Great What/What Not to Buy at Lidl, Aldi and Netto Hunt

tigsowner

Saw this recommended in Family Circle mag so bought a small bar to try last week. Have just had the last slice with a coffee - wonderful! Will buy a bigger cake this week to put away for xmas.

Liqueurs are also good value. Lemonade excellent. carton O/J good value. Biscuits, some cereals, cold continental meats, frozen pizza, mint sweets.

Must admit we tend to pop in for the offers. Sign up online for the newsletter and avoid just popping in, then spending a fortune on extras!

Loved the Halloween deals, got our fireworks there (as it rained have them safely stored for New Year instead!) and have got lots of sporting goods for the kids' pressies. Just need to check the quality instore!

endaria

don't really like netto (feels a bit squalid and never anything i really want) but lidl's down the road sells (and no-one seems to have mentioned) the FROZEN MOZZARRELLA PIZZAS, yum, as good as real italian ones - guests say, ooh, these are proper pizzas, to which i say, 'haha, no, lidl's at 2 for £1.89' and even better, they are regularly discounted to £1.29 when they have offers on frozen food.
PART-BAKED BAGUETTES and PETIT PAINS, 39p for 2 demi-baguettes or 6 petit-pains and lovely.
and, for ladeez only, the APPLICATOR TAMPONS, at £1.49 for 32 which i think is about half the price of regular brands, and i've had no probs at all. non-applicator are cheaper again.
also CHOCOLATE HAZLENUT SPREAD, lovely, fraction of the price of nutella.
and best of all, POWDERED MILK which comes in a big blue tin. this is the best powdered milk i've ever tried, and i've tried a few, including marvel. i use this all the time in my tea instead of real milk, no-one can tell the difference - in fact i prefer it, strangely, it never clumps or forms into manky bits (as does every other brand i've ever encountered), just dissolves perfectly. by comparison, when i put real milk in my tea, it seems to have an unpleasant 'acky' turned-milk flavour that lidl's powdered milk does not impart. believe me, and i know you doubt me, but lidl's powdered milk is what your tea needs. not just better than marvel (and tesco's own brand), it's better than REAL MILK.
have i stressed that enough??

sondheimsoc

Uncle_Nick wrote:

.Aldi currently have a laptop on special offer that gets 5 stars everywhere in the computer papers/journals.

Have just looked on Aldi's web site and there is no laptop listed. When did it go on offer, and can you tell me how much it is?
Thanks
Lynne

endaria

and, a wine-buff friend raves about lidl's italian PROSECCA (sp?) wine, but i know nothing about wine so i can't verify that claim.

Bunnikins_2

I regularly use Lidl and you can buy alot of good bargains there which you would pay much more for at the major supermarket chains.

Some of my top tips are....

Pepsi - 69p compared to Sainsbury at £1.32
Lemonade and bottled water are also excellent value.

Cranberry juice - approx 69p - has a higher % of actual fruit juice than Ocean Spray !!! Pineapple juice is good too.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil - less expensive than most supermarkets.

Cherry Bakewells - excellent taste and 6pk for 67p - I think from memory !! Better than Tesco own.

Fruit & veg - very good offers most of the time and much cheaper than the other stores - TOP TIP - Vine Tomatoes are GORGEOUS !!!!!

Seriously, give it a try and you will have some nice surprises. I could name so many more everyday bargains - ooops, Mozarella - lovely and about 30% cheaper than anywhere else - GREAT for paninis and on pizza. They have great Salami frozen pizzas at £2.49 for pk of 3 AND pork chops.

Must stop now otherwise I will just go on and on and on etc....

Of course, Heinz beans and ketchup are not available and there is no substitute for them in my book so back to Tesco I'm afraid for those.

Good luck.

Bunni

Harpoon_2

Thumbs up for the outdoor gear Aldi have once or twice a year. Under the Crane Sports brand but it's good kit. Couple of examples:

Coolmax T - good summer base layer or gym T-shirt - £3ish
Merino wool mid-layers - £10ish

Merino wool is great stuff. An Icebreaker Merino mid-layer will set you back £50 to £100. It might be a finner quality of wool but I'm yet to be convinced it performs five times (or more) better. Also, when you accidentally shrink your £10 top in the wash (like me!), it's not as gutting as doing it to a £50+ top!

Pentaqua

Lidl Baked Beans - they're fine. Sure, different from Heinz at first, but the taste is OK.

Plus - apricot jam - brill. Pity Lidl in Spain jam isn't the same.

Pork chops - excellent

gillywilly_2

Lidl makes excellent mixed fruit juice which contains mango, passion fruit, peach etc. Packed full of vits and really yummy! NB - it's very easy to get their fruit juices and fruit drinks mixed up, so do check the labels.

Their pesto is about half the price of other brands and scrummy, and they do a variety of chocolate spreads, again about half-price and much tastier than a supermarket's own cheap range.

On that note, most supermarket 'cheap' ranges are absolutely fine, with the notable exception of Chocolate Chip Cookies (you have to play 'hunt the chocolate') - really yucky and not worth spending a penny on. Everything else pretty much fine; for baked beans just pour off the top half inch of liquid and they're pretty much just like any other variety (or have my taste buds forgotten what they should taste like?!)

Tootiemoon

Lidl

Lidl sell microfibre cloths for about £1 each. Other outlets will charge from £4 to £6 for these. For those of you who don't know microfibre cloths - I enthusistically recommend them. They clean BEAUTIFULLY using only water. No need to buy detergents, window sprays, bathroom cleaners.... Just take a damp microfibre cloth and wipe whatever clean. Maybe use another dry one to polish off. How money saving is that?

I also like the fizzing toilet cleaning tablets sold at Lidl as they tackle the hard water rings in my toilet bowel really well and are about half the price of those in the big supermarkets (here's one thing I don't use microfibre cloths for!). They're also on sale about once a year when I buy enough for the whole year, (so making them even cheaper.

And I also buy their shower cleaning spray just to spray the shower nozzle and bits that aren't possible to squeegy or wipe - this cuts down limescale build up. (again, on sale usually once a year)

Note to earlier posting - their W5 limescale remover is OK and much less expenisve than others, but vinegar is cheaper still if you can use it.

Finally, my children really like their fruit corner style youghurts which (recently redesigned and price increased from 21p to 23p each) compare very favourably to Mueller which are about 40P

nickygee

We get most of our shopping from aldi.
Like most people have said the veg doesnt last more than a day or 2 which in my eyes isnt the worst thing because at least you know it is fresh rather than covered in chemicals. They do some amazing weekly offers on various things from mp3 players to whole computers at amazing prices but make sure you get there first thing on a thursday morning otherwise the ebayers have bought it all to sell on ebay.
Their crisps are just as nice as the expensive walkers, they sell bottled 2litres of sparklling mineral water for about £0.14 which if you like a lot of it as my family does is a massive saving on the expensive stuff, they sell original wagon wheels multipacks and much more.
I find there is no harm in looking around just make sure you have a car full of carrier bags as they are not free but even for the few pence they are much stronger than the sainsbury bags and dont spill all your shopping aver the car park if you put more than 1 can in.