Shopping..

Con: Compare ingredients and read the food label. Of special importance is the sodium content – some generic foods have added salt to make them taste better rather than higher quality ingredients – and the fat content.  If the generic brand has a lot more sodium or fat than the brand name, you will need to decide how important this is to you.  In some cases, such as purchasing a can of beans, for example, it does not really matter since you will be able to rinse most of the salt off. 

Pro: Check the weight content of the generic and the brand name food.  This comes in especially handy when you are comparing cereals.  Did you know that even though some brand name cereals have bigger boxes, they actually contain less food by weight?  It is true! In addition to the foregoing, some brand name manufacturers have quietly begun to reduce the amount of their contents without reducing the size of their packaging.  As you can see, size does matter, and generic food manufacturers do usually not play this game.

Con: At times generic groceries come in bigger volume than their brand name counterpart.  While this is a great idea if you are going through the item quickly, if you are living alone or anticipate the need for smaller sizes, you may be throwing some of your money away by purchasing a generic food item that may later on go into the trash after going stale.

Generic food choices are a better investment for you in many cases; however, in some cases, you will actually save money if you chose a brand name item over a generic one.  These discounts depend on your personal shopping situation, your needs, and also outside factors, such as ongoing store sales and available coupons.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 3:51 am and is filed under Shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.