Off Brand Blog

Here’s a great article on Get Rich Slowly about the financial benefits from buying off brand: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/09/15/slash-your-grocery-bill-with-store-brand-products/

It’s got some great information, I recommend reading it if you are skeptical about off brand foods.

In other words, store brands offer roughly the same quality as national brands, but at a much-reduced cost. How much reduced? Consumer Reports says that the store brands they tested cost an average of 27 percent less than the name brand equivalents.

The comments are good too, I like this one that supports my thoughts that low-processed staple foods, milk, eggs, rice, flour, etc. tend to be the easiest to replace with an off brand without losing quality.

We try store brand, but sometimes – i.e. when there are more than 4 ingredients – the taste is just not there! Thus we buy everything non-edible in store brand, and edible items if it has less than 4-ingredients (oatmeal, milk, pasta, flour, canned tomatoes, olives, frozen veggies); if more than 4 ingredients, then we get to decide (yogurt, frozen pizza). If you don’t buy a lot of processed food, you’ll be surprised how many store brand items you’ll buy!

Something I’ve overlooked is the “military discount” of the commissary, which can be a great incentive to just buy whatever you like.

And this is why I like the military perk of a commissary to shop at. :-) Prices are usually lower than other stores, AND they’re mostly national-branded items. Win-win for military families.

Not only are the prices cheaper for most national brands, but you can still use coupons and there’s no tax. It’s really the one perk that I use quite a bit to save us some money on groceries. (Since we really don’t buy a lot and eat out fairly often.)

Great to see that people are giving off brand food a try!