I had knockoff coco pops once and they tasted like cardboard
Generic Froot Loops are usually trash too.
Ketchup.
This is a katsup household.
catsup*
I guess I need to… catch up… on all the different spellings.
Clothes. A lot of tiny local stores here have clothes hung on racks in between the aisles and the checkout, mostly things like t-shirts, hoodies celebrating the local town, and occasionally uniforms when schools like mine have one. Aside from the latter, they’ll often feel like they fit on some parts of the body but not others, meaning they’ll never actually fit. Being a small store also means they won’t let you just try one on.
Mayonnaise. I’ll get more expensive gourmet kinds or make it, but won’t step down.
Also ranch, ricotta, mozzarella. There are a couple of each of those I’m willing to buy, but store brand doesn’t have any of the flavor.
Chicken… Very nasty, rubbery chicken meat when I bought the cheapest brand. Barely edible.
Shoes. You don’t end up saving money and it’s not worth the pain. I tried for years back when I couldn’t afford a thing and concluded that there’s simply no such thing as cheap good shoes.
Any safety certified equipment tends to cost an a and a leg. Nearly monopoly controlled.
Damn right. My backpack is >25 years, my jacket is >40.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Always an up vote for the Boots theory!
Exactly. I’m cheap but won’t buy cheap shoes. First they are a slip hazard that will cost you in pain and medical bills. Secondly, they don’t last for shit and are uncomfortable. Also, they make your feet smell bad.
My expensive shoes last so they end up being way cheaper.I wish there was any consistency or correlation in the shoes I buy and how long they last. I agree that generally higher price means better quality. But I decided to spend on some nicer hiking shoes from REI and they both have holes in them, while an $8 pair of business casual shoes I expected to be a throwaway have lasted years now
Soy sauce, Kikkoman isn’t going to be beat by a store brand. Likewise with Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce.
deleted by creator
Made the mistake of buying Kikkoman a few years ago when I couldn’t get my regular brand.
Amoy (dark) is way better. M&S was close though.
Settle down there hipster. Most peoples’ taste buds werent ruined by having tasted 15 dollar an ounce artisan organic free range no cholesterol soy sauce made by a secretive order of Japanese monks using only the finest water from the fountain of youth. Realistically they’ve got 3 options: store brand, Kikkoman and whatever overpriced soy sauce brand their local store begrudgingly put on the shelves. Theyre not cheap enough to get the store brand but lets face it, in this economy, nobody wants to shell out a dollar an ounce for something theyre going to drizzle over instant rice.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting getting soy sauce made by someone with a handlebar mustache. Just that other brands tend to be way better than the Kikkoman you would find in a grocery store.
Lee Kum Kee for example is often in grocery stores and is way better for about the same price. Kimlan is pretty good. Sempio is way way better if you can find it, which shouldn’t be too hard if you live somewhere decent.
No need to attack them.
Love Lee Kum Kee Premium Soy Sauce and Sempio for standard use. I agree that they are so much better then Kikkoman imo
It’s usually pretty easy to find other better soy sauces at most Asian grocery stores around the same price as Kikkoman
I mean Lee Kum Kee isn’t some magic hipster brand but it’s vastly superior
La Choy is where its at but i feel you
Store brand Worcestershire sauce is even harder to pronounce
Irn-Bru. The store brands are passable and I would accept them if offered, but the real thing is much better.
Dr. Pepper.
It’s the only thing I can think of that has tons of copy-cats but not one of those copy-cats comes even remotely close to replicating the original.
I still haven’t gotten over the loss of the original Mr Pibb flavor
Fellow Dr Pepper enjoyer here! 😃 same here, it just has such a specific and indescribable taste and I’ve yet to drink anything that is even remotely close to the flavour of Dr Pepper
Barbeque water
That taste is a dash of pepper with conceit that has been fermenting for 8 years.
Did you know that Dr Pepper was once marketed to also be drunk hot - a bit like mulled wine? Search for “hot Dr Pepper” on YT and prepare to look at your drink in a whole new light.
The prices have become insane, but I will never cheap out on toilet paper. This is a Charmin household gdi.
Also JIF peanut butter, and Hellmann’s mayo.
When it goes on sale at Costco, it’s just like Christmas
blasting shit from ass It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
get yourself a butt showerhead or a bidet
Cottage cheese. Store brand has a bunch of additives and odd things in it.
Additives and preservatives are usually my decision maker. Yuka app is pretty handy.
Screwdriver bits, any type of storage — drives or pendrives, PSUs.
Coffee, some snacks (like cheap/unknown brands of chips or chocolate) can be really terrible, even some spices.
Heroin
Yeah, for me, it’s Bayer or nothing.
Botox. I got paralyzed from the waist up. Everyone calls me Riverdance now.
Plastic food storage bags, at least since I saw this: https://lemmy.world/post/13153346
Mmm, marinated chicken with a pinch of PFAS.
The solution here isn’t to buy brand name, it’s to not buy plastic bags. Put your stuff in hard sided Tupperware or old pasta jars. Brand name plastic bags probably have just as many ptfas.
