in Sugar Land announced their Grand Opening Celebration.  Today's event was a tour and tasting only, no shopping.  They did say they are doing a "soft" opening tomorrow at 9 am (soft meaning they are not announcing it in any ads, but you can shop).  Basically I was told, the day after the Grand Opening Celebration, that store would be ready the next day to shop.

Some things I should tell you in advance so you can prepare for a shopping trip to Aldi:
*They do not take coupons

*Bring your own bags or boxes for your groceries.  They do not have regular plastic bags but if you forget yours, you can either buy a cloth reusable bag for $1.99 or a plastic one like pictured below for .10 (these are actually pretty sturdy and I imagine would last for quite some time if you don't abuse them)

*Bring a quarter with you to "rent" the cart.  You get your quarter back when you return the cart to the corral (keeps costs down if they don't have to have someone round up buggies and they pass those savings onto the customer)

*Prepare to pay with cash, debit or EBT - they do not accept any other form of payment, again as a cost saving measure

Ok, so now that you have the important stuff to know before you go, how is the store?  Well, I was told all the Houston stores will have the same "footprint" so once you learn the store layout, you shouldn't get lost regardless of which Aldi you visit.
The store is only 5 WIDE aisles in size.
While you can't do 100% of your shopping at Aldi's, you should be able to do about 95% with a savings of 50% off your grocery bills.
Customers can expect to find more than 1400 of the most frequently purchased items sold, most sold under the Aldi exclusive brands.  I was told they have test kitchens in Illinois that work on perfecting an Aldi product to taste just like(if not a little better sometimes) a national brand product.
I admit I taste tested their verisons of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Froot Loops, Cookie Crisp and Reeses cereal and they do taste pretty awesome.  I brought some home to my kids for the ultimate taste test and they both said yum and ha ha mom we ate them all, lol.  And if you look at the packaging of the Aldi's brands, it is pretty easy to figure out what the product is mimicking

They do carry some name brand items too.  I noticed Arizona tea, Pringles, Gatorade, Bounty etc.
Check out some of these prices I snapped a picture of:

.99 each for a HUGE assortment of spices

Milk pricing for ALL varieties (fat free, 2%, whole etc)

Large Eggs

I posted all pictures I took in an album on my facebook page.

Here is the list of stores and their grand opening times(I posted these yesterday on facebook)
Just remember, the day after the store has a grand opening they are "soft" opening for business (my husband is happy I will finally buy Garlic Powder :D)

Don't understand my lingo? Go here.  

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