Now that's a chain grocery I wish we had ... not necessarily for the digital scales, but just the store itself. There's one in my husband's hometown - it's on its 3rd location in 35 years.

Donna

Which ad is that in? I don't see it listed when I check the flyers.

It's under "special buys" which I think is separate from the weekly ad.

Here is a link that might be useful: Here

Thank you! I'm going to try to get over there tomorrow. I've been thinking about a scale and for that price, I might as well get it. I had picked up one on Clearance at Target a few months ago, put it in the cart and then figured, ah, I'll wait and see if it gets marked down one more time. Well it was gone. All the better. It was a lot more than $10.

I really like Aldi. Normally I'm not the "garage sale" type of person, but I do like how you never know what you'll find.

We got an Aldi about a year ago but they don't advertise in the Sunday newspaper as other grocery stores do. I went there when they opened but didn't like the fact that the country of origin is not apparent on most of their products - only "distributed by" on the labels.

Around here they usually mail flyers with the Saturday mailed advertisements. It's in with the "Red plum" ads and coupons.

I would prefer they have the added info on there, but they're not the only place that has that issue. Most any place that uses store brands have the same issue and it's not important enough to me to stop buying store brands.

But to me it looks like it is last weeks ad...
regardless I alerted a friend of mine that is looking for some scales.

Moni

I stopped this morning and the one I was at had 2 left. They now have one. I was going to get one of the (cleaning type) steamers too but they didn't have any. I was tempted to get the food steamer and even debated about the food processor but decided to wait on them. Picked up some tea and water and out I went.

Cynic, what are you gonna make first??

Moni, there are two "special buys" ads, one marked Week of Sept 14th and the other Sept 21st. So, I think the price is good through today, but your friend may want to call and make sure they still have some.

Thanks for posting this. I got one and was pleasantly surprised that they had 3 color choices - white, black and SS - for every possible decorating need :)

My father clipped the linked article for me the other day. Nothing earth-shattering or new in there, but it pretty well sums up why I prefer working with a scale.

[I know, I know, most cooking doesn't require the accuracy of a scale, but even something as basic as "one large carrot" leaves me scratching my head every time. A large one from a bag of carrots or a large one from the bin of loose carrots? The latter averaging probably four times the size of the former...]

Anyway, here's the article.

Here is a link that might be useful: NY Times on digital scales

I'm not sure. It'll probably get used as a postal scale first! LOL But I might do some experimenting with weighing flours and stuff for baking.

One thing about Aldi, at least around here. They don't raise the price on the special purchase items. Whatever the price in the ad is the price on it as long as they have it. Occasionally I've seen them actually drop the price when there's only a couple left, but that's not very often. They get in a certain number of the items and that's it. One store may sell out quickly while another won't, or some items sell better at one, so it's worthwhile to check more than one store or ask an employee if they would call another store to check. You won't be able to call them. They have unlisted & unpublished numbers (another cost saving item - don't have to deal with people calling all day long).

Also it seems that most of the stores around here put the items out as soon as they receive them so you might see the items before the ad technically starts. If I were running the store I'd put it out as soon as it came in. I don't think they have a lot of storage area so get it on the floor and move it! More money flowing through the tills probably means better commission for the manager, assuming they're commissioned. I've seen times when the ad starts they're nearly sold out so as with many stores, get there asap for best selection!

Thoughts on digital scales:

1. Great to use because it allows you to set it at "0" with your container and the spoon.

2. Check eBay, lots of inexpensive ones.

3. When you go shopping, many items like oranges and apples are sold by the piece, and you are trying to find the bigger ones. I use the scale to train my skills at home in judging weight.

4. There are many many pocket size digital scales on the market that meassure accurately in grams. They seem to be very popular. That's not good news to me. I wonder what people use them for?

dcarch

Punamytsike, not just colors, but round and square! I somehow ended up buying three :-/

FOAS, I agree with that article. It's also wonderful for scaling down a recipe accurately (without having to measure a quarter cup plus a teaspoon and a half) and I don't think people realize how different a medium egg is from an extra large egg. Nerd that I am, I have made spreadsheets based on the egg size asked for in the recipe, and can then just plug in the weight of the egg and everything else will calculate itself.

Cynic, that's all very good to know. I've always shopped at Aldi according to the stumble upon stuff system, but that sounds quite a bit more effective. My Aldi seems to keep non-food items around for a while, luckily. I guess people in that neighborhood are just going for food. Oh, and I'd be most happy to foist a cookie, brownie, or bread recipe on you!

Dcarch, I feel that way too. It's probably not a bad idea to weigh portions a few times, so you know roughly how many calories are in stuff by eyeballing it, but some people seem to take it way over the top.

