Bachelor on the Cheap

With Easter right around the corner, this week’s grocery store price comparison was done with the holiday in mind.  A traditional ham dinner is in play and shopping for chocolate and candy was a must!

Here’s this week’s side-by-side Wichita Metro comparison of grocery store prices for Aldi, Walmart, and Dillon’s (Kroger, a.k.a. the mainstream grocery store), but this week’s shopping review is a bit different with the Easter holiday in mind.  The focus is on name-brand shopping when possible, rather than opting for store or discount brands (the Bachelor on the Cheap thing to do).  

Prices stated are online prices and for items available at the time of the review. Remember that the featured items are name brands this week for each respective store unless otherwise labeled. Prices can vary from store to store, as store managers have the flexibility to adjust prices, lower or higher. Aldi does not have the flexibility of the other stores reviewed. Prices are good as of this writing and could change by the time you make that grocery run.

Takeaways from this week’s price review:

  • Aldi is the cheapest place to shop for that Easter meal and candy, but they don’t have near the name-brand options that Dillons and Walmart do, which is how Aldi keeps their overall pricing so low.  The lack of a name brand at Aldi is noted in the comments column.  The Aldi total price of $63.99 can be reduced even further if you swap out Pillsbury cinnamon and crescent rolls for the Aldi discount brand, bringing the total price down to $60.29.   Keep in mind their online prices are higher than in-store prices, so you’ll spend even less than what’s listed when shopping in-store, even on name-brand items.  Aldi uniquely does this to cover their employee cost of personal shopping for your delivery or pickup order.  The lower prices for ham and brisket were significant.
  • Dillons was the most expensive place to shop which didn’t surprise me, but Dillons is really gouging shoppers for Easter!  Shopping with a focus on Easter and name brands rather than the store brand increased the amount of the normal price gap with Aldi.  The normal gap in weekly shopping and a focus on store/discount brand is $6 – $10.  The switch to Easter shopping and name brands gives you a price gap of $17.46 vs. Aldi!   Even if you focus on store brands (the 3 columns on the right), the gap between Dillons vs Aldi is $17.03.  Ouch!  Loyalty card be damned, shoppers won’t save nearly that much.  The price gap this week between Dillons vs. Walmart (name brands) was $6.35.  The price gap with Walmart shopping for store brands was $7.37.  And check out how much more Dillons is charging for PAAS decorating kits to color eggs!  If you’re curious about how the Dillons loyalty card plays a role, check out the related article link, “Mainstream Grocery vs. Discount Grocery: Dillon’s (Kroger) vs. Aldi. 
  • Walmart wasn’t as inexpensive as I thought it might be, especially considering they’re running an Easter special with price rollbacks to last year’s prices.  They’re usually quite competitive week-to-week vs. Aldi, but not so much for Easter.     Of note and not labeled on the chart, the name brand for butter purchased at Walmart (and Dillons) was Land O Lakes (not available at Aldi).  It’s on sale at Dillons.  If you swap out the name brands for Walmart’s Great Value brands whenever possible, you would save $5.15.

Don’t see some essential items that you think should be on the list?  Send me an email.

Have you bought your ham for Easter yet?

$pend Wisely My Friends…

~ Mike

Related: Walmart Is Serving Up Savings for Easter

Related: Grocery Stores in Wichita

Related: Mainstream Grocery vs. Discount Grocery: Dillon’s (Kroger) vs. Aldi

Related: Food Review: Great Value bacon not such a great value

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