Two HUGE budget discoveries!

[DisMN]

I'm a little picky about my cereal and popcorn. Loving my Cheerios and Orville Reddenbacher I've resisted trying anything else...but the other day I decided to run wild and give other (read: cheaper) brands a try.

I was thrilled to discover that instead of paying almost $7 for a container of popcorn I only paid $1.29 for a bag. I filled up the Orville jar with the cheapo stuff and was able to fool myself.
The kernels pop a teensy bit smaller but what the heck, not a big deal at all!

Then the Cheerios...dang that stuff is costing more and more each trip. Anyone ever notice how gross the Cheerios box smells these days? Takes my appetite away when I open the box. Ick.
Decided I'd try a more generic oat ring type cereal so I bought one of those HUGE bags for less than $3.00 and got at least twice as much as in a $6.00 box of Cheerios.
Guess what? I liked them BETTER!!! As cereal they were very very good but when I added them to my Chex Mix they were fantastic!

Now if I can keep finding inexpensive substitutions for my more expensive foods........like Chex. I hope I can find a sub for Corn Chex. LOL LOL


So what have you found that works as well or better than your more expensive grocery items?

 

[ziggystardust]

looks like we have similar taste buds. I too stick to cheerios and orville redenbocker light popcorn. I'll definitely try those out. thx!

eta: don't know how that ! got in the subject line. my computer must really know how i love cheerios

 

[DisMN]

LOL Love your name ziggystardust!

The popcorn is just plain dry popcorn. We just pop it in a glass bowl with a cover and add salt and butter after it's popped. We never liked the fake butter flavors or the oily sheen the bagged popcorn has. LOL LOL

Good luck trying some new stuff. I was just so pleasantly surprised. Not sure what else I'll get brave enough to try though. EEK!!

 

[MEM]

I hear what you are saying about the popcorn, but I never pay more than 50 cents a box for Cheerios and sometimes I get it for free. Here in the Boston area it often goes on sale for $2 a box and there are 75cent coupons out there which when doubled will yield a 50 cent box of Cheerios. We stock up during these sales - I can't imagine paying full price.

 

[ilovepete]

We never pay for cereal, I use so many coupons when they are BOGO and always get them free or get money back on them. So you could try that? I've also seen BOGO popcorn and coupons as well so it may work for that, too.

 

[abmitch01]

I have yet to find a generic cheerios I like, but do like other generic cereals.

For popcorn I buy the generic white kernal corn for use in an air popper and have found I like it better than the Orville and it's so much cheaper

I cheap out on paperproducts, my DS calls our TP prison toilet paper, lol

 

[DisMN]

LMAO at prison toilet paper!!

 

[MomToOne]

I get a store brand of Rice Chex at a Kroger affiliate here in CA that is good - but unfortunately they don't have a Corn version.

We buy only store brand cereal at this point - name brand is some of the most overpriced stuff on the market!

 

[MomToOne]

I hear what you are saying about the popcorn, but I never pay more than 50 cents a box for Cheerios and sometimes I get it for free. Here in the Boston area it often goes on sale for $2 a box and there are 75cent coupons out there which when doubled will yield a 50 cent box of Cheerios. We stock up during these sales - I can't imagine paying full price.

Unfortunately there are areas of the country where no one does double coupons. Mine is one of them

 

[ilovepete]

Unfortunately there are areas of the country where no one does double coupons. Mine is one of them

Our area doesn't double either and I never pay for the cereal. It's still doable.

 

[labdogs42]

LOL Love your name ziggystardust!

The popcorn is just plain dry popcorn. We just pop it in a glass bowl with a cover and add salt and butter after it's popped. We never liked the fake butter flavors or the oily sheen the bagged popcorn has. LOL LOL

Good luck trying some new stuff. I was just so pleasantly surprised. Not sure what else I'll get brave enough to try though. EEK!!

That's it? Put the popcorn in a bowl with a cover and microwave it? For how long? I gotta try that!

ETA, I use cheap laundry detergent and I think it is as good as the name brand stuff. Any brand, as long as it is the "free & clear" version. I have tried CVS, Purex, Target, and Wegman's and they all seem to perform the same. I buy All Free & Clear when it is on sale, too. No more Tide for me!

 

[Green Tea]

The only things I don't like the generic of are Saltines (like the red box-Keebler??) Nilla Wafers (the yellow box) and Graham crackers. (red box)

I shop by colors.

 

[DisMN]

That's it? Put the popcorn in a bowl with a cover and microwave it? For how long? I gotta try that!