I just got one of these scales last week, and I think it's great! I was at my local Aldi this morning, and they still had about 10 of them in stock.

Check out my review!

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Living Digital Kitchen Scale

(sniff... sniff) Hmm. Do I detect the scent of a canned meat homonym weighing in?

Seems to be a link to a blog containing one post, which is about buying a scale at Aldi. I don't quite know what to think.

@cynic & jessicavanderhoff:

Hi! This is Jeff, and I write the 'Smart Aldi Shopper' blog. My sincere apologizes if my contribution came off as spam. I'm just a guy who likes Aldi and started a blog to help out others who may not be familiar with the store. I do just about all the shopping and cooking for my family, and times being what they are, I'm looking for ways to make the most of my budget - Aldi helps me do that. I assume others may be in the same situation, and are looking for ways to get the most for their money also.

I wrote my review of the kitchen scale last week, and when I happened across this thread, it only seemed logical to share the link. If you poke around my blog a bit, you'll see I've reviewed several items (both winners and losers), and shared info I think will be helpful to others. I try to add 2 or 3 posts a week, although that's not always possible. ~8^)

So anyway - if I've offended the forum, I apologize. I'm just trying to be helpful, and I'm looking forward to contributing more in the future.

Gotta go now - I need to pull my roast chicken out of the oven and get potatoes mashed...

Here is a link that might be useful: my Aldi blog

I'm still using the cheap plastic spring scale that came with SWMBO's Weight Watchers membership 20-odd years ago. You turn the plastic ring to set zero. I'd like to get a fancy digital scale, but I can't really figure out what the advantage will be over Old Faithful. True, it is harder to accurately weigh out XXXXX to sell to the local middle schoolers, but I figure giving a "bakers dozen" is good for repeat business. Same with my BOGO promotions and "free shots with every gram" happy hours.

Welcome to the forum, Jeff. Hope to see more of you around here!

Johnliu, I used an old spring scale up until about a year ago. Love having a digital scale.

Use it a lot for 'scaling' dough when I make hamburger & brat buns. Nice to have a uniform size so that they all bake evenly and that I get the X amount of buns that I'm sposed to get out of a recipe. (I note the weight for whatever bun I'm making on the recipe card.)

Also comes in very handy when I make a layer cake...for getting the same amount of batter in each pan.

Another use I have for it is checking the weight of a prepackaged food item...does that 2# sack of pinto beans really weigh a full 2 pounds? Hint: Sometimes they don't.

Bonus factor is that the digital scale takes up a lot less room than the old spring scale. I tend to use mine quite often so it lives on the counter.

Last thing is that I made sure that the scale uses common batteries, i.e., AA's. First scale that I got used some not so common (and expensive) batteries. Turned out to be a defective scale that went thru a set of batteries every couple of weeks! We returned that scale to the store & ordered a different one from Amazon.

ROFL John, where were you when I was growing up? I never seemed to catch a good deal!

We have a spring scale for weighing up to 9 lbs, and DH got an electronic one for his coffee that displays up to three decimal places, in grams. The scale HAD to go to three places - I just rolled my eyes. I use it for postage, LOL, and Mes Confiture recipes.

John, I had to read that three times, but I'm finally on the trolley. The digital is accurate to a fraction of a gram, so you could even weigh baking soda and salt (you know, in case you need to cut a dime bag or something).

Spring scale gets inaccurate in time due to metal fatigue and internal mechanical parts friction.

Electronic (digital) scale's accuracy depends on an internal reference device against some strain gauge/transducer device. Inexpensive scales obvious are not individually calibrated when shipped to you.

Most electronic devices also age, or become voltage sensitive.

I have a few laboratory calibrated weights I use to check once in a while how accurate my digital scale is.

It may be a good idea for you to take a few things, such as a penny, a quarter, and a dollar coin, weight them and record the weights and weight them again once in a while to make sure that the scale's sensitivity has not shifted.

You can also weigh a few things separately and then weigh them all together and find out if the weights add up to be the same. This determines if the scale's response is lineal.

Also, try to weigh something in the center and the four corners of the scale's platform and see if you get the same weights.

dcarch

Oh good. Maybe my bathroom scale is wrong and I weigh 20 pounds less than it says. Yeah, that must be it.

Pam, until now I had no interest in obtaining/owning/using a scale (digital or otherwise) for any purpose. Another piece of kitchen junk taking up valuable storage space. If I need a dozen buns, I can still count to 12, I'm complacent in my ignorance.

But now.....wow. Now you've changed my mind and my life. I can lose 20 pounds just by buying a cheap scale, who knew? (grin)

Plus, I could cut a dime bag. Double bonus! LOL

Annie