Spin-off....Do you buy Generic? Used? Brand new only?

[Shannonigans]

Are you a generic sort of buyer, a little more thrifty or are you a name brand sort of person?

Do you buy:

Groceries: generic or name brand or a little of both? Do you shop at generic grocery stores like Aldi's or Save-A-Lot or mostly Kroger's...or do you bypass 'em all together for expensive stores like the butcher or health food places?

Clothes: generic or name brand? Brand new or used?

Furniture: La-Z boy, Ethan Allen, or the Furniture warehouse? Or a good steal out of the newspaper?

Home products: deodorants, toilet paper, toothpaste, cleaning supplies...what HAS to be name brand and what's ok if its not?

[Shannonigans]

We are generic all the way. I work at Save-A-Lot and that's where literally, all our stuff comes from. The only name-brands of food that DH and I are even remotely picky about are Kraft Mac and Cheese and KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce. Everything else can be generic. And we save a TON on our grocery budget. We probably only spend $40 a week for 2 people and 8 animals for groceries and all household stuff. I buy my toilet paper there, paper towels, dish soap, laundry soap, shampoo (a buck a bottle for suave...whoo hooo), dog food, cat food, toothpaste, garbage bags.

I just don't see the point in going anywhere else when I can get it all there cheap.

All our clothes come from either Wal Mart (no Target here), the goodwill, salvation army (people give away BRAND new shit with the tags still on, unbelievable, great for resell on ebay), or garage sales, and ebay too of course. I haven't shopped at a department store for clothes in 5 years. My one pair of shoes are "Earth" shoes and they came from Wal Mart two years ago They were $30 bucks and I cringed. I need a new pair and I dread it.

It used to not phase me to drop $60 on a pair of Nikes...being poor will do it to ya!

I haven't bought furniture in years but most of what I have is pretty good quality, I think my loveseat is Broyhill or Lane and I have a nice curio cabinet. We do have a Walmart entertainment center but DH is going to build a new one someday. And none of my furniture matches. hee hee

[Keri]

Groceries--mainly the commissary. Sometimes I will stop in safeway but it's usually cheaper to shop on post.

Clothes--e-bay, resale shops, target, walmart, Penny's, sears, gymboree, children's place, baby gap, old navy, etc.

Furniture--the PX has a furniture store on post and I have bought a lot of our furniture there. When you move every 2-3 years you don't go for expensive, you go for stuff that can be replaced cheaply when your movers destroy it.

Home products--I get at the commissary so they are usually name brand but I always shop with coupons. I just went to the grocery yesterday and saved 47.50 with coupons.

Groceries- I buy some generic but I am picky about a lot of our groceries. I must have Jiff peanut butter and cheese from the deli to name a few things. I shop at both Aldi's and Krogers.

Clothes- Jim and I buy our boots from the Harley Davidson store. We buy some T-shirts and sweat shirts there too, mainly when they have sales. Most other clothes for us come from Wal-Mart. For the girls I buy play clothes at garage sales. They also get my neices hand me downs. For school and good clothes I go to Wal-Mart or JCPenney's.

Furniture- It's been ages since we bought any new furniture but we usually go wherever the sales are.

Home products- Must be name brand.

[Clio]

I have to be honest, I just looked around me here at home and everything is name brand. I don't know why, I really don't.

[Ginny]

Groceries: I buy a mixture of generic and name brand, but mostly generic. I've found that generic jams and jellies are very thin and runny. My middle son was having PBJ issues in his lunchbox. I also have to have brand name paper plates when I buy them. We've had bad experiences with generic. Other than that, I shop for the best deal.

I tend to go to Food 4 Less, or Stater Bros. if I'm in a huge hurry since it's closer. When money isn't as tight I like to get some things from Trader Joe's.

Clothes: Target, Kohl's, Sears, ebay.

Furniture: I'm not sure if we've even bought furniture yet. Mostly we have hand-me-downs.

Home Products: almost exclusively name brand

[Slabobbin]

I admit to being a brand name ho. I grew up in a generic household and I hated it. I hated having what I saw as "crap" while all of my friends had the "good stuff".

Groceries: This is probably the biggest part of our budget. I love to cook and I do a lot of gourmet cooking. I am picky about my food. I have found that most generic foods just are not the same quality as the brand names. Even things like canned diced tomatoes, you would think a tomato is a tomato but nope, there is a huge difference IMO between the generic and the name brand. We usually shop at Bi-Lo (despite the name it isn't a discount store, lol) becasue I do a lot of ethnic cooking and it's one of the only stores in town that has a good selection of ethnic foods. If we had stores like Whole Foods, etc. that carried mostly organic foods I would so be there in a heart beat.

Clothes: We mostly wear name brand clothing. I think the most generic thing we have is my DH's socks. Lol. Again, I grew up wearing the generic frog shirts while all of my friends had the lizard shirts. :jester1 I always said that when I had a baby he would be dressed in Baby Gap. The thing about the clothes though is that I very, very rarely pay full price for them, actually I don't know that I really ever have for Ben's clothes. I think I have for mine and DH's because they last longer (we don't outgrow them, lol). We have tons of resell shops around here with Baby Gap, Ralph Lauren, Tommy, Old Navy, etc. some of them still new and you get them them for under a dollar a piece. Most of my maternity clothing is Gap and Old Navy but I got almost all of it off of ebay or on clearance from the store.

