What grocery items are always worth the extra $1-$5?
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I've seen a few people saying that it's cheaper to buy stuff that's in season over the years but I've never seen prices drop on in season stuff before. Idk if it's just a thing where I am but the supermarkets seem to just pocket the difference and leave the prices the same year round.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I've never seen prices drop on in season stuff
That means you forgot the 'local' part. Cheapest supermarket get their stuff from the cheapest sources worldwide (= lowest quality as well, worldwide)
You really have to look if you want to buy local, but then it's worth it.
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I've seen a few people saying that it's cheaper to buy stuff that's in season over the years but I've never seen prices drop on in season stuff before. Idk if it's just a thing where I am but the supermarkets seem to just pocket the difference and leave the prices the same year round.
You'll still probably get better flavors when things are in season locally. Also, you'll need to check, but often the frozen version of produce is cheaper when the fresh version is in season, and frozen is easy to stock up on.
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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
I like buying local California olive oils, then I know it's real.
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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.
Ever double blinded yourself with Kerrygold (or w/e) vs. regular stuff? Always try to do this and surprise myself with some products
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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.
Love this!!!
Try with coffee and butter n stuff?
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Kroger diet cola. It's better than diet coke. Always fucking out of stock though around me.
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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.
Kerrygold
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+1 to eggs! I dream of having chickens but have heard it's a game of pros and cons
We just got chickens, im not sure they're cheaper then buying but certainly more available.
I do have a constant fight with hawks though trying to eat them
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Cream cheese. The store brand might be okay for maybe baking with, but you can't spread that excuse for caulk on a bagel and say it's anything near as good as the Philadelphia brand.
The store brand might be okay for maybe baking with
False. The store brands don't blend well, and you end up with little balls of raw cream cheese in your cheesecake.
Kirkland's is the only store brand I've tried that's OK, but Costco store brand stuff is all miles ahead of the other stores.
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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.
All of them really. Once I find a brand I like, I'll stick with it. I'm usually not paying attention to prices anyway. I'll even go to another country just so I can get the proper brand of tomato paste. (It's not that bad, just around 15km away).
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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.
Mozzarella (talking about the balls of fresh mozzarella you get sealed in with their brine).
Can't do store brand anymore after having tried Galbani.
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Mozzarella (talking about the balls of fresh mozzarella you get sealed in with their brine).
Can't do store brand anymore after having tried Galbani.
It's pretty easy to make those with some high fat milk, rennet, and cheese salt
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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.
Coffee. It's something that I refuse to compromise on. It may be especially important to me because I like to drink it black. If it doesn't taste great without adding anything to it, it's not with drinking at all in my opinion.
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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.
Pasta. It takes pasta dishes from "eh, it's food" to "this is really good".
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But the parent company owns both of those brands though?
Aldi is two different companies, North and South. One owns Aldi America, the other bought Trader Jones.
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It's pretty easy to make those with some high fat milk, rennet, and cheese salt
I mean, yea. But it is also easy to buy them, they're everywhere and fairly cheap. The Galbani one is also just 1€ or so more expensive.
To be clear, making your own is fantastic, it's just not anything I'd want to do 2x/week
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Coffee. It's something that I refuse to compromise on. It may be especially important to me because I like to drink it black. If it doesn't taste great without adding anything to it, it's not with drinking at all in my opinion.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I'm two ways about this.
In recent years I've become quite a coffee lover. I've experimented with a lot of brewing methods, and got into small batch beans from independent roasters, with interesting qualities like being aged in whisky barrels (that one tastes and smells sooo good)
At the same time though I grew up in a family where the only coffee my parents ever drank was instant - a teaspoon of granules with some hot water and milk and maybe sugar. When I go over there to visit that's what I'll get, and I'm not going to turn my nose up at it. In some ways it's got that taste of nostalgia lol.
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+1 to eggs! I dream of having chickens but have heard it's a game of pros and cons
I used to have chickens. Between the cost of the coop, the feed, medicine, etc. I’d say each egg cost us about $5.
A little exaggeration, but not much. The eggs were really good though, and they make for cute stupid pets.
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We just got chickens, im not sure they're cheaper then buying but certainly more available.
I do have a constant fight with hawks though trying to eat them
Hawks, snakes stealing eggs, and then a fox finally did mine in
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Believe it or not, top-shelf bacon. It's got more bacon in it. Less water. You're not paying nearly as much more per ounce of actual meat as it looks at first.
Lots of "organic" produce has a significantly longer shelf life than the basic stuff too. Never mind whether it's any healthier or tastier, I'm not saving any money if I pay a dollar less and it starts molding before I can eat half of it.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Yeah, the secret to getting good bacon is buying it at the
butcherdeli counter. You can request your preferred thickness, it's much leaner, and it's more flavorful. Unless you've got a local artisan cured meat hookup available, it's the way to go.
