Prices keep climbing, so I’m trying to pick my battles in the supermarket. Which items do you refuse to cheap out on, and why? Taste, health, longevity, peace of mind… I’d love to hear what’s worth the few extra dollars for you.
For me, it’s honey from local beekeepers—supermarket brands locally are known to sell fake or adulterated sugar syrup as honey.
Coffee. It’s something that I refuse to compromise on. It may be especially important to me because I like to drink it black. If it doesn’t taste great without adding anything to it, it’s not with drinking at all in my opinion.
I’m two ways about this.
In recent years I’ve become quite a coffee lover. I’ve experimented with a lot of brewing methods, and got into small batch beans from independent roasters, with interesting qualities like being aged in whisky barrels (that one tastes and smells sooo good)
At the same time though I grew up in a family where the only coffee my parents ever drank was instant - a teaspoon of granules with some hot water and milk and maybe sugar. When I go over there to visit that’s what I’ll get, and I’m not going to turn my nose up at it. In some ways it’s got that taste of nostalgia lol.
I didn’t drink coffee for half my life because I was usually always around burnt, bottom tier coffee.
After moving largely away from whiskies and runs due to medicine I was on, I wanted a complex beverage to fill that void and gave some decent coffee a shot. It was of course worlds beyond most of what I’ve had anywhere else, and now I try different single origins every month.
But the real wild thing, is now I apply that tasting ability I’ve developed to diner coffee, and now the particular funk of a Waffle House cup gives me the memories of old road trips. The coffee from the local diner reminds me I’m home. Now that I can pick out one cup of low grade from another, it lets me appreciate the times I do go low on coffee.
Your comment made me think of the semi-famous Tom Petty coffee story from Rolling Stone. In searching for the article, I saw something claiming his daughters refuted the claims of his brand of choice, though still others claimed Mr Petty had personally verified it with them, so who’s to say for sure at this point. But anyone who likes coffee, Tom Petty, or some food storytelling should like this tale of a man and his quest for the perfect cup. For anyone that hasn’t read the story, I really enjoy it and think it’s a fun read and a reminder of simple joys in life.
The coffee story is quite a long way in, but it was an interesting read, thanks.
I guess the message is, things aren’t always good because they are objectively good. Sometimes things are good because of when we had them, and who we enjoyed them with. And that’s definitely true.
It does meander a bit, as it’s more a reflection of the author’s history with Petty on the one year anniversary of his passing that just happens to eventually settle on a tale about coffee perfection.
I like it overall as a tale about simple pleasures and what will people remember most about us after we’re gone rather than a guide on how to achieve the perfect cup. I have reservations about if I’d agree that was the best cup ever if I had been there with them, but that was what reminded me of the story while I was reading about you having a mug of instant coffee with your family. 😊
As a fellow up the arse coffee lover - I moved away from drinking fancy coffee every day. Not just because 250 grams are, at best, at 16€ and I drink about 35 grams a day on an average day, but also because it takes away the “specialty” if you drink it daily, regularly, ordinarily. I now have a go to coffee (pre ground even) that I enjoy drinking as my “normal” coffee and treat myself to a cup of specialty every now and then, and a bag now lasts me a month. I enjoy it much more and I save a lot of money - although my go to coffee is also not the cheapest crap.
I also started out with instant coffee btw - took some with me with milk and sugar to school in a small water bottle when I was a young teenager (and girlmore girls was on so I had to get into coffee). Just reading your comment gave me a flashback to being 14 and my mom giving me the “good instant coffee”. Memories and vibes.
Coffee seems to be one of those things supermarkets regularly price cycle.
If i buy 4x 1kg bags when it’s 30% off, i rarely have to buy any at full price.
This doesn’t work for artisan’s coffee you buy direct from the roaster obviously.
They said $1-5 not $10-20, half decent coffee is “fuck you” expensive.
Farmer’s market tomatoes. I went through my whole life thinking I hated tomatoes. Turns out, I hate grainy tomatoes that taste like nothing, and real tomatoes grown nearby and picked ripe are wonderful.
Tomatoes are also quite easy to grow in the summer and are very prolific.
Also in season are strawberries. The ones I’ve got are small and don’t look good, but the taste is superb.
