Five things I will pay full price for
By now, I think it has been well-established that I am a cheapskate. I will use a coupon or buy off-brand products before overspending.
I generally believe that most off-brand items are almost identical and I don’t see the point of paying more for something because of a name.
That being said, there are a few exceptions to my rule of all off-brand.
Most of the time, I use coupons and stock up when items will be cheap or free, but among those things there are a handful of things that I will pay full price for.
Here are five things I buy name-brand for my household.
Detergent
One item that I am quite picky about is my detergent. I have tried several times to use cheaper detergent but nothing cleans my clothes like Tide.
To me, the smell of other detergents does not last near as long as that of Tide. My clothes can sit in a bag or basket for a week and when I pull them out they smell like I just pulled them from the dryer.
I also feel like Tide tends to go a lot farther with cleaning clothes than others do. I have a little boy and like any other little boy, his favorite activity is getting as dirty and sweaty as possible. Tide does a great job getting rid of little boy stink.
While I try my best to always purchase either the pods or liquid detergent ( I like both) with coupons, that is not always possible and I refuse to purchase anything else.
Breakfast food Like most southern families, we tend to bond over food, especially breakfast. We are too busy during the week to sit down for a meal, living on pop-tarts and coffee, both of which I buy name-brand as well, because they taste better than the store brand.
When the weekend hits, I like to take the time to cook breakfast
for my boys. Bacon, sausage, pancakes or waffles, whatever they want, I will make for them.
Because of the rarity of a home-cooked breakfast, we tend to buy name brand foods. It’s how we treat ourselves.
Trash bags
I refuse to purchase anything but Hefty trash bags.
As someone who tries to save money where ever I can, I have spent years of my adult life trying to save myself money by using offbrand trash bags (it is a lot cheaper than buying name brand) but it does not work as well.
Hefty brand trash bags have some stretch to them. They can give a little when you need to fill them full where cheap bags just can’t. If I tried to make cheap bags stretch, they tear under the slightest pressure. Some even tear around the drawstrings when I tie them up.
Tissue
When you're sick, the worse thing you can do is take a cheap tissue to your nose. Ten tissues in and not only is my nose running but now it is red and raw.
I know it hurts my nose when this happens. I can't imagine how Gideon feels when his nose is scabbed over from rough tissues. Because of that, I will always purchase Puffs Plus with lotion. I have never rubbed my nose raw on these tissues and it makes being sick a little less awful (well worth the price difference in my opinion).
Hair products
I know it’s hard to tell from any photos that you have seen of me, but I have very curly hair naturally. I am also in the process of growing it back out, so I need my hair to be healthy but tamed.
Unfortunately, bleaching it and straight-ironing it has done some damage to it. Because of that, I tend to buy very specific products for my hair.
Although I purchase drug store shampoo and conditioner, there are no Suave brand products used on my hair. I buy L’Oreal Total Repair Five. This product works miracles on dry hair to give it a softness that years of dyeing and bleaching have taken away from it.
Since I have curly hair, I tend to deal with a lot of frizz (something I can’t stand) and I prefer to buy salon brand hairspray and pomades. Currently, I am using Big Sexy Hair hairspray and Bedhead Mastermind Pomade.
Because I purchase salon products, my hair tends to cooperate better with less product so it keeps my curls from developing a crunchy texture.
Even for the most thrifty of people, there will always be one or two items that they will splurge on. There is always middle ground for any type of frugal living and these are five items that I refuse to
budge on.