Issue time
11:48 am , by
CTreit
Category:
setting up a budget
Our family budget has to accommodate this chocolate snob
October 26th, 2010When I went to the supermarket yesterday, I was tickled happy to see that the store-brand organic milk we usually buy was $4.99 a gallon versus $5.99 normally. I know it is only a dollar and perhaps that single dollar doesn’t have much affect on our family budget, but saving that dollar made me feel good! It’s weird. Why don’t I feel as good when I buy store brand organic milk – saving $1.50 because I don’t buy the brand name organic milk? I’m saving money, right? And saving even more than that single “on sale” dollar! (Well, we’re not really “saving” but rather, we’re spending less. It’s not like I put $1.50 in my bank account! I just didn’t give it to the brand name milk guys.)
I am amazed that one dollar off on a gallon of milk can make my heart jump with joy for a little while. Isn’t it funny how our brains operate sometimes?
Store brand products can save you money. I don’t know what the difference is between store brand organic milk and brand name organic milk. They taste the same to me. (In fact, it might even taste just like non-organic milk! But I’m worried about giving too many hormones to my preschoolers, so we go organic in milk because they drink a whole lot of it!) Store-brand and brand name milk producers all follow the same rules to get the milk to the store, pretty much. They all get the milk from the cows, they all pasteurize the milk, they all use the same kind of packaging! So I buy store brand – at least in terms of milk, which to me, again, seems just as good as “name” brand.
This is not to say that my family and I prefer store brand products under all circumstances. We stick with certain brands if we are convinced that there is a difference in quality. At times when our more-expensive name brand fav is out of stock, we’ll skip buying it altogether rather than get the cheaper one. For example, I rather not eat any chocolate at all if I can’t spend the money on good chocolate than eat inferior chocolate at a lower price. And I guess my wife is right: what I consider “good” is a whole lot different than what other people think is good, or good enough. According to her, I am a chocolate snob! So, in the case of chocolate (which my wife doesn’t even like: so weird!), our budget buys the “best” or none at all, but with milk, we buy what’s “good enough” and don’t spend a penny more than we have to. Go figure.
.
Get free ideas how to better handle money!
Since you are a chocolate snob, what brands do you consider to be representative of “good chocolate”? Similarly, what do you consider to be “inferior chocolate”? I am looking forward to hearing your insight!
Agree with you on chocolate. It’s totally in a food world of its’ own and as far as I’m concerned inferior chocolate isn’t even chocolate at all. For chocolate worshippers it is pretty difficult to image that some people have zilch desire for it.
As for store brands I always buy them over name brands, having read that in many cases a single manufacturer actually produces them both.
@savvysavingsbytes – GMTA (great minds think alike). I can’t even imagine how some people have no interest in chocolate at all. My wife is one of the these people, but she is slowly coming around to liking chocolate.
@pfstock Oh my. Do I have to out myself? My favorite is richart.com but it is so expensive that I do not buy it very often. A good indicator for good chocolate is the number of ingredients. The better the chocolate, the less ingredients it has.
[...] presents Our family budget has to accommodate this chocolate snob posted at Money Obedience, saying, “Name brands versus store [...]