I'm sorry, but you must be a new Aldi shopper

It was the first time I had shopped at an Aldi in like a decade. A friend buys my kid these snacks she loves, that are only at Aldi, so I went to check it out. The quarter thing was one of several PITAs I experienced.

It's always 20–30% cheaper at Aldi than other stores in my area

That wasn’t my experience. There’s a Smart & Final nearby that has most of the basics at similar or lower cost, especially if you go with store brand. While I was at Aldi I was doing price comparisons against the other stores I go to (using their apps, knowing the price in app is usually higher) and found many items were more expensive at Aldi. Frozen fish was one thing I remember being higher at Aldi. It seems like they drop prices on some items but get you on other items, which is what a lot of grocery stores do.

I recall, Aldi does actually pay its workers well

I’d believe that but that’s because there are maybe 3 employees in the entire store. One at checkout, and two running around handling everything else. I figured that’s why the shelves were not arranged well, there’s no one with the time to clean things up after shoppers make a mess. This was a fairly large Aldi too, almost as big as the S&F in my neighborhood. The difference is at the S&F they open up more checkouts when things get busy.