The Only Aldi Quarter Hack You’ll Ever Need
Coin-hungry Aldi shopping carts are iconic. Loyal customers often have a labeled “Aldi quarter” in their car or in a special pocket because the store needs a quarter to clear each cart from the paddock. (You get a quarter back when you return the cart.)
So what happens if you show up and don’t get a coin for the cart? The internet is full of Aldi quarter hacks, which often involve stuffing other items like keys into the quarter slot. But if you’re unlucky, the object might get stuck . Even if everything goes according to plan, there is still the fact that carts are swapped at the checkout. If you have to transfer all your groceries from one cart to another because your car keys are now in the wrong cart, you will only slow down the queue and annoy everyone around you.
The reason for the block, as Aldi explains on their website , is to get people to return their damn carts. The carts are chained to each other when they are in the paddock. Insert a quarter to unlock the lock , and it will pop out again when you reattach the chain after returning it. As a result, people return the cart to get their quarter back, and Aldi doesn’t need to assign an employee to collect the carts.
How to get a free cart quarter at Aldi
So, if you don’t have a quarter, how do you get a cart without it? Turns out that’s the wrong question: You can get a free quarter for a cart, if you’re a drumroll, please – ask . Everywhere online, where people share their hacks or complain about losing their quarter, employees trumpet the store’s policy of giving away free quarters – up to $5 a shift, according to one of them.
(We have contacted Aldi to confirm if this is an official policy, but they also have a cost savings policy of not answering calls. The robot that answers their email says my question “would forwarded to the appropriate team for further review.” We’ll update if we get a response.)
But it makes sense, honestly. For just 25 cents, the company gets your business, and you can buy a whole cart of groceries, not just what you can carry. And they still don’t have to send anyone there to deal with wayward carts.
By the way, there’s another easy and ethical way, if you’re polite: ask a customer who has just unloaded their groceries if you can borrow their cart. Some people are very attached to their Aldi Quarter and want to make sure they get it back, but others don’t care and will gladly give it back. (Perhaps they even got the cart without putting in their quarter and are willing to pay up front.) before they realize what you’ve done.