If you don’t know what Aldi’s is, I will say an extra prayer for you tonight. The Aldi’s website describes itself as having “a unique style when it comes to grocery shopping.” This discount supermarket has almost 10,000 stores between 18 countries, so if you haven’t been to one, I suggest you go, and this is why.

Here is some background on my life.

My mom is not only one of the greatest people on this earth but she is also one of the cheapest. She is embarrassingly cheap.

Let me paint you a picture. She has a purple Tinker Bell binder (with baseball card pocket sleeves inside) that holds her coupons!

Yes! She literally carries around a child’s binder that she rigged to hold her coupons so that they’re organized to make shopping (and saving money) easier.

But I digress.

As I said, my mom is cheap, but one thing she never did was jip us on name brand food. We luckily never had generic brand snacks, and when I was given them, I didn’t know how to react.

“Sorry 'friends mom', I do not want your fake Oreos. Please, spend a dollar extra and get better quality!" is exactly what went through my head.

Well, soon enough, I found myself in a predicament. I was a broke college student. My first few grocery-shopping trips were hard because I had to put the name brand packages back and grab myself a “Great Value” brand instead. I have luckily, fixed my problem by going to Aldi’s.

Here I am today, telling you that Aldi’s is the generic brand king.

Not only does Aldi’s help the environment by recycling boxes and asking their customers to bring their own bags, but they also do everything possible to reduce the cost of their foods without decreasing the quality.

It might be a bit foreign to you when you’re a newbie but the entire process slowly starts to make sense. It almost makes you appreciate going to the grocery store. (your wallet appreciates it too!)

From the way they operate their shopping carts to eliminate unnecessary jobs, to having a smaller, fewer-option inventory to save electric and lower rent, their purpose is to reduce the cost of what they feel to be nonessential to reduce the cost of their products for you.

In my opinion, Aldi’s is mind-blowingly cheap and offers great quality in almost every product. I have yet to be disappointed in my purchases of fruits/vegetables, milk & eggs and a variety of meat.

I will be the first to tell you that, “mothers know best,” but this time, sorry mom, I am an Aldi’s fan!