I have an abiding childhood memory of my parents only ever buying market leading products and never varying. It was always Domestos bleach, Fairy Liquid for washing up. They were a bit more adventurous with toothpaste cycling between Macleans and Colgate and the one with stripes in it. We never bought supermarket own brands. We weren't rich but weren't poor either and they didn't seem interested in saving money. It was the same with food, always the market leaders — McVite's digestive biscuits, Tetley Teabags, Heinz tomato ketchup and so on.
I generally buy whatever's cheapest in the mid-range section. I'm picky about foods, but not cleaning products My own washing up liquid collection looks like a rainbow with every colour and scent from springtime fresh, to Alpine breeze, lavender, strawberry, lemon and anything else on hand. Choice is not always dictated by special offers. Having grown up in a magnolia-walled home with little variety in groceries I pick what is bright or new just for the sake of it. And my walls are blue, green and yellow. I'm against magnolia paint on principle.
How about you??!
Do you buy the same grocery brands every month, or pick whatever's cheapest or looks newest and most exciting?
byu/Glittering_Gap8070 inFrugal
Posted by Glittering_Gap8070
7 Comments
I do to a certain degree because I can’t have gluten, so it’s sort of a rotation until I run through a product and try the next one until I find something worth me continuously purchasing.
Cleaning supplies I tend to stick to what I know works.
Personal hygiene, whatever is on sale except soap. I always get dove or ivory.
But food? Absolutely whatever is the cheapest per volume. I’ll sit and do the math when there’s a few brands or variations. I also always look in the clearance section
Depends pretty heavily on the product, tbh. I don’t care too much about the specific brand of toilet paper, for instance, but I’m still figuring out which brand of laundry detergent works best for my needs, and I’m willing to pay name brand to get what I want. For foods I tend to go for specific flavors more than specific brands- off-brand cheezits tend to taste pretty much the same as name brand, but they won’t necessarily have the extra cheezey dust my dad likes.
I grew up working class. My parents never bought anything but name national brands.
I’m the complete opposite, I buy store brands almost exclusively. But then, I have worked in a few laboratories testing/developing private label products.
It depends. I like to try new things so if I see something, specially on sale, I might substitute. Generally I’ll go with the cheapest item or 2nd cheapest if the cheapest was unsatisfactory the first time
I had to try four kids of body wash and I-don’t-know-how-many laundry products before I found one that didn’t give me hives, so I stick with those.
For groceries I am much more flexible and price-sensitive.
There are certain products to which I stick to a certain name brand and ones that I really don’t care. I buy lots of store brand things if they meet our needs, and usually try other lower priced items once to see if it’s good.