I &hearts Aldi

The kids and I are outside (me on the laptop, obviously) while the kids ignore a perfectly blown up and watered down bouncehouse (RRIAP for those of you who are new around here) and instead all three big kids are pulling around a plastic red wagon filled with water.

At least they know how to make the best of their resources, right?

Baby Girl is upstairs asleep and Aaron boy is devouring 15 Mrs. Freshley's Apple Cinnamon Cereal Bars. What's that? Who is Mrs. Freshley? I'm SO glad you asked. You see, I've wanted to blog for a while now about this little love affair I'm having with a certain someone something. But before I tell you about my undying devotion, I'd like to tell you about the time we first met.

This is Aldi. The first time I met Aldi, I didn't like her (him?) very much. You see, they don't provide bags to bag up your food, they rarely carry name brands and, this was the kicker for me, they make you provide a quarter to "borrow" one of their buggys (that's a shopping cart for you'ins that live up nawrth). Yep, you put in your $0.25 then when you return your buggy, you get your quarter back. It was not my beloved Walmart and I did not have an isle by isle chart permanently etched into my brain. It was different and I didn't like it, at all.

But then, I heard that Aldi had milk for $2.39/gallon. I figured another peruse through the store couldn't hurt. And, seeing as how it might be cheaper for our house to just buy a freakin' cow than to continue to pay Walmart's ridiculous price of $4.01/gallon., I figured $2.39/gallon for milk could possible allow us to finally begin contritubing to our kids' college funds, rather than watching them drink away their hope of an undergraduate education. (Plus, Walmart's milk has hormones that make 5 year olds go through puberty, okay not really. I love that you can so clearly tell that this supposed email was written by a southerner. They use the word "fixing" as a verb. You know, she was "fixing" to have surgery.)

Wow - tangent, sorry. Back to Aldi. I went in for milk and saw a few other odds and ends that I needed. The cashier rang up my total and it was something ridiculous like $15.00. Can I just tell you that I have NEVER IN MY LIFE left Walmart with a total as low as $15.00? Ever. Even if I'm going in for just milk, I have never left with less than $30.00 worth of stuff (which conveniently always fits in one bag).

I went to the car and examined my receipt. From that day forward I've been an Aldi fan and we now sport matching BFF necklaces.

Hey! Dont' judge me, you'd be BFF's with Aldi too if it cut your grocery bill by almost $200 a month. I'd say that's worth a BFF necklace anyday.

So the moral of this story? Don't judge your BFF on your first encounter. You never know how much money they will save you.