Our Cut Price Easter Egg Hunt

I can't believe that we are in April already.  It seems not five minutes ago I was buying Christmas Presents and now I'm buying Easter Eggs.  Easter is another time of year that we can really feel the pinch financially.  Organising an Easter hunt for a party of choccie mad children can be a costly affair.  So when Aldi offered to send me a selection of their Easter goodies to try out, I was keen to see what my kids thought of them.

Aldi sent me a selection including:

 Milk Chocolate Bunny 69p

Mini Eggs 59p

Hollow and Solid Milk Chocolate Treasures 99p

Choceur Chocolate Rabbit 99p

Chocolate Bunny Biscuits 99p

These products are all the equivalent of mid range confectionery brands that have much higher price tags.  For just over a fiver, I had a quality selection of lovely Easter products ready for a fun filled Easter Egg Hunt with plenty of goodies left to munch on throughout the day for all the family.

The individually wrapped chocolates were perfect to hide for Freddy to find in the grass.  The foil wrappers are printed with really fun, cute characters, ideal for an Easter Egg hunt.

Freddy and Kizzy had a great time finding the goodies in the garden.  Freddy was dressed for the occasion in his Easter Chick outfit.  It was great practice for Easter weekend!

The children (and us grown ups) enjoyed sampling the choccie treats that Freddy and Kizzy found.  They had huge fun and it was brilliant that it was so reasonable  It is a great activity for the little ones to do at Easter...I'm looking forward to doing it all again on Easter Sunday with the goodies we have left!  

Mums and dads don't have to go without their own treat for Easter.  Aldi's Milk Chocolate Flame Egg  is a top quality thick, luxurious milk egg with delicious chocolates inside...and a bargain at £2.99!

Easter is another time when Aldi can save you money!  Instead of buying all top brand chocolates, give Aldi's range a try...you might be surprised!

Read about how Aldi can save you money everyday with Swap and Save!

Aldi Swap and Save Conclusions

Over the past few weeks, we've been taking part in Aldi's Swap and Save Challenge to see if we could save ourself money on our weekly shop.  Aldi stock quality everyday essentials at discount prices and by switching from the top brand products to Aldi's own brands you could save up to 50%!

We tested tea bags, coffee, chocolate biscuits, baked beans, tomato ketchup, tinned plum tomatoes and sugar frosted cereals.

Here are the links to all the taste tests we did:
Aldi vs Nescafe
Aldi vs McVities
Aldi vs Heinz Ketchup
Aldi vs Heinz Beans
Aldi vs Napolina
Aldi vs PG Tips
Aldi vs Kellogg's

The idea of the Swap and Save campaign is that although you may like the brand label product, you'll probably like the Aldi one too.  As the Aldi products are considerably cheaper, swapping to them saves you money, without having to compromise on quality.  "Like brands...only cheaper!"

The products that we tasted and compared held up well against the brand leaders.  Aldi's current advertising campaign highlights the idea of switching to the cheaper brands to save money on your weekly shopping bill.  They are even holding a competition for customers to submit their own Swap and Save video commercials showing their favourite Aldi products.  You could win £100!

So, if you are feeling squeezed by the current economic situation, consider switching from your usual top priced brands.  You might be surprised by the results and by the amount of money you could save!

Aldi vs Kellogg's

In our last Aldi Swap and Save Taste Test, we are comparing Kellogg's Frosties with Aldi's Harvest Morn Frosted Flakes.  Sugar coated breakfast cereals are not something I generally buy, but Kizzy was willing to be my taste tester!  With Kellogg's the brand leader costing £1.95 compared to Aldi's version at 99p, there is a big price difference between the two.

As you can see, Kizzy did prefer Kellogg's Frosties but not by much.  She liked both brands, which is what the Swap and Save Challenge is all about.  Like brands...only cheaper!

Aldi vs PG Tips

Next up on the Aldi Swap and Save Challenge is tea bags.  Recent research says that the humble cuppa is in decline, being replaced by fruit teas and green teas, particularly in the 16-24 year old age range!  The younger generations are not converting to tea as their drink of choice.  Could the sharp increase in the price of the big brands be in any way responsible?  Many of the student population shop in Aldi as a quality discount store...could Aldi's own brand of tea offer a cheap alternative and rekindle the populations love of tea!

