Yeah I know about the Aldi thing and the quarters. I was just kidding about the bag ban, because we have to bring them everywhere since it’s universal here.
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Lidl is a similar German, budget grocery chain. We happen to have both where I live.
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For the two of us I probably spend $200 a week on groceries. This doesn’t include pet food or paper products. I do buy prepared food at our coop and that factors into the cost. Buying organic is pricey. I will not shop at Walmart, simply a personal choice. Mom joined us for meals frequently.
We do eat out frequently, typically Mexican, Thai, Italian. Every few months we enjoy some splurge dinners. I probably should pay more attention to the budget there, more so than the weekly expenses. I’m really thinking about letting our Costco membership lapse - we simply don’t need or want to buy in bulk sizes; plus the items we previously relied on them for don’t seem to be regularly stocked. Produce goes bad before we eat it.
Maine also participates in the bag ban.
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Bags are either 8 cents for a paper bag here in my neck of the woods or bring your own.
Off topic, but can any of my fellow Jerseyans relate to the feeling of “oh, the endless possibilities!” when you happen to obtain a plastic grocery bag (from another state, or a non-compliant takeout place)!!! Do I use it to line a waste paper basket, or pick up dog poop, or keep on hand for transporting a wet bathing suit or dirty laundry in a suitcase…? So many options! I am overall very supportive of the ban, but I do get excited when I happen upon one. 
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I LOL’d at your post. I live in a place with a bag ban too and the struggle is real!
(One of the divisions of my H’s job makes garbage bags. In areas with bag bans, they sell a ton of the smaller waste paper basket bags. Which of course defeats the purpose of the environmental impact of getting rid of grocery store bags since there is way more material in actual waste bags, but that’s for a different thread!)
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And all of us who DO NOT have a bag ban DO have a drawer at home where we stuff all those plastic bags hoping to use in another way so we don’t toss and pollute the earth with them!!!
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We have a ‘bag of bags’ in our cleaning closet. 
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plastic bags are our cat litter bags. 4 cats => lots of cat litter. And sometimes we uses them for packaging material.
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I had a few bags of bags when the ban began, but they are dwindling now. I treat them like gold. I definitely don’t want to start buying small bags, as yes, that’s not the point. Though at least ones that are used probably won’t become the “flags” flying in every tree we used to see because of careless disposal of empty ones.
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Having been in NJ with its ban on all bags (paper and plastic) and then spending half my time in MA where you can still get both types, I would bring back to NJ big stacks of both kinds of bags. The paper ones are super useful to dispose of your paper recycling in. The plastic ones have so many uses. I even had a plastic bag holding bag. Something like this
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My professional environmental activist family members assure me that the paper bag ban makes sense too, but I do miss them on recycling days.
Now I tenaciously track down and stockpile appropriate sized cardboard boxes for that use.
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One is bound to go off eventually?
I’m surprised IKEA hasn’t come up with a Swëdísh name for that drawer insert yet?
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I have one of those holding bags as well. I purchase plastic bags on Amazon.
In CO, we are in a transition year… you can have a plastic bag at the store, but you need to pay 10cents. Next year no plastic bags will be available at the counter (but stores can provide recycled paper bags and charge 10cents or more).
Sometimes I still forget to bring in a bag, though they are always in my car. So I either carry out the items by hand or pay the 10 cents. I have been loath to get rid of any of my stashed bags because they will never get replenished.
We don’t really track it. But we are a household of 2 and we only eat out about once every other week. We do get Blue Apron which is 3 dinners/ week for both of us. All meat and fish is bought at Costco along with some other food items and we fill in the rest from our local chain supermarkets (local as in there only locations are in our Metro area and they are family owned), the Co-op and Trader Joe’s.
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Did you mean me? Lidl is my supermarket, not Aldi, it’s another German supermarket, very similar to Aldi but you don’t need a quarter for their carts. There is actually an Aldi further up the road but I prefer Lidl. And I’m also in NJ so no plastic bags or straws where I live. I keep reusable bags in my car and am always mad when they haven’t been out back where they belong for my next shopping trip.
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Of all the things German, who would ever figure that discount supermarkets could become an export item?
Two of the few 4 letter words in that language.