I took the same shopping list to Aldi and Walmart. One chain won me over surprisingly.

• Both Walmart and Aldi have announced some big discounts on Thanksgiving staples this year.

• It was difficult to find all the items I needed in both stores, although Walmart felt easier to navigate.

• Aldi had lower prices than Walmart across the board, but I didn’t find everything I needed there.

Both Aldi and Walmart has announced great deals for Thanksgiving this year.

Walmart has announced a list of his groceries to help feed eight people $7 per personwhile Aldi says it can feed 10 for under $5 per person. Each retailer’s menu includes about a dozen dishes and presumably the ingredients you need to serve them all.

Both retailers seemed to offer a lot of value, but I wanted to see which offered the better shopping experiences and prices as I prepare for Thanksgiving.

I used the above shopping lists as inspiration and adapted them to look like what I would actually cook. Whenever possible, I bought ingredients that stores included in their promotions.

Here’s how the prices and overall shopping experience compare.

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I had to keep checking to make sure I was getting the best possible prices, especially at Walmart.

At Walmart, the many size and brand options felt a little overwhelming. I had to keep double checking the list from the promotion to make sure I got the right item at the best price.

Many of the chain’s end pieces helpfully highlighted Thanksgiving essentials from the list, but others felt like a bit of a convenience trap.

For example, a prominent display filled with name brand French’s Crispy Onions, which were $0.78 more expensive than the generics featured in the promotion, were tucked away in an aisle.

I also ran into this problem at Aldi, just on a smaller scale. The budget grocer is smaller and mainly carries private label products, so it was usually easier to check that I got the cheapest item available.

For both chains, I think ordering groceries online could have made it easier for me to quickly choose the right item.

I found lower prices on milk, butter and eggs at Aldi.

My grocery list had basics like flour, butter and eggs which I find to be staples making Thanksgiving dinner from the bottom.

When I compared the prices of a dozen eggs, a gallon of whole milk, and a pound of butter, I found that Aldi would save me about $1 total on all three items.

I continued to find better prices at Aldi.

I also looked at spices and herbs, such as garlic for mashed potatoes and cloves for pumpkin pie.

A clove of garlic was $0.49 cheaper at Aldi and the spices I could find there were also about $1 cheaper each. The discount chain also saved me a few bucks on the 14-pound turkey.

Still, Walmart had a few notable wins: Its 5-pound bag of russet potatoes was $1.11 cheaper, and its light corn syrup was $1.45 cheaper.

Aldi didn’t have everything on my list that Walmart did.

At Aldi I was unable to find five of the 43 items on my list. While that number seems small, it means I would have had to spend more time going to another store to complete my purchases.

My local store didn’t seem to sell some of the spices I needed (ground mustard, ground ginger, pumpkin pie spice, and thyme) or the self-raising flour for my biscuits.

I also found Aldi’s product selection to be much smaller than Walmart’s. I would be a little concerned that the store would run out of some staples as more people do their Thanksgiving shopping.

Walmart would be my choice for Thanksgiving groceries despite its slightly higher prices across the board.

Most items I found at both Aldi and Walmart were cheaper at the former, often by a few cents — sometimes by a dollar or two.

But again, Aldi didn’t have everything on my list. Shopping there would save me money, but not time. The prospect of having to go to two stores while trying to prepare dinner wouldn’t be enough for me to justify the slim savings.

However, this is based on my particular list and the prices I encountered on a recent visit. Merchant prices and sales at each individual store may change frequently.

Aldi might be a better fit for you if you need simpler ingredients that the store is likely to have or even just has one much closer to you than Walmart. But personally, I stick with Walmart for my holiday meals.

I’d rather pay a little more to feel confident that I can cross off my entire list – and to be able to use an app to find everything on it faster.

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