Why I love Aldi

I just love shopping at Aldi. For those of you who are not fortunate enough to have an Aldi nearby, I'll explain what it is. It is a grocery store that is able to keep its prices very low by carrying off-brand products from the boxes, saving on stocking and display costs. It also saves by charging for grocery bags (most people bring their own or use empty boxes that they've gathered throughout the stores), and using a chained cart system where you insert a quarter into the cart to pull it away from the others, then when you put it back you get your quarter back. This way they dont have to gather the carts from the parking lots or replace damaged ones. Every time I go to Aldi I am shocked by my total at the cash register. It is always much LOWER than I expected.
Ashamedly, I have to admit that when we moved to St Louis and my husband started receiving a paycheck finally, I snubbed Aldi and opted for the name brand grocery store that is just beside our house - Schnuck's (really, that's a grocery store name, not another word for idiot). Although there are things at that grocery store that you cant get at Aldi, like coke products, good tasting TV dinners (for work), spices, and some fresh fruits, Aldi is about 5 times cheaper. No joke!
So today I went to Aldi when we were out of potatoes and bananas - staples for our family. It was the best experience I have ever had at a grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. I took my seven month old daughter Gracie with me because she is such a good shopper - my shopping buddy :). I did have to park fairly far away and since the shopping carts are all the way up by the store I had to carry her car seat very far. When I went to get a cart though, a man had already gotten one out for me. I offered him my quarter and he refused and said he got the cart for me since I had a baby. This was just a fellow shopper, no way affiliated with the store, so I just figured - "results not typical." I shopped and got two large bags full of groceries which included three tubs of strawberries for 99 cents each. I expected my bill to come to about $60, then I thought to myself that I shouldn't get my hopes up. Much to my surprise, the bill came to only $30!! What a great shopping day! To make things even better, when I went to put my groceries in the car I got another surprise. Just as I was dreading taking the cart back and carrying Gracie's car seat all the way back to the car, another man came and waited for me to get all of my groceries in the car so that he could take my cart. That was very nice, even though I assumed that he didn't have a quarter to get his own. But no! He offered me a quarter for the cart! I, of course, refused it since he was so kind to take the cart for me - not to mention it wasn't even my quarter in the cart to begin with!
Now, would this chain of events ever happened at Schnuck's? No! Are these results typical? I would like to think so. Maybe there are kind people left in the world - they just don't shop at Schnuck's!