I am not personally a big tea drinker...but I do enjoy the odd mug of black tea.  Will I be able to tell the difference between the top brand with the big price tag and the quality Aldi discount brand?

Another result where I'd happily consume either brand, so the cheaper version would save me cash! 160 PG Tips tea bags costs £4.19 whereas 80 Aldi tea bags cost £1.39 (I couldn't find an exact price for the pack I received.)

Aldi vs Heinz Baked Beans

Baked Beans are an everyday essential that most people have in their store cupboards.  Once, they were a very cheap product but recently the price has risen to 64p a can for the brand leader Heinz.  Aldi's alternative Corale, are just 29p a can.  We taste tested the two types against each other with surprising results in our Swap And Save challenge!

Both girls failed to tell the difference between the two bowls of beans.  Aldi's beans are less than half the price of Heinz beans.  That equates to a considerable saving over the course of the week!

I'm really beginning to see that sticking slavishly to brand leaders is a surefire way of wasting our hard earned cash!  'Swap and Save' is definitely something that can save you money without compromising on quality or taste.  Check out our final taste tests on Frosted Flakes and Tea Bags!

Aldi vs Heinz Ketchup

We eat a lot of tomato sauce in this house.  Daddy has a real thing for condiments and the little ones seem to have inherited his love of sauces.  We do buy Heinz Ketchup as a rule, we've never considered buying another brand.  It seems ingrained in our psyche to pop a bottle of Heinz in the shopping basket.  However, it is very expensive.  It now costs £1.95 in the squeezy bottle that we favour.  Even when it's on BOGOF it is still fast becoming  luxury item price wise.  Aldi's Bramwell Tomato Sauce came in a virtually identical bottle which I was impressed with, and priced at just 69p is a fraction of the price.

So, the taste test was again very close.  Kizzy preferred the Heinz ketchup because it was "less tomatoey" which I thought was quite ironic.  On reading the ingredients list the Bramwells did contain more tomatoes per 100g of product, stating that each bottle contained 24 ripe tomatoes.  That to me, sounds like a better quality product!  I was surprised at how synthetic and starchy the Heinz tasted by comparison.  For a more natural tasting sauce and a big cash saving, I'd definitely switch brands.

Aldi vs McVities

Chocolate biscuits are a bit of a luxury in our house...so we were interested in trying Aldi's choccie biccies in our Swap and Save test to see if a cheaper brand could make them more affordable.

The Aldi brand was definitely a favourable alternative.  If they were not being directly compared, I don't think anyone would have questioned their quality.  Definitely a good alternative!  My teenager Ella really liked the Aldi Chocolate Biscuits and has requested that I start buying them...a thumbs up indeed!

The "Swap and Save" Shopping Challenge

If you are anything like me, you will have been totally dismayed to see your food shopping bills sky rocket in the last few months.  I consider myself to be a careful shopper, buying things when they are on special offer, but the weekly cost of my family's everyday essentials has risen by a huge 30%+!  Factor in the cost of petrol and our family's budget is being over stretched like never before.

I was contacted by Premium Supermarket Discounter Aldi to see if I was interested in testing some items from their Everyday Essentials range and trying out Swap and Save.  The idea being to test out one of Aldi's low priced products against the top branded equivalent.  They say you could save up to 40% of your food bills a week, without compromising on the quality! Sounds good!!

I am not an Aldi shopper myself, but my parents swear by it.  So they were very excited by the prospect of me testing out a selection of goods for myself.  I would get to try like brands for cheaper prices...for example take their Baked Beans.  Priced at just 29p they are a fraction of Heinz's 64p price tag.  Or the Tomato Ketchup which Aldi sell for 69p as opposed to Heinz's £1.95!

Aldi has ranked third in the Which? Customer Satisfaction Supermarket Survey 2011 for its excellence in pricing, quality and customer service.  It beat all the big four supermarkets, finishing only behind Waitrose and M&S.  It scored 5/5 for pricing and was noted as offering "brand quality products at everyday, exceptionally low prices" with shoppers saying they had seen their food bills slashed by a third!

So over this week we will be trying out 'Swap and Save' Inside the Wendy House.  This will include some fun, blind tastings as well as using some ingredients in my everyday meals.  Aldi have provided all the products for my 'Swap and Save', but you can be sure of an honest and clear account of our experience!

Stay posted for our Swap and Save Vlogs at Inside the Wendy House!