Worth the Extra Pennies

Last week, when I was flying through the aisles of Target trying to grab everything for these chocolate chip s’mores bars while Bart waited in the car with the girls who were on the verge of meltdown, I hesitated in front of the graham crackers.

I remembered how my friend Becca had mentioned to me one time that the difference between generic graham and the Honey Maid ones was basically night and day.

The Honey Maid ones were on sale, so they were only about twenty cents more expensive than the Target version and so, after some internal debate, I decided to buy them.

Ella is currently in absolute love with graham crackers (one of her friends at preschool told her about dipping them in milk, and this is what she wants for snack every day). Now I’ve spent the last five days trying to decide if I think the name-brand ones are really that much better.

I might not be a great test subject because, frankly, graham crackers are not really a food I’m seeking out often, unless it’s to smother them in marshmallows and chocolate (which. . I will definitely be doing today, thank you very much).

But it did make me think about which things I think are worth the extra money for a specific brand.

A brief list:

• Cream Cheese. I have bought the off-brand since I started shopping for myself some ten years ago and then a few months ago, Philadelphia was on sale for less than the store-brand and . . . you guys. It’s actually way way better than the generic. I had no idea.
• Baby Wipes. After cycling through basically every generic brand on the market, Bart and I both said, “ENOUGH” and now we only buy Pampers and everyone is happy. I mean, as happy as you can get when you’re changing a diaper.
• String Cheese. Sometimes the difference between a generic brand and a name brand is slight and sometimes it’s the difference between eating a stick of rubber and eating an actual delicious string cheese. Everything but Cheese Heads tastes like a stick of rubber to me.
• Pringles. (I couldn’t actually bring myself to write “canned chips”). Look, I’ll eat pretty much any chip because it’s one of my all-time favorite food items, but . . . there is nothing like a Pringle. (Although, can we talk about why Pringles makes so many weird flavors? Like. .. cinnamon and sugar chips? No thank you (I never actually tried them)).
• Gillette Mach 3 Razors. There’s a time to be cheap and when you are using sharp blades to cut hair off your body is not one of them. I try not to look at the price tag when I buy replacement cartridges.
• Sour Cream. It’s all about Daisy for me. I like it because it’s not all thickened with pretend ingredients (right after I said how much I love Pringles . . . ). Also it tastes ridiculously good.
• Deodorant. I actually don’t find that I care that much, but Bart is an Old Spice man through and through. In fact, when I’ve gotten free deodorant of other brands because of coupons and whatnot, I end up using them because he will not.
• Mayonnaise. Look, I know everyone hates mayonnaise and it’s totally repulsive, etc, but I actually LOVE mayo. And I only buy Hellmann’s (isn’t it called something else in other regions? I’m too lazy to look it up).