Buying Generic
November 15th 2006 07:20
A key bargain tip is to avoid buying brand names as much as possible. Now, you have to use some wisdom in this, but oftentimes when buy a big brand name, you’re paying for little more than the actual name on the package.
There may be some quality differentiation between one brand of trash bags or another, but in most cases, it’s not going to make a big enough difference to justify the price.
Around my house, generics are king. We rarely buy expensive sodas, trash bags, or appliances. I’m constantly buying generics sodas, generic food, and generic medicines and rarely is there a moment of regret.
When Generic Goes Wrong
I can only think of a couple times when buying a generic brand has caused a problem. Recently, I’ve been using Breathe Right nasal strips to get some sleep. Wal-mart began to sell an off-brand version at a much lower price, so I decided to try them out. I didn’t find the results satisfactory at all. Half the time, the strips wouldn’t stay on my face at night, or before I could even get them on, the ends would crumple up. What a beating for the generics!
Truth is that usually the medicine aisle is a great place to get generics. The difference between a 100 drop package of Halls and the generic at Wal-mart is around $2.00 (favoring the generic.) I found little difference between Tums, Mylanta, Tylenol and their generic counterparts. Particularly when you’re dealing with medicines on which the patent is expired (which is close to most everything we deal with in practical medicine) there’s no difference.
Quality does matter when it comes to toilet paper. I actually have a brand I buy, “Scott’s.” My wife got me to do this with a simple mathematical argument. Scott’s is around 1000 ply of tissue, while the larger generics were around 120 ply.
I’ve also found cat supplies to be another thing where you don’t skimp. The reason you don’t buy generic kitty litter is that you need something that’s strong enough to cover the smell and most generic kitty litter doesn’t.
Money is also not the best determining factor of what to feed your cat, either. As a new cat owner, I bought our new kitten whatever was on sale. I acted like the cat was a human and us humans can change our diets every week without visible consequences. It doesn’t work that way with a cat. She stopped eating for a couple days and we were very nervous, so I let my wife take the Purina challenge, in part due to the free bag of cat food coupon. To make a long story short, Joybell is now on a stable diet of Purina One and we have a much happier and healthier cat.
On human food, there’s no reason to buy a brand name box of soda crackers or a brand name brand of green beans in most cases. The generics generally taste just as good and are equally as healthy.
Brand name goods often survive only on their reputation rather than any actual benefit to consumers. That’s where advertising comes in. My advice is not to take the advertising all that serious and on your next trip to the grocery store, take the generic challenge. You don’t have to always commit to buying them forever, but if they work, there’s no reason for corporate America to get more of your hard earned money.
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