Sadly my father, who is very frugal anyway, has completely assimilated this idea and refuses to see that some brand names are better than the generic counterpart, or at least are closer to what people expect them to be. Mundane examples:
Red Oval Farms is the classic Stone Wheat Thin, and what folks expect for a stone wheat thin. Hannaford just isn’t the same. Same with Philly vs. Hannaford cream cheese. He only buys these things for company – spend a couple of extra dollars!
One store brand is an exception – I find Hannaford store ice cream to be as rich and creamy as the name brands I like.
Back in the 70’s 7 80’s generics and store brands were terrible and one had to be pretty broke before choosing them. IMHO that has changed significantly. Now days I rarely choose name brand over store/generic.
Aldis store brand products are amazingly good. Their breakfast cereal is even better than name brand. The $1.99 Mama Cozzi pizzas are one of the best frozen pizzas available.
Razors: One of the few items I buy name brand, but i’m still a cheapskate over it. I use Bic single blade disposables and they’re fine for the price. Stay away from dollar store razors. You’ll cut your gawddam throat open. Ever try to apply a tourniquet to the under part of you bottom lip?
Soda: Sams Choice is fine, including for cola. Roundys cola is awful and I’m not otherwise fussy. It’s really bad.
I got a 12 pack of Safeway lemon lime soda for free once. It wasn’t worth it. Bitter and nasty, and it sits in my garage. I’d hate to think what their cola tastes like.
Also Hellman’s/Best Foods Mayo is far better than any other brand. Miracle Whip is gross.
I buy a lot of stuff from the dollar store and I agree with a lot of the posters here - razors, mayo, and anything claiming to be related to cheese are to be avoided at all costs.
Some things are surprisingly good though, all of the canned tomato products and dried pasta I’ve bough have been very good. The dollar store by me also sells excellent corn chips, tortilla chips, and potato chips. Believe it or not I prefer the $1 4 pack of toilet paper.
Oreos are not as good as the original, Hydrox. However, as long as they aren’t stale, I’ve never found an Oreoesque cooky I didn’t like. A while back, Oreo marketed vanilla “Golden Oreos”. Again, not much better than all the others I’ve tried over the last half-century.
There used to be a Kraft-like mac and cheese sold in Indiana that came in a bag instead of a box. It had the same type of cheese powder packet, but the mac was regular sized elbow macaroni. I thought it was better than Kraft’s.
I like RC as well as I do Coke. Store brand sodas vary, but their colas are always bad. However, I have yet to find a store brand lemon-lime, strawberry, ginger ale, cream soda, or root beer I’d say is bad. Some are better than others, but some yummy flavors (green apple, peach, black cherry) are available only in certain store brand selections.
Under “generic” brands, are we including house brands?
If so, I’d say paper products (paper towels or TP) represent a HUGE exception as outlined by the OP. The package looks almost as big as that of the premium brand,and costs a lot less, but you get far less actual product. The cheaper package is full of air, and I’m not even sure that it works out to be any less expensive in the end, when you consider how many sheets you have to use.
I find this is generally true with “basic” food items like dairy or produce. On the rare occasions when I’ve found the store brand of ice cream wasn’t as good, it’s been because I didn’t read the package carefully enough and bought some vile substitute like “ice milk” (gaahh!).
In some cases the cheaper packaging of the generic brand does make a real difference, even when the product itself is indistinguishable from the name brand.
I like Ritz crackers, and once decided to save a little money buy picking up the generic version. Only after opening the box did I discover that the crackers were all in one big bag, sort of like cereal, rather than separate sleeves. Many of them were broken. This wouldn’t have been a big deal with something like chips or cookies, but I mostly eat crackers with cheese. Cheese and smashed up cracker bits isn’t really the same.
I’m addicted to Flaming Hot Cheetos, which cost about $3 per bag, so I was delighted to learn that Kroger sells a store-brand version. Unfortunately they were non-crunchy and the taste was way off.
Kroger and Walmart both sell a generic version of Chips Ahoy cookies which are just as good as the original, if not better.
I concur with the OP on generic knockoffs of Coke and Pepsi. They just taste weird.
I like the Safeway version of Oreos a better than the real thing. Especially the mint ones. The cream is thicker and the mint flavor is stronger.
Both Safeway and Kroger (Fred Meyer, out thisaways) make excellent ice cream. Try the Kroger (Private Selection) sea salt and caramel for a real taste treat. The Safeway version is a very close second.
Kroger (Big K) diet cola tastes much better to me than the other off brands but still, I stick with Diet Coke or Pepsi most of the time. Shasta Diet Lemon Lime is very good and I wish I could find it more often so I can kick the caffeine habit for a little while. Grocery Outlet carries it occasionally
I couldn’t buy Dollar Tree toilet paper unless I was on a car trip and wanted some for emergency bathroom breaks out in the middle of nowhere. I can easily see using one of those tiny rolls in one day otherwise. Ditto the paper towels. You just don’t get enough on a roll. We do use the paper napkins though. Our other dead-tree products are the Costco (Kirkland) brand.
In Western Washington, we have a drug store chain called Bartell Drugs. A few years ago, they started carrying Premier Value items as their house brand. Every over-the-counter drug I’ve tried in that line has been excellent. Much cheaper, too. Besides drugs, there’s other Premier Value items throughout the store.
With dish soap I’ve learned to be careful not to buy anti-bacterial hand soap which is stocked in identical bottles in the same section as dish soap. In the States it has the “Drug Facts” data on the back, and in practical terms is far less concentrated than even bargain dish soap. You look at the bottle a couple of weeks later and find you’ve used up half of it.
When and why did they start selling “drugs” in the cleanser aisle?
