Only costs a Lidl! (Lidl)

Member Name: wendyloo

Product:	Lidl
Date:	30/12/05 (2306 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good quality at a very low price

Disadvantages: Cant find all that you are looking for.

In common with many people, I shop for a large family and so it is vital to make sure that I get the best food and groceries at the most cost effective prices for doing this. I hate to admit, but I used to be something of a ‘supermarket snob’ and would be a bit sniffy about Netto or Lidl and preferred to shop at Sainsbury (‘good food costs less’ was a very catchy marketing ploy!) or Safeway (now Morrison’s).

In recent years, my outgoing budget has been desperate to exceed my incoming budget, and so it has been of paramount importance to try and find a new way of shopping. This is to enable us to have enough disposable income to continue to go out once in a while and to shop at Bluewater for clothes etc .

Enter Lidl! We have been becoming very regular shoppers of Lidls of late. I am not saying that I can do the whole family shop there, but it is improving all the time with the level of consumer goods it sells, and it is cheap, not getting away from that fact. In Maidstone, we have two Lidls and a Netto so the competition is quite high.

And, Lidl is not just for people on a budget. They offer a great range of food and goods at realistic prices and I know of various professionals who swear by shopping at Lidls for the freshness of the produce and selection of other items.

Lidl is a strange shop. Our local one is the size of an average supermarket, but smaller than a superstore. It stocks food, groceries, and flip flops. It has suitcases, garden equipment, children’s clothes, gadgets for homes and cars – it sells just generally odds and s*ds and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what it will have at any given time. The range of biscuits and cakes is very wide, and they all look so tempting like European choices do, with much richer butter and chocolate selections.

You have to pay £1 to get your trolley at our local one (although it works with a 20p also ;-)), but we live by a river and this may be to ensure that trolleys are not pushed into it, as has happened over the years. You also have to pay for your carrier bags as in common with most European supermarkets and as Lidl is a German company, that may be why they charge. You can get a range of bags, thin ones, thicker like the ‘bags for life’ style; insulated bags, or you can just take your own to fill up. The checkout staff are a bit low on the ground, and there is usually just the one till open with a long queue. They have also been trained to push the items over the ‘blipper’ at the highest possible speed and there is no space for the items to collect so the shopper has to be very speedy at packing the bags (and purchasing more bags when you run out of space in the bags you bought).

These are minor points compared to the benefits of shopping there. The goods are high quality in the main, and well worth buying. Plus you learn to speak some words in a European language while you shop as many of the products are in their native language and not in English.

So on to my shopping list. I have added in what I buy by way of showing what you get for your money. My list is not exhaustive as I don’t buy frozen goods here, as I still prefer Sainsbury for some items, and my hair and shower products come from Wilkinson’s in the main (another review is brewing, I think).

What I bought and how much it cost:

2 large carriers at 9p each
16 yoghurts
8 cans of Bitter (unknown make)
Average size pack on nonbiological washing powder tablets (not caused eczema yet)
Large box of Penne pasta
Pack of long spaghetti
3 Farmhouse loaves (white)
1 malted Granary loaf (brown)
3 cartons of tomato sauce for stews (litre each)
36 paracetamols
Cheddar slices for sandwiches
Jar of sliced Gherkins
16 tomatoes
Largish pack of Double Gloucester cheese
Pack of posh ‘peppered ham’
Pack of thin roast chicken slices
Twin pack of smoked bacon
2 tins of Tuna in sunflower oil
Tube of Tomato paste
Pack of fresh, trimmed French beans
Iceberg lettuce
2 packs of fresh spinach
1 pack of fresh spring greens
Large sprig of Broccoli
Pack of Golden Delicious apples
Bag of Marie Piper potatoes
Orange marmalade
Average sized cartons of fruit juices:
Tropical Fruit; 2 x pineapple; pear.
Lidls ‘marmite’ called Chira yeast extract.

All of this came to £37.73.

This is outstanding value and the fruit and vegetables are extremely fresh.

The selection of fruit juices are better than some supermarkets can offer.
(regular readers who know I am vegetarian, remember, I live with non-vegetarian family members – don’t want to confuse anyone!)

As I said earlier, I still need to go to other outlets for some stuff but a big hole can be made in my shopping list by using Lidl and with less of a hole in my purse.

Thanks for reading!

Wendyloo 2005
(first published on another site under my pseudonym)

Summary: Lidl is a very good value store, once people get over the snob value.