Store Brands — Do You Really Save Money By Buying Them?
Picture by pecanpieguy@Flickr.com
Catherine Pulsifer is one of the authors of Inspirational Words of Wisdom. Her quote that I used in the Frugal Quote of the Day yesterday rang so true with me.
When we first started our frugal journey, we thought that we had to scrimp on everything. We thought that was what being “frugal” meant. Then along the way we started changing our way of thinking and came to a realization.
One of our money saving strategies was to buy the “store brand” on everything. It was cheaper and we thought that we were being frugal by shopping this way. Soon we realized that buying cheaper didn’t always mean saving money. It just wasn’t a successful money saving idea for us. When we bought certain cheaper store brand items, we would often have to run back to the store. We would end up buying the slightly more expensive item. Not only were we spending more by making a trip back to the store but we were spending more by having to do what we call “double buying.”
“Double buying” is when you have already bought the cheaper store brand item and have to return to buy the slightly more expensive item because the store brand wasn’t good quality and couldn’t be used.
Let’s look at a couple of ways that being “cheap” isn’t really being frugal.
1. Store brand toilet tissue. Without being too graphic, we tried the off brand toilet tissue. Let’s just say it didn’t hold up and our family ended up using more of it than we would the sturdy name brand toilet tissue. In this case, we ended up spending more money buying more toilet tissue than if we had just bought the slightly more expensive name brand tissue.
2. Store brand canned food. Let me just say, there are some store brand foods that are top quality but not all. Recently we bought some store brand Great Northern Beans. There was no way to season them to get them to taste good. We ended up throwing them away. They were not good and it was a lesson learned. Don’t buy that particular brand anymore. Always buy the name brand products for that item.
3. Aluminum foil. The cheaper store brand aluminum foil is often thin and tears easily. There are instances where this is ok. I use it to line the bottom of cookie sheets when I’m baking casseroles. It’s great for catching the “overage” during cooking and helps with the clean up. But for other uses, the sturdy “brand” name foil is better. Making a tent over turkey or over brisket is a little easier with a foil that doesn’t tear easily.
4. Batteries. Off brand batteries are cheaper than name brand, but often they don’t last as long as the name brand batteries.
I’m sure there are many more examples where buying “cheaper” isn’t always better. Leave us a comment. We’d love to hear more examples!
Till next time,
JT Locke
The Frugal Housewife
Yeah,I agree with you.That’s why I usually avail of sale events so I can buy high-quality brands at much lower prices.As to grocery items,I know where to buy what.When it comes to toothpaste,I’ve tried cheaper brands just to see if they were effective but my hubby ended up with a tooth decay.We buy only Colgate ever since.
I guess they chose a cheap sign writer too, one who can’t spell.
(you’re (you are) not your).
I also had the same concern over these store brands. Before, I convinced my mom to buy a store brand dishwashing gel but when we used it, it didn’t produce bubbles. I feel like washing the dishes with a ‘real’ gel haha…that’s lesson learned for us.
This is an insightful post. Have a great day!
Hi JT! I just had to add my 2 cents here. We have been on a tough road this past couple of years and I have had a hard time staying “frugal”, but your words here reminded me of just this past week when we needed some new ink cartridges for our ink jet printer. It’s one of those printers that take 6 different cartridges and won’t work if even one is empty. We were low on 4 different colors, so instead of spending in excess of $70.00 for them, we decided to go to one of those places that sell refurbished and refilled ones. HAH! NONE of them worked, it cost us $54.00 for them AND because we had put them in our printer, which punched a hole in them to utilize the ink, we could not return them. So now, instead of saving $15.00, we have to spend another $70.00 to get the real thing! Will I never learn?
Thanks for the great and right on post!
Ones who used to do shopping often being trapped by “cheapest”, “cheap”, “sale”, or “discount” promotion, lead them to buy something which is not really needed actually.
Just wanna add brief info, that such promotion usually done for consumer good products, and retailer’s price is used to be > 500% of factory’s price, even > 1000% for well branded ones. So, we can guess what’s the meaning of “50% sale” or “40% discount”.
Thanks for this good post …
Good morning .
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Of course, the job is some difficult, but in no other case, You can earn so much much money with so much fun and smiling faces around..
So if you want to discuss something about which you wrote above, and about my experience with aloevera products for health, I’ll always be glad to talk.
Best regards from Washington and have a nice day!
Andrew – Aloe Vera Distributor
P.S. thefrugalhousewife.com – THE BEST!!!