What grocery items are always worth the extra $1-$5?
-
Lunch meat. I eat sandwiches every day for lunch and I have tried all the discount store brands for various types of ham, turkey, and chicken, and it's all pretty shit, so I'm quite happy to pay the buck for the Hillshire Farms stuff cause it's the best.
If you really want to step up your game, try buying raw meat, cooking it, and slicing it for sandwiches. I do this with chicken and it's served me really well at very low cost.
-
Canadian maple syrup.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Second this. I even put it in coffee instead of just sugar. It's so good!
I always make cold brew so I can't say how it is with "regular" hot coffee lol
-
Butter, life is too damn short to cook with and eat shitty butter.
Also anything that goes between me and the ground, my bed, my shoes, and my tires.
I agree with every part of this.
A while back I was standing in the butter section, waiting for a couple to move so I could grab my pricey-but-worth-it butter, and overheard them talking about how butter is a scam and it all tastes the same no matter what. I had to hold back a chuckle. They of course grabbed the cheapest option and went about their lives in complete ignorance of the glory of high quality butter.
I still wonder if I should have said something to encourage them to try a better butter, but they talked about it with such blind confidence that I didn’t feel right about it at the time.
-
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.
Silverware
The cheap metals taste like a magnet, have rough edges, and lose their appearance after a few washes
-
Canadian maple syrup.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]While I agree, the price difference between "maple syrup" (maple flavoured corn syrup) and maple syrup is way more than $5. A bottle of genuine maple syrup is $20+.
-
Olive oil, although it's not really 1-5 extra where I am. There's a lot of advice to buy cheap oil for cooking, but that's not really true. The truth is that a lot of 'extra virgin' oil is sold in an old, rancid state, and you have to upgrade into the mid tiers to get away from that.
Buy the best olive oil you're willing to spend money on, even for cooking.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]i was hoping someone would say this as well! heaps of evidence out there about tonnes of adulterated olive oils. usually with cheap hyper-processed seed oils
-
Butter, life is too damn short to cook with and eat shitty butter.
Also anything that goes between me and the ground, my bed, my shoes, and my tires.
Not grocery but my opinion is anything that interacts with the world around you. Glasses, shoes, gloves, headphones should all be top quality for comfort and their respective task
-
Seriously?! I need to go check some ingredients, brb.
Gotta check ingredients every so often. They love changing things without telling you.
-
While I agree, the price difference between "maple syrup" (maple flavoured corn syrup) and maple syrup is way more than $5. A bottle of genuine maple syrup is $20+.
It's not called maple syrup if it's not real maple syrup. They'll call it maple flavored syrup, pancake syrup, but never maple syrup.
-
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.
Canned tomatoes. Get the good ones if you can!
-
La Tourangelle Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It’s my favorite.
Pasta made in Italy. (A recent ex-girlfriend converted me)
If you absolutely positively have to have a bottle of soda, then probably go with the Mexican Coke over anything made in America.
Theres a lot of craft soda or smaller soda worth your time. Also Fever Tree is fantastic for mixers/fizzy drinks
-
What grocery items are always worth the extra
butter ... my bed, my shoes, and my tires
Hello, fellow Costco shopper.
Costco has sub par service at their tire center, but good prices. Recommend using their prices to price match at a regular store with better service to get the best of both worlds.
-
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.
Kerrygold
-
Theres a lot of craft soda or smaller soda worth your time. Also Fever Tree is fantastic for mixers/fizzy drinks
Forgot about this. Empire soda from Bristol, RI is the bomb.
-
Have to disagree on the last point. I greatly prefer Aldi Cheese Curls and Market Basket Cheese Crunches. Except the jalapeño cheddar flavor. Those slap.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Trader Joes are so much better than the Aldi ones IMO
-
Costco has sub par service at their tire center, but good prices. Recommend using their prices to price match at a regular store with better service to get the best of both worlds.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Maybe your warehouse has issues but Costco tire center is top tier
Edit: also forgot to mention their tires come with warranties, free rotations, tps sensors are super cheap compares to the dealership, and they often have other incentives on top of all that.
-
If you really want to step up your game, try buying raw meat, cooking it, and slicing it for sandwiches. I do this with chicken and it's served me really well at very low cost.
That sounds like a big increase in pain-in-the-ass for not that big an increase in savings. I'm happy to trade money for convenience on this one.
-
Silverware
The cheap metals taste like a magnet, have rough edges, and lose their appearance after a few washes
There’s plenty of good used stainless flatware out there. Older stuff found at estate sales is frequently better quality and cheaper than buying new at department stores.
-
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.
I will add that I’ve yet to find a decent tasting store brand soda or sparkling water. I have no idea why it’s so difficult for them to get the flavoring right.
-
Canned tomatoes. Get the good ones if you can!
My husband and I got curious about the variance in canned tomatoes one day, so we got one can from every brand we could find. We had a blind tasting session where we tried each one without knowing what brand it was (palate cleansers in between) and ranked them all out of 10 with some comments. We didn't share our rankings or thoughts with each other until the Big Reveal at the end when we found out which tomatoes were which.
Turned out we actually preferred some of the cheaper brands, and the most expensive ones got worse ratings. There wasn't a direct relationship between price and preference, but it was interesting.
It was a fun day. We also did the same thing with soda water.
