Growing up I enjoyed going Grocery Shopping with my Mother.  We used to go to Pick 'n Save once a week and she would send me on "missions" with coupons and I would be responsible for finding the correct item that matched the coupon.  But it was deeper than that.  I enjoyed just walking up and down the aisles listening to what was then a Sony Discman, hearing the music, reading the labels, taking in everything that I saw.  I just found something so captivating about the grocery store.  I found it quite an exciting place to be, and I looked forward to going with my Mother each and every week. That sort of enjoyment never stopped as I got older either.  And while I have to admit, each time I go Grocery Shopping now the task itself feels more and more like a chore (Just like Mom said it would!) there is still a small part of me that does enjoy it.  There are just a million others things that each and everyone one of us have to do in the daily course of a day other than take in the sights at the Grocery Store. Regardless a universal problem we all face today in the year 2011 is the forever rising cost of doing business with the Grocery Store.  Food costs have skyrocketed.  So much that I've decided to do silly-things like have a page on OpenPluto.com tracking the ongoing price of a head of lettuce.  Another of these "silly things" that I started doing is self-appointing myself the **Grocery Store Watchdog** of two of the most popular choices to the current "authority" on the local Grocery Store market; [ALDI](http://aldi.us/) and [Woodman's](http://www.woodmans-food.com/). I link to these fine grocers on OpenPluto Links page because I firmily believe they are some of your best options in regards to buying food for yourself and those that you love.  I live in Southeastern-Wisconsin and in this part of our world, your either faced with going to Pick 'n Save which pretty much has a _Walmart-type_ domination on the grocery store market, there are Pick 'n Save stores on "every corner in the city" at almost a literal sense.  This has been the norm until recently with newcomers poking holes in their game that put there by presense of Walmart's Grocery Department. **[Woodman's](http://www.woodmans-food.com/)** is a big box store.  They are a very unique store to those I have shopped at in the past.  I'm not a member of [Costco](http://www.costco.com/) or Sam's Club but its got that "feel" so I'm told, despite not meddling in General Merchandise.  They do have a gas station, movie-theater-sized parking lot and building.  They offer substantial savings, are open twenty-four hours and allow you to pull up your car to a separate entrance to allow the help to load up your car for you – if that is your sort of thing.  No credit or checks.  Cash or debit only! **[ALDI](http://aldi.us/)** is a unique experience unlike any other.  My Grandmother used to go on and on about ALDI so much that it was no question that I had to go and see what all the buzz was about when I got married and assigned the Food & Agriculture Department my responsibility in our household.  Plus I had been so accustomed to so many of the ALDI-specific brands already that it just seemed silly to start paying more money for something else.  What makes ALDI different?  Well to put in the words of Clark Howard because it succeeds to describe the store where I would fail: It is setup like a corner-store.  Its for this reason that many people won't even go inside.  Your not going to have the same selection that you will anywhere else.  That goes for everything.  You have selection, but _as much of one_ as you would at your "traditional" grocery store.  Why? All in the spirit of saving money.  You have to bag your own groceries, and you have to pay for your bags if you don't bring your own.  Why? All in the spirit of saving money!  You have to put a quarter "in" a cart to use it.  Why?  Well..  You NEVER see carts scattered all over the ALDI parking lot.  From the street you wouldn't know ALDI was a grocery store, cos you simply **don't** see carts scattered about.  No credit or checks.  Cash or debit only! The last time I went Grocery Shopping in 2010 I opened up [OpenOffice.org Calc](http://www.openoffice.org/product/calc.html) and plugged in the data from my Woodman's and ALDI receipts.  Grandma was my inspriation.  She used to have this "Lil' Chunky" memopad in the counsil in of her car and it had the Location, Price and Name of the place to the cheapest This, That and the Other Thing.  I used to think that was so silly to have such a thing.  Why a few cents in either direction would matter much?  Then after about a year of buying the same things over and over again at the store and watching prices fluculate as they have suddenly this Lil Chunky idea became the most important thing in my world. Now that it is April of 2011, I have quite a powerhouse of data to look at.  Some of the cells at the early part of the document are not logged as diligently as they are the last two months, but I can reference, if not recall from memory the price and size and brand name of any particular item I've purchased in the past two or three months from either ALDI or Woodman's, and when or if its price or labeling has changed.  Some people might consider this incredibly irrelevant information to know so second-nature but that is where the line in the sand is drawn. There are those of us that just take it and those of us that change up our game-plan when prices change on us.  I know how to change price change for the most part and I am getting better.  I am getting to the point that I can handle "incoming price change".  Like if suddenly I go to ALDI and the creamer for coffee is jacked up in price, I know from memory how much it is in other sizes both at ALDI and Woodman's without going to look at prices in the store (unless of course they have changed).  Thank you Grandma for this incredible wealth of knowledge. While I don't plan to make you all super weirdo Grocery Shoppers like myself, I will self-appoint myself Grocery Store Watchdogs for both Woodman's and ALDI.  Any price changes, label changes, name changes, or any other obscure marketing schemes I observe while running loose in their cage. **♇**