Truely though, IMO the name brands tend to be better quality and they hold up a lot better than things you might find at Wal-Mart. I also like the look and design better. I don't like a lot of "cartooney" things and Wal-Mart seems to have a lot of those.

Furniture: I'm not picky about my furniture. I want good quality that will last and I want to like the looks of it. Brand name doesn't matter the least to me when it comes to furniture. I don't really even know what the brandnames are when it comes to furniture.

Home products: It depends. I'm not above using a lower brand of paper towel or toliet paper if we are spending more on food items that week. But to me there IS a difference in Bounty paper towel and the cheap ones or the Cottonelle toliet paper and the cheap kind. We don't use very many household cleaners (I have a thing about chemicals) we mostly clean with vinegar and water in a spray bottle. We try to live "naturally" and "organically" so things like our toothpaste aren't the normal name brands like Crest but they cost even more! LOL We usually use Tom's of Maine toothpaste or Burt's Bees toothpaste.

[Niles]

Groceries: I'm a food snob, I admit it, so if I have mac & cheese it is homemade, there is no brand name that beats homemade. We are pretty picky about what we eat, but some generic brands I find are very good, and I will try a generic brand. For example I bought a can of Western Family corn on sale, and it was great, so I went back and got a case to put in my food storage. Also things like dried bean, oatmeal, etc. are the same no matter the brand, and I just buy bulk. And we are really picky about ice cream, I am a HUGE ice cream snob.

Clothes: I will buy clothes anywhere, brand doesn't bother me, and I shop quality, and price. But I generally find that I can shop good brands (like Gap, or Ralph Lauren) at the outlet malls for as cheaply as I could shop Walmart. End of season sale at the Carter's Outlet, and Children's Place, pretty much outfitted Jake for this entire year (although I WAY overestimated what size he was going to be ). I also shop e-bay, and other thrift stores (Kid to Kid which is a consignment store). I love Shop-Ko, I think they have darling clothes for little boys. I am less picky for me, most of my clothes are hand me downs from my mom (luckily we are the same size, just different shapes ), my mom buy tons of clothes, and then decides she doesn't like it after she wears it once, and without fail I come home every few months with a car full of "new to me" clothes. I literally haven't bought myself anything new in about 8 months, and I have to dress up for work. DH is a jeans and t-shirts guy. I get t-shirts free from work, and buy jeans at Old Navy, so he is pretty easy. I also shop places like TJ Maxx, and Ross's Dress for Less a lot.

Furniture: Don't care, as long as it looks good, and will last (we got a really nice microfiber couch and love seat for only $1200 for both pieces), I don't care what the brand is. Also my dad is an amatuer carpenter, so he makes a lot of stuff. We are getting a queen bed he made from my brother and SIL in a couple of weeks.

Home Products: Depends, we don't use chemicals either, but mainly vinegar and water (and the vinegar is generic ) to clean so not an issue. I make my own baby wipes, and Bounty is the only towel that will work (I have tried others), so they are the only ones I buy. I am weird about T.P. and only buy earth friendly recycled stuff (not sure why I draw this line on T.P.). I am not picky about containers, I buy those at Big Lots instead of buying tupperware. I buy generic garbage bags. I buy a lot of things at dollar tree. A lot of home decor, sheets, etc. at TJ Maxx as well.

I try to be frugal, but I know what I like and what works, so I can also be pretty brand loyal as well.

[Scarlet]

Bit of both. Food, we make quite a lot from scratch. Some things have to be namebrand... for instance, cereal and mayo. Somethings I don't care about and will get the cheapest. I'm a cheese snob, Whole foods cheese counter is a dangerous place!

Clothes... I have expensive running shoes $150 Brooks (they are the ones that fit -- and I didn't pay that much, but that is the regular price) but payless Sandals. I have big feet and when I can get leather shoes that fit good and last at least a couple of seasons for $12 I'm gonna jump on them! My older son has two new pairs of namebrand shoes, both $60 -- that's what fits him (and it hurt buying them considering how he treats shoes and how long they last). My younger son has $18 generic leather sandals. Our clothes are a mix. DHs suits are Donna Karan but his jean shorts are Walmart. I make maybe half the kids clothes and perhaps a quarter of mine... no designer off the peg clothes can beat clothes that were cut for you out of your choice of fabric and sewn by someone who knows what they are doing IMO. I don't save much money sewing though when you take everything into account.

Furniture... we have a couple of Stickley pieces and some chipboard from IKEA and Walmart, some was made by us.

So basically its a bit of this, a bit of that. I have expensive tastes, but a cheapskate attitude, I have a hard time spending a lot of money on most stuff.

[Sable]

Originally Posted by Clio

I have to be honest, I just looked around me here at home and everything is name brand. I don't know why, I really don't.

Me too. But I swear, I'm more of a little bit of both person... it's just that everything in the room I'm in is brand name.

Some things have to be brand name--I've tried many store brands and sometimes, they really cannot compare.

Niles, I hear you on the macaroni and cheese. That boxed stuff... while it's fast, my homemade tastes much better and it doesn't have all that sodium!

Forgot about furniture and such. Our whole living room is from Ikea. It was cheap, is holding up incredibly well with our two boys (and their juice! LOL!), and it'll probably stay around a while longer before I get "the good stuff". I prefer quality furniture, that way it lasts forever. I guess Ikea must have some quality, eh?!