It's no big secret that I am fairly frugal. I am a strange combination of my mom and my dad. Basically, I'm cheap, but I still always want a new pair of shoes. Luckily, I think my penny-pinching mama and responsible husband have helped me to not overspend (with one exception).
Starbucks.
Anyway, I am a Kroger shopper. This is only because there is a huge Kroger marketplace by our house. It is pretty stinking amazing, but I do wonder why anyone would ever decide to buy their living room furniture at a grocery store.
An old "Ten on Tuesday" question asked about brand name loyalty. I thought to myself, "I don't really have loyalty to any brand." Wrong. I am pretty loyal to the Kroger brand. I have amazed myself with the things I will buy generic now. What?! Coke costs four dollars for one twelve pack?! Hello, Big K. You cost half the price. The next better step would obviously be to stop drinking cokes, but this post isn't about addiction. Confession: it gets worse. I never, ever thought I would do this, but I blame Dave. He swears that he doesn't like good toilet paper. By "good" I mean Cottonelle. I figured I would buy Cottonelle forever, but Dave said one day "if you want to buy that, fine, just buy me the other stuff." He actually requested cheap tp! But then I found myself in the bathroom tissue aisle... No sales. Commence internal struggle. Eight dollars or four dollars, eight dollars or four dollars?! We now have Kroger toilet paper.
But wait. There is another generic brand I should mention. Private Selection. See how nice it sounds? It even has a nice cursive font. Private selection. This item was selected privately for me. I consider this to be the fancier generic brand, obviously. I figure this privately selected grated cheese came from the cow just across the way from the Kraft farm..
When I think about how brand name food could potentially be better, I just remind myself that we are probably all going to die from cancer because of red dye 17 or something. Gah! #17, we didn't see it coming!
I should probably stop this here, because I already sound crazy. But there is something I finally realized about myself. My shopping weakness lies here: toiletries. Skincare products get me every time. My mom's house used to be a graveyard for half-used body washes, because I would buy one then move on to another before finishing the first. Advertising works on me. I flip through a magazine and I just know that if I buy this face wash, it will change my life. I will never have a zit again. That body lotion with oil mixed in is going to be the thing that transforms my skin into something awesome! Hey look! The picture on the left shows alligator skin but the lotion makes it silky! I need that! One time, I really thought that one of those iso-active toothpastes would be a life-changing experience for me, so I bought it. You know what happened? I stopped using it because I felt like I was brushing my teeth with shaving gel.
The moral of this story is, I shouldn't write blog posts after 9:00pm.
All I can say is W-O-W to off brand toilet paper. I hate to admit it but I have brand loyalty to several different items, especially when it comes to grocery shopping. There will never be an off brand soft drink in our house or anything other than Hunts ketchup. This has actually peaked my interest and I think I might try the store brand next trip to see if Mark notices the difference. I am a loyal Kroger shopper just like you, and I must know where this Super Kroger is located.
ReplyDeleteI'm sticking with Cottonelle. Nothing chaps my a$$ worse than cheap TP. (It's after 10 pm, so all the children should be in bed by the time this thing posts.)
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