I know, amazing right? Yep, clear bowl with a heavy enough lid or cover that the corn popping won't flip the cover off.
Clear bowl so you can see when your corn is almost done. This is like air popped only it's not quite as dry...in fact I can nibble on this popcorn before we even butter and salt it!

I think you can pop corn in brown paper bags too but I don't want to set the bag on fire, which as I understand can sometimes happen.
I just stick to my bowl and lid and it works well.

I set the timer for just a bit over 5 minutes but my microwave is very old so it may not be working at full power. Maybe start at 4 1/2 mins?

 

[Swimnoid]

In my area one of the grocery chains is Food Lion. Being a brand loyal person as well, I started trying different store brands of things just to see if I liked them since they are a lot cheaper. I was surprised and pleased to find almost all of the things I tried were as good as or better than my favorite brands!

Some examples:

all the cereals, which go on sale frequently so I stock up then.
spaghetti sauce, they have several different flavors, all good
dill pickles, way better!
cheese
bacon
jelly/jam
cookies, their type of oreos are great!
bottled juices
frozen vegetables
canned vergetables
ice cream in the giant bucket,
really just about everything you can think of

Some of the things I didnt like:
bread, texture and flavor, ick, but I buy their buns
peanut butter, a little saltier and doesnt spread as well
baked beans...ok but not as good as Bush

 

[LJC1861]

We have found that a lot of the Walmart "Great Value" brand products are just as good or better than the brand name.

Our favorite by far is the Great Value Tomato Soup. It tastes better than Campbells and is only $ .54 as opposed to $ .95 per can.

We also buy Great Value paper towels, laundry detergent, yogurt, grated cheese, bread, hot chocolate mix, drink mixes and lots of other stuff. The only thing I have found that I do not like are their version of Pop-Tarts.

Linda

 

[DisMN]

Someone mentioned brands.........I guess I never looked at it as being brand loyal, it's more that if I eat or use non brand products I often don't like them. I tried switching my laundry soap trying several other products but dang, maybe it's our water here but I go back to my Tide every single time.

I wish we had stores that would double coupons though because I can often find fairly decent coupons on name brand products. Doubling the coupon could really slash the prices on name brands! Wow!

 

[Green Tea]

The store brand peanut butters are a no go with my husband.

Great value spagetti sauce is oily. I won't try that again. Greasy. Weird.

The GV party size lasagna, if you add a little more mozzarella on top is as good as Stouffer's. Different flavor, but as good.

 

[pezheadmeg]

I buy the bagged cereal over the box anyday. I actually like the taste better. Plus the bag seems to last forever.

And there's definitely generics that taste better. I'm a Pepsi loyalist but I so miss the Publix soda that I used to drink living in FL.

 

[SalandJeff]

Our area doesn't double either and I never pay for the cereal. It's still doable.

Could you please explain to me exactly how you do this? I am trying to save money, and when I read that people do things like this, I just cannot figure it out.

... I tried switching my laundry soap trying several other products but dang, maybe it's our water here but I go back to my Tide every single time....

I'm with you on the Tide...I have tried switching. My dd and dh get REALLY dirty, and nothing but Tide will get their clothes clean. I also notice my towels are not as white if I use something else. There are some things that I am really brand loyal on and I try to stock up when there are sales and use coupons.

 

[ilovepete]

Could you please explain to me exactly how you do this? I am trying to save money, and when I read that people do things like this, I just cannot figure it out.



Sure... wait until they go on buy one get one free. Then you can use a coupon on each box. So 2 coupons there. Most places you can do a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon, and some stores take competitor coupons as well. So if your cereal is $4.50 a box, you are already getting 2 boxes for $4.50 with the b1g1, then you take $1 off each box with the manufacturer's coupons, so that brings it down to $2.50 for 2 boxes. From there you have a couple of options. Use competitor or store coupons if available. Those will vary in amounts. A lot of times you can find different manufacturer coupons that you can use on the same boxes. Like $1.50 off 2 boxes is one I see often or $2 off 3, but for this purpose I'll just go with the first one. So that brings it down to $1 for 2 boxes of cereal. Now I usually can find store or competitor coupons for at least 50 cents so using 2 of those would bring me to $0, or less if I have better coupons, which I usually do. So, I actually make money buying them. And last month, there was a mail in rebate if you bought 5 kellogg's products, so I did that same deal above x 3, used same coupons, so paid $0 for them, AND got a $5 gift card.

We don't even eat cereal, so I was donating it since I was making money buying it, but then my husband decided he would eat some before work so we have actually been using it lately.