Both can be grown potted, and the strawberries are quite hardy.
strawberries are quite hardy.
They’re insane. We didn’t weatherize our beds for winter but the strawbees didn’t care. They took over nearly the entirety of both beds. They also try to escape the beds occasionally.
Yeah, even just growing them are better. I thought I hated Cherry Tomatoes, but then I had some off my own plant and they taste so good.
Oh, home grown fruits will always taste better because you can let them ripen on the plant, allowing for full flavor development. There are cultivar variations too.
Seasonings are another crop that you can pot and even have on a windowsill in a tiny apartment. Parsley, basil, and oregano grow well in the same pot. Scallions / chives and Rosemary also pot well together.
Home grown cherry tomatoes were my favorite summer snack as a kid. Pop pop pop they go! Amazing!
I grew up eating garden tomatoes. Went to college, for the first time bought a grocery store tomato. Cut into it, tasted it… turned to my friend, what the fuck is this shit?
Absolutely. I was the same way then my mom make a margherita pizza mostly from scratch with tomatoes she grew herself and it was life changing
Yeah, this, but all the things, especially veggies.
The same plant can basically feel like an entirely different species.
Most of the time it just grew up properly (not maximising growth rate to lower the costs).
Eggs. I bought the expensive ones once just for laughs and they taste great without the weird funk. Now I have my own chickens, and the eggs are better than anything in the store. It’s probably more expensive though!
Carrots and celery I always buy organic because they seem to take on the flavor of whatever they were watered with. It makes a difference there for me.
And tortillas, I get the local boutique ones instead of the national mass market ones. Big difference there.
+1 to eggs! I dream of having chickens but have heard it’s a game of pros and cons
We just got chickens, im not sure they’re cheaper then buying but certainly more available.
I do have a constant fight with hawks though trying to eat them
Hawks, snakes stealing eggs, and then a fox finally did mine in :(
We live somewhere with a ton of hawks and coyotes. Our coop was our quarantine project so we kind of overdid it. It’s 8-by-16-feet, surrounded on the sides and bottom with heavy gauge hardware cloth and a metal roof. Nothing can get into it.
The run, on the other hand, is about 30 feet along one side, chicken wire and covered with bird netting. We lost two of our girls when someone made a mistake and locked them outside in the run. A fox dug under and took them. I added a skirt along the ground to stop anything digging in but it’s not as good as the coop itself
That’s exactly what happened to us. The coop was a fortress, but a fox dug into the run and it was a crime scene. Chickens need a big run but damn it’s tough to keep them safe. :(
I used to have chickens. Between the cost of the coop, the feed, medicine, etc. I’d say each egg cost us about $5. 🙂
A little exaggeration, but not much. The eggs were really good though, and they make for cute stupid pets.
The difference in eggs is a placebo at best.
I can tuck homemade tortillas though, definitely worth it.
That probably depends on how you’re cooking them. Runny yolk from good eggs is an order of magnitude better than the cheap eggs.
No. The only difference is freshness and how it retains its shape. It’s entirely a placebo if you can taste a difference.
Kenji did an experiment https://www.seriouseats.com/what-are-the-best-eggs and I’ve done similar with my friends that all loathed actually taking care of chickens.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. As someone who’s lactose intolerant, their non-dairy stuff is amazing and so worth the extra money.
Fresh corn tortillas.
Tequila.
Haircare stuff
Husband bought “the good eggs” once and has not looked back since. I used to keep chickens and the bougie store eggs are much closer to those than they are to the factory farmed thin shelled light yolked ones.
The best eggs are eggs from a farm that are unwashed and you keep on the counter. They taste a zillion times better and last for a long time. I get 3 dozen for 15 dollars at the local farm. It’s honestly better than the store.
I got a tortilla press and masa harina. I will not buy premade corn torillas again. Masa isn’t that expensive, add salt, water, mix, press, and cook on a dry pan (or super lightly oiled, i put a very light layer on mine since it’s cast iron)
So much tastier than store bought and better texture.
It’s the curse of discovering good food, once you make it from scratch, you never want to eat the store trash again lol
Pasta. It takes pasta dishes from “eh, it’s food” to “this is really good”.
