May 27, 2007
Saving Money By Buying Store Brands - 7 Products That Work For Us
By Dana Joseph
Before I became a frugal shopper, I didn’t even consider buying store brands. I stuck with the name brands - the ones I recognized and had always used. However, little by little I ventured into trying store brands and to my surprise I found that many were of the same quality as the more expensive brand names! Many times the store brands are packaged by the same processing plants where the name brands are produced but store brands are sold at a lesser cost because fancy packaging is not used. I found the best way to approach store brands is to try them little by little. Some products you will be very happy with and others you won’t like as much. Here are some store brands that work in our family:
1. Contact solution. We used to pay top dollar for the brand name contact solution. We’ve since switched to Target’s brand and are very happy with the product.
2. Hand lotion. We have several allergies in the family so we need to buy the hypoallergenic types of lotions. We’ve found that Target’s brand of hypoallergenic lotion works for us - and at a substantial discount too!
3. Pain relievers. Either Target or Walmart store brands of pain relievers work just as well as the name brands.
4. Oatmeal. I’ve found that store brand oatmeal tastes exactly the same as brand name and works just as well when baking oatmeal cookies!
5. Liquid hand soap. The large refills of the store brand soaps are a big money saver and work just as well as the name brand bottles.
6. Dental Floss. Target’s store brand of dental floss is comparable in quality to the higher priced name brands.
7. Saltine Crackers. We much prefer our store’s brand of crackers to the name brands.
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Topics: Personal Finance, Saving Money |
11 Responses to “Saving Money By Buying Store Brands - 7 Products That Work For Us”
Comments
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May 27th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
If the items are bound by strict government regulation such as medication or food products, I found that the generic brands and the name brands are pretty much the same products.
Milk is a good example of a strictly regulated product, which we always buy store brand.
May 28th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Store brands can be great. I use a lot of canned tomato in my cooking and store brands are usually half that of national brands and I can never tell a difference. Another thing I do is buy my spices in the ‘ethnic’ aisle instead of the spice aisle. I find the spices in the former are usually an unknown (or lesser known) brand and you can get much more for much less. Since spices are expensive and I use a lot of them, this is important to me.
Thanks for the article.
pf101
May 29th, 2007 at 7:52 am
[...] BEST ARGUMENT FOR BUYING SOME STORE BRANDS - buying store brands can save money, and here the authors detail some that work for them! Saving Money By Buying Store Brands - 7 Products That Work For Us [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I am totally not brand loyal myself! In particular, I use the wally world brand of “Oil of Olay”-they even have the spf 15 one and it costs way less for the same thing!
May 29th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I find that Target is adding more and more of their generic equivalents everytime I shop there…in the sundries section and also in their food section. They sometimes have them on sale but even their non-sale price is a great bargain(esp ‘feminine supplies’) and I haven’t had a problem with any of their generics that I have tried.
As for your recc of SALTINES…may I ask what store brand you use ??? I have tried a couple and have been disappointed so I wait for Nabisco brand to go on sale.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
K,
We use the Albertson’s store brand saltine crackers (the ones in the blue box).
May 29th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
We always buy store brand paper towels, rice and pasta. And I often buy store brand frozen veggies and fruit, too. We basically do a trial run with store brands. If the taste/quality is acceptable, we keep buying it. If not, we’ll go back to the name brand version.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I work in a grocery store that sells a lot of private label (store brand) items. At our store, the label is the only difference. The store is able to buy (and sell) the product for less because they don’t have to finance the expensive advertising the name brands do. Many of these items are in the shape container, same color lids, etc., as the name brands, so that’s something you might watch for.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:55 am
>>>We use the Albertson’s store brand saltine crackers (the ones in the blue box).
Thanks for answering. Unfortunately the only Albertson’s in our area recently went out of biz.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Great post! I’m a big fan of generic brands, but as you and everyone else has pointed out, it can vary from item to item. Some products are identical to name brands, but just with different labels (as Anne commented). I’ve found that most paper goods like napkins and paper towels, are actually a lot flimsier in generic, so I do buy brand name for those. But for things like contact lense solution (Shoprite’s is great and half the price), tomato sauce (again, Shoprite’s works for me) or even milk, the generic is as good (if not better) then the name brand ones.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I used to use the target brand of Sensor razor cartridges. they don’t carry them anymore. I can’t find any store brand versions anywhere, not even walmart.