Prices keep climbing, so I’m trying to pick my battles in the supermarket. Which items do you refuse to cheap out on, and why? Taste, health, longevity, peace of mind… I’d love to hear what’s worth the few extra dollars for you.
For me, it’s honey from local beekeepers—supermarket brands locally are known to sell fake or adulterated sugar syrup as honey.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. As someone who’s lactose intolerant, their non-dairy stuff is amazing and so worth the extra money.
Chocolate, coconut milk, tea, coffee, mustard.
shout out Ayam milk
From my shopping, there is just about none. Arguably sausages but then there are cheaper alternatives I go for instead usually. Pork shoulder is cheaper per kg than all but the lowest meat content sausages.
Typically been spending £10-15 each per week on shopping at Aldi. But it also depends on how far you go. You could say everything is paying extra if you are spending more than £2 as that could get enough rice for the week. Got several herbs growing in the garden too so it wouldn’t even be completely plain.
Instant noodles. I live in South Korea and there are gazillion options, from little more than a quarter(USD for your convenience) to almost $1.5 a pack.
Huge difference. I eat 2 packs per meal almost always and yes, it’s often 2x more expensive but I’d just not eat cheapest ones.
what are your favorites? would love to see if i can find them locally.
some people at WF, will only go after certain honeys, even if they are more expensive. i will still buy different flavor sparkling waters, from different brands. but the key is to know which ones are shrinkflationed, some will only sell 8packs, while others will sell 12cans per box. stevia, i specifically only look for the ones that dont have sugar in it, more often than not most brands of stevia has sugar in it, in the form dextrose/maltodextrin. its pricier but worth it for a brand that has pure stevia powder, also one thats not mixed with ethyrthiol.
certain organic veggies are better , if you dont want to know which used the most chemicals, like org celeries.
Honestly a lot of stuff I like to get the nice version. Most packaged products you can get away with cheaper, but paper products you wanna splurge on, and produce you wanna get from a local store with good stuff rather than your local megamart when possible. A farmer’s market or even just a neighborhood grocery store is usually gonna have fresher, tastier veggies in my experience. A little more expensive, but worth it.
The paper thing stopped being true in the past year around here. Name brand paper towels are now so thin, store brand is thicker at half the price. Q-Tips don’t have the same cardboard in the middle, less cotton Kroger brand is closer to the old q-tips (but still a step down from what I grew up with).
Toilet paper is basically a toss-up, the nicer store brands are about comparable to the non-specialty name brands now. For the extra strong or extra soft, name brand still wins, but it’s changing.
Real parm instead of the canned stuff.
Chicken breasts - you can get massive pumped up chicken breast for the same price as “normal” chicken breasts. The problem is when you cook the big ones, they just leech out all their liquid.
Plus they’re so inflated it’s hard to cook them properly
150% on real parm.
I’d also argue for getting whole chickens (and spring for the nicer ones too). Roast it, pull off the breasts and eat those, eat the drumsticks if you enjoy them, or use the entire rest of the carcass for making really good stock.
The huge ones are just gross.
I think “woody” is the technical term.
Fresh corn tortillas.
Tequila.
Haircare stuff
Husband bought “the good eggs” once and has not looked back since. I used to keep chickens and the bougie store eggs are much closer to those than they are to the factory farmed thin shelled light yolked ones.
I got a tortilla press and masa harina. I will not buy premade corn torillas again. Masa isn’t that expensive, add salt, water, mix, press, and cook on a dry pan (or super lightly oiled, i put a very light layer on mine since it’s cast iron)
So much tastier than store bought and better texture.
It’s the curse of discovering good food, once you make it from scratch, you never want to eat the store trash again lol
The best eggs are eggs from a farm that are unwashed and you keep on the counter. They taste a zillion times better and last for a long time. I get 3 dozen for 15 dollars at the local farm. It’s honestly better than the store.
4-ply toilet paper.
If the IBD folks don’t unite under this answer they are probably living with bidets.
No, just perpetually constipated.
Good ketchup Real butter, not reconstituted which should be illegal Good bread, fresh or at least not the cheapest stuff
Real butter for things where you can taste it. Store brand for things where the other flavors are more overpowering and don’t really notice the butter.
Having two butters to manage seems like a lot of work.
For purely economic reasons, the less often I need to buy it, the more I allow myself to splurge.
So vegetables and my go to drink I consume everyday are bought the absolute cheapest, but that spice blend for those veggies lasts me months so I really don’t care if there’s a cheaper alternative.
Of course, expensiveness is measured per kg/litre, paying a bit more up front is always worth it if it means a lower price per kg (if you can consume it before it goes bad).
If I’m going to skin or peel the vegetable, I go with the cheap stuff. If I’m eating the skin then I go organic. I never buy the prewashed lettuce and salads when they are on sale because those have already started to go bad usually. And when it comes to things like berries, strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers I go with whatever looks like it will taste the best. Cheap blueberries for instance, absolutely do not hold up against the good stuff; life is too short for tart blueberries.
Spices are a great investment! Small independent Asian stores often have amazing ones which last way longer that supermarket ones. I don’t have any shops like that near me so I buy on amazon and have found great ones there
Lube.
Paper Towels and Trash Bags - the cheap ones just don’t hold up as well
Yeah, if we end up with cheap trash bags by mistake I find the rim always rips apart when I go to take out the trash and I end up using a second trash bag anyway.
Local
Whatever the product is, I’ll pay an extra dollar for domestic (and especially within the province)Pasta. It takes pasta dishes from “eh, it’s food” to “this is really good”.
Ever since I tried bronze pasta I cannot look at regular pasta the same way. I cannot buy that yellow stuff anymore.
Whole Foods, oddly enough, is the place I find the cheapest good pasta. Their store brand is less than most places and really good.
