海角大神

For most common items in a grocery store, you鈥檒l find two distinct types of product.

On the one hand, you鈥檒l have the 鈥渘ame brand鈥� items, which are usually in distinctive packaging and with a company brand you鈥檙e familiar with. On the other hand, you鈥檒l have the 鈥済eneric鈥� items, which aren鈥檛 packaged as distinctively and usually have either the store鈥檚 name, a brand name you鈥檝e never heard of (but is often repeated throughout the store), or no brand name at all.

Most of the time, the only difference between these two types of items is prettier packaging and a significant difference in price.

Here鈥檚 a challenge for you. The next time you buy an item at the store and notice a generic version available, try the generic version if you haven鈥檛 already. Buy it instead of the usual version that you buy.

Now, you might find that you don鈥檛 like the generic version as well as the name-brand version with some products. For example, I鈥檝e had bad experiences with generic garbage bags, so I won鈥檛 buy them. However, I鈥檒l be willing to bet that you find more generic items you鈥檙e happy with than ones that you鈥檙e dissatisfied with.

So, the big question is how all of this saves you money. Let鈥檚 say, on average, you save $0.75 with every generic item you buy instead of the equivalent name-brand version. You go to the store and pick up ten generic items. On that particular trip to the store, you save $7.50.

Let鈥檚 be pessimists and say that you decide that only four of them are worth buying again. On future store visits, you鈥檒l save $0.75 each time you buy that generic item instead of the name brand version. If you buy these four items each an average of once a month, you鈥檙e going to be saving $36 a year and you won鈥檛 notice a difference compared to what you already buy.

Of course, that鈥檚 a low-end estimate for your family. We use store-brand paper towels, salad dressings, saltine crackers, liquid soap, Kleenexes, and many other items. I would estimate that we save a couple hundred dollars a year simply by focusing on generics.

Many of those items, such as ketchup and applesauce, have identical ingredient lists and nutrition facts labels as name brand versions. As far as we can tell, they鈥檙e the same product 鈥� except that the generic version is substantially cheaper.

There are other items that might not be quite as good as the name brand version, but the quality difference is small enough that it doesn鈥檛 really matter. Kleenexes are a good example of this. The only time you鈥檒l see a difference is if it鈥檚 going to be an intense use of the item, in which case you just double up on the generic (or, in my case, use a handkerchief). You鈥檒l still save money.

In my experience, the big challenge with generics is getting past the mental block that name brands are somehow better. That 鈥渕ental block鈥� is largely the product of marketing. You know the name brands because they鈥檝e spent money to ensure that you associate positive things with the product鈥檚 name. Generics don鈥檛 have that bond, so by comparison, they can seem worse.

Don鈥檛 fall into that trap. It will cost you money. Try generics, and if they fulfill your needs, stick with them.

This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.