Ever since I tried bronze pasta I cannot look at regular pasta the same way. I cannot buy that yellow stuff anymore.
Whole Foods, oddly enough, is the place I find the cheapest good pasta. Their store brand is less than most places and really good.
it is, even thier pasta sauce cheap, and at least your getting organic as well. thier more bougie ones are usually what people buy, Raos. i also have discounts for wf. i buy the egg wraps they sell now, but there are other places that sells it for somewhat cheaper, but its out of the way and inconvient to get to those other stores.
Real parm instead of the canned stuff.
Chicken breasts - you can get massive pumped up chicken breast for the same price as “normal” chicken breasts. The problem is when you cook the big ones, they just leech out all their liquid.
150% on real parm.
I’d also argue for getting whole chickens (and spring for the nicer ones too). Roast it, pull off the breasts and eat those, eat the drumsticks if you enjoy them, or use the entire rest of the carcass for making really good stock.
The huge ones are just gross.
I think “woody” is the technical term.
Paper Towels and Trash Bags - the cheap ones just don’t hold up as well
Yeah, if we end up with cheap trash bags by mistake I find the rim always rips apart when I go to take out the trash and I end up using a second trash bag anyway.
i noticed alot of instore brands, and some brands being sold on amazon are super thin so went to a local grocery outlet to get the normal quality ones.
trash bags, was very difficult to find, that isnt thin, they shrinkflation/cheapflation most of thier brands. Target had excellent trashbags, before they switched to dealworthy, which is more expensive if you notice the bags are now superthin and they sell the “up and up” ones at a markup. i went to Grocery outlet and got the same quality as the old trash bags with none of the bs of the shrinkflaiton on it.
Toilet paper too! As someone who needs to use it for peeing, it likes to stick if you get the cheap stuff. Not fun!
Local
Whatever the product is, I’ll pay an extra dollar for domestic (and especially within the province)Good ketchup Real butter, not reconstituted which should be illegal Good bread, fresh or at least not the cheapest stuff
Real butter for things where you can taste it. Store brand for things where the other flavors are more overpowering and don’t really notice the butter.
Having two butters to manage seems like a lot of work.
Mozzarella (talking about the balls of fresh mozzarella you get sealed in with their brine).
Can’t do store brand anymore after having tried Galbani.
It’s pretty easy to make those with some high fat milk, rennet, and cheese salt
I mean, yea. But it is also easy to buy them, they’re everywhere and fairly cheap. The Galbani one is also just 1€ or so more expensive.
To be clear, making your own is fantastic, it’s just not anything I’d want to do 2x/week
How long does it keep once you make it?
I’ve never managed to keep it for more than day. Presumably it’s pretty shelf stable in its brine for a while
Chocolate, coconut milk, tea, coffee, mustard.
shout out Ayam milk
For purely economic reasons, the less often I need to buy it, the more I allow myself to splurge.
So vegetables and my go to drink I consume everyday are bought the absolute cheapest, but that spice blend for those veggies lasts me months so I really don’t care if there’s a cheaper alternative.
Of course, expensiveness is measured per kg/litre, paying a bit more up front is always worth it if it means a lower price per kg (if you can consume it before it goes bad).
If I’m going to skin or peel the vegetable, I go with the cheap stuff. If I’m eating the skin then I go organic. I never buy the prewashed lettuce and salads when they are on sale because those have already started to go bad usually. And when it comes to things like berries, strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers I go with whatever looks like it will taste the best. Cheap blueberries for instance, absolutely do not hold up against the good stuff; life is too short for tart blueberries.
Spices are a great investment! Small independent Asian stores often have amazing ones which last way longer that supermarket ones. I don’t have any shops like that near me so I buy on amazon and have found great ones there
Instant noodles. I live in South Korea and there are gazillion options, from little more than a quarter(USD for your convenience) to almost $1.5 a pack.
Huge difference. I eat 2 packs per meal almost always and yes, it’s often 2x more expensive but I’d just not eat cheapest ones.
what are your favorites? would love to see if i can find them locally.
All of them really. Once I find a brand I like, I’ll stick with it. I’m usually not paying attention to prices anyway. I’ll even go to another country just so I can get the proper brand of tomato paste. (It’s not that bad, just around 15km away).
