I know this seems like an odd title for a blog post, but I feel it fully illustrates how much we needed to go grocery shopping yesterday. And FYI, Chocolate Soy Milk is an awesome, delicious, chocolatley drink. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is also an awesome breakfast feast. But alas, together they are not so awesome, and  to be honest, make a slightly gross, and not at all satisfying breakfast.

Anyways, so we obviously really needed to visit el grocery store. I really hate going to the grocery store though, because I feel like it would just be better if I could train my body to survive sole on eating my money, since that’s literally what I’m doing anyways. Then I could just skip the going to the store step. But my body does not like this idea, so we still have to go to the grocery store and spend money on food. But I try not to spend tons and TONS of money on food, and the most helpful way I’ve found to cut costs, is by buying the off-brand instead of the name brand, which is usually a few bucks cheaper. So these are my top 5 nonbrand items to buy:

1. Cereal! It normally tastes pretty close to the name brand equivalent, and is still makes for a delicious breakfast, but costs me about half the price of the small box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

2. Milk! Why spend money on TG Lee when the store brand of milk tastes the same and is cheaper? It’s a no brainer to me.

3. Pain/allergy meds! They’re normally way cheaper, and do the same amount of work as Tylenol or Motrin, I promise.

4. Bread! Seriously, you can’t beat the $1 we spend on Target Brand bread that makes just as a delicious sandwich as Wonder Bread (probably even better since I hate white bread… It always jams itself to the roof of my mouth in a very unladylike fashion).

5. Cleaners! Target, Publix, and Winn Dixie brand equivlents of Windex, Clorox wipes, and Toilet bowl cleaner have worked just as good for me.

There are more things I love that are off brand, but I’m not gonna bore you by listing them all. Not all off brand stuff is awesome though. In my few years of grocery shopping on my own, I’ve experimented with a wide variety of nonbrand shiz, and I promise, it’s not all magical and wonderful. So I’ve also included my list of top 5 nonbrands to stay away from:

1. Pop Tarts. Probably the most disappointing off brand purchase I’ve ever made because they are super gross. Like way more gross than you thought cheap pop tarts could ever be. And all off brand pop tarts are gross. I’ve bought them at like four different stores in hopes of one having a decent tasting off brand, but none of them did, and I wasted my money.

2. Paper towels. Seriously just break down and buy Bounty or Braun, because even though they’re a little expensive,  one roll of them lasts twice as long as their cheap counter parts, and really saves you money in the long run.

3. Toilet paper. Same thing here. Except the nicer brands also tend to feel a lot less like thin newspaper. We’ll call that an added plus.

4. Dish washing soap. Brands like dawn also last infinitely longer, and tends to smell, and work, way better.

5. Dog food. The cheap stuff tends to be way worse for the canine kids, and the added preservatives they use can give small dogs more seizures. No bueno para perritos.

So there you have it. Some of my knowledge from first hand experience in the battles of off brand vs. name brand groceries. Other good ways to help save money when going to the grocery store would include not shopping while hungry (because then you will buy way more than you need), and making smaller shopping trips as you need a few things at a time (so you don’t buy too much, and then are forced to watch the food you bought go bad because you cant eat it all fast enough).

PS: Pics found here, here, and my computer.

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