We all have our favorite grocery store, but could yours be costing you a couple hundred dollars more a month? One TikToker does the math and gets to the bottom of which grocery stores are most affordable in their town by comparing items bought at Aldi and Walmart. According to them, Aldi is the winner for saving a few bucks a month.
In the video, Shauna (@stayinghomesawyer) gives viewers a close look at their receipt from Aldi. Next to the printed prices are handwritten ones, which Shauna says are the Walmart prices for the same items.
As the camera pans over the Aldi receipt, the text overlay reads, “I always wanted to know exactly how much I save by shopping at Aldi. So I did a complete price match from Aldi to Walmart. Aldi total: $191.25, Walmart total: $255.85, Difference: $64.60.”
“I grocery shop once a week, that means I save $258.4 a month on groceries, by shopping at Aldi instead of Walmart,” it concludes.
The video has over 682,000 views and 617 comments as of the publication of this story.
@stayinghomesawyer I dont know about you, but I can think of plenty of things to do with an extra $250. I’m all about saving money anywhere I can in this economy, so Aldi it is. @ALDI USA #shopaldi #aldifinds #alditiktok #aldihaul #walmarthaul #cheapshopping #groceryhaul #savemoney #moneysavingtips #aldiusa #aldiusafinds #aldiustiktok ♬ Little Life – Cordelia
People in the comments section were grateful for Shauna’s research and brought up some other great nuances and experiences about grocery shopping.
“Thank you cause I’ve never had the energy to do this myself,” notes a comment.
“I did this too and Aldi was $52 MORE than Walmart in my town,” mentions another comment.
“All of you saying aldi is more expensive, yes their big box name brand stuff IS more expensive, but their off brand names are much cheaper,” points out another.
Shauna’s grocery experiment is especially intriguing considering the fluctuating prices of groceries since the pandemic. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a report released annually by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from December 2022 to December 2023, the price of all items rose 3.4%. Food prices, in particular, rose by 2.7%.
However, it is also important to note that while 2.7% is enough to feel a dent in your pockets when shopping, it is not the highest rise in recent years. From 2021 to 2022, food prices rose by 10.4%, according to Nerd Wallet’s analysis.
Some reasons for the spike in grocery prices in the past few years are “inflation, pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions, and tariffs on certain foreign imports,” Nerd Wallet reports. Additionally, a chart included in the site’s analysis shows there seems to be a slow trend of prices going back down since their major spike in 2020.
Time will tell if grocery prices will ever get back to normal, whatever “normal” might mean. The Daily Dot has reached out to Aldi, Walmart, and Shauna via email and Instagram direct message for comment.
