“Ha, look at this,” I call to Ryan, picking up a pair of slippers with the multicolored Aldi logo stitched to the side. On the shelf in front of us are several other pieces of branded merch — an Aldi windbreaker, Aldi sweatpants, and Aldi socks, to name a few.
I reach for the socks. “Would you wear these?” I ask. He grabs another pair to asses their sturdiness.
“…maybe?” Ryan says, waffling. “But, like, do we need them?”
That’s the question we always ask, but the answer never really matters. Shopping each week’s Aldi Finds — the rotating special-item section that features an often bizarre selection of goods — isn’t about purchasing what’s necessary. It’s about treasure hunting. It’s about buying something fun and getting yourself a little treat.
Familiar Aldi shoppers will also lovingly know this section of the store as the Aisle of Shame. It’s where a $50 outdoor dining table or a $5 potted succulent or a $12 pair of knockoff Birkenstocks will inevitably catch your eye one day. Instead of leaving the store with just the necessities, you’ll shrug and say “why not” to the bargain clothes steamer or the chainsaw (yes, really) or the foam dinosaur head to wear as a Halloween costume (like Ryan did last year).
You might not be an Aldi Finds patron every week, but one day, there will be something you’ll cave in and buy. Trust me. My willpower was strong when I first started shopping there, and now I am spineless.
For the first 20-ish years of my life, I don’t think I ever set foot in an Aldi. Then I lived in Germany for a while when I was in college, and it became one of the only stores I shopped at (I frequented Rewe, too, but Aldi was definitely more affordable).
It’s a little embarrassing that it took me moving to another country to appreciate Aldi’s greatness. In the U.S., it has (at least among some folks) the reputation of being a boring bargain store. In Germany, Aldi is an institution. Everyone shops there.
To be fair, the produce section is a lot better at the German Aldi (though in recent years I think the U.S. produce aisles have gotten a lot more fresh and diverse). And I felt like there was actually more selection at German Aldis in general, though my memory could be a bit biased.
Back in the States, I started to appreciate Aldi more but only went there on occasion. That was until Ryan and I met in 2019, and I found out he was a hardcore Aldi loyalist — one of those people who exclusively shops at Aldi and nowhere else.
Part of his loyalty was due to necessity (neither of us made very much money back then) and the other part was just because Ryan actually liked Aldi’s lack of options. The store is famous for the fact that it almost entirely sells generic “knockoff” brands. Instead of buying Wheat Thins, for example, you’ll find Thin Wheat at Aldi. You won’t find Ritz crackers or Bel Vita bars, but you can buy Savoritz vegetable round crackers and Benton’s breakfast biscuits, which taste almost the same.
The lack of name brands was honestly one of my aversions to Aldi when we first started shopping there together. But as time went on, I started to understand the appeal.
You don’t have to stand in front of a glass case and choose from 150 different frozen pizza options as is necessary at a normal supermarket. At Aldi, you have just three different choices: thin crust, thick crust, or stuffed crust Mama Cozzi’s pizza. From there, you get like two different flavor options for each type. It’s Aldi’s way of saying: “You want pizza? Well here it is: pizza.”
Aldi’s Aisle of Shame, a.k.a. the most eccentric part of the store, plays by slightly different rules. You certainly don’t get a vast array of choices for each item, as limited variety is the bread and butter of Aldi’s business model. The breadth of products offered, however, is truly something else.
There’s never really a need when we’re shopping the Aisle of Shame, but there are times when we come across stuff that seems useful or is like nothing else we already own. If we can reasonably picture ourselves using it, we’ll usually get it.
Like most people, we don’t need more clutter in our home, so we tend to stray from buying gimmicky stuff like an Aldi windbreaker that neither of us will wear or our 50th coffee mug that will end up in the back of a cabinet within a week. Instead, we keep an eye out for stuff that’s unique.
This week, I got a mortar and pestle in the Aldi Finds section for $10. I’ve been wanting one for like a year now, but I was too lazy to buy one online and also knew there was another market in town that sold what I wanted. Still, I was too lazy to walk over to that store, plus it was cold out, so I kept putting it off. But seeing one in Aldi during our routine grocery trip was enough to make me finally spend the cash.
In the past, we’ve gotten a lot of other random stuff from the Aisle of Shame. To name a few: pots for my porch plants, a spinning mop bucket, a kettlebell set, a fruit basket with a banana holder, stuffed animals, reusable snack bags, an aloe plant, and slippers.
And, yes, we also bought the Aldi socks.
None of these things were items we needed. But did we want them? Yes. Did they make our lives better? For the most part, yes. And surprisingly, for the unpredictable nature of shopping the Aisle of Shame, I don’t think we’ve bought anything yet that we regret.
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P.S. If you’re a fellow Aldi fan, send me a pic of your favorite thing you’ve bought in the Aisle of Shame. If I get enough submissions, I’ll share them in next week’s newsletter.
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