Its not humanly possible to write interesting things everyday. For many people this article might have been very helpful.

My Whole Foods does, but its mostly supplements and bath products.

I hardly ever buy named brand except for Tide and Crest(can’t go cheap there) but I always watch for sales and clip coupons for them.

For no-list shopping I love the discount clearance rack at the grocery store though! 50% of is the starting point on a lot of great food or bath products. Wish Whole Foods had this!

For instance, many Kirkland products at Costco and Trader Joe’s brand items are really contracted out to brands you know and relabeled. The best example is the Costco branded booze if you life somewhere that has it — their beer is Gordon Biersch or Saranac, the wine comes from reputable wineries in California, and the vodka is made in the Grey Goose distillery.

Seriously, generics aren’t what they were in the 80′s with the plain packages and bland ingredients. And with a few exceptions, most name brand products are really just marketing trying to one up each other with commodities. Notable exceptions are things like mac and cheese, toilet paper and soda, but even then it’s less of a quality thing (ok, it is with tp) and more of a consistency and chemical composition issue. I prefer Coke products and Kraft mac and cheese over say Pepsi or Velveeta. I think both are holdovers from my youth more than current marketing, and well, I consume so little of either that it really is a drop in the bucket cost-wise.

Now, if someone would put out coupons for bell peppers, or make it so I can afford a house in a liveable part of California, then we’ll talk.

I’d like to expand a little on one of the things mentioned, and that is the newspaper subscription. Yes, there are coupon inserts, but just as importantly, there are circulars from the grocery stores in your area, listing what is on sale that week. I read those thoroughly before leaving home. That way, I know what’s on sale before I get there, and I can have menu ideas in mind. For example, there’s a dish I make that uses fresh green peppers and canned tomatoes. If I know that peppers are on sale, and I happen to have a coupon for the tomatoes, you bet we’ll have that sometime this week.

Another good thing about the newspaper is that it probably has circulars for more than one grocery store. I do most shopping at one store, but I keep an eye on another one that I drive by on my way home from work. I’ll often stop in there to pick up a few sale items.

My wife and I don’t hoard, by any means, but we do keep a spare or two of most nonperishable things. I get them when they’re on sale, and by the time we use them up, they go on sale again, so I rarely pay full price for many items.

Regarding clipping coupons: It’s worth it, but only for things that you’d buy anyway. Many of the coupons are useless to us because we don’t eat a lot of processed food, we don’t have kids or a dog, etc. I might only clip 5 or 6 coupons on a Sunday, but that’s more than enough to pay for the whole week’s newspaper subscription. I also clip a few for items that our local food bank needs. We donate a few things every week, and combining coupons with on-sale items makes our tiny donation dollars go much further.

And one last thought about the newspaper. Read the articles too! I read it front to back, every day, while I eat breakfast. Being well-informed is rewarding in ways that go far beyond simple cost-cutting.

Also, many of these name brands are also affiliated with large, major corporations like Monsanto and others that often mislead the public about the safety or ingredients in their products, have human rights violations impacting their workers, and are so connected to the political/high fructose corn syrup lobby. I try to think about buying products that are in alignment with my values and I feel ok about having to spend a little more, or cut back elsewhere.

I get the sense that GRS’s owners keep testing the waters to see how much of this dreck the GRS community will accept. Call it out when you see it.

I also look for coupons when I’m purchasing an unusual or large item. For example, I wanted to get a juicer last minute a few months ago. I didn’t have time to price shop but a I walked into the store I grabbed their newspaper flyer and saved a little extra!

Store brand canned beans & tomatoes are fine with me. I don’t eat processed food or buy soda. There are exceptions, the store brand oatmeal is different tasting but I buy it at Costco anyway. I would use generic drugs. I think it’s more an issue of being scammed by brand name ads and I won’t allow that to happen to myself.

The only coupons we use regularly are from Costco– they mail them in advance and we can scan through the coupon book quickly and it’s our main place to shop.

If there’s something we already use that’s on sale, then we stock up on the item on our next shopping trip.

Most recently it was toothbrushes, and it was a good deal worth the 60 seconds to find it. There’s always something in that booklet.

However–I’d rather be shot in the eye than having to troll the planet in search of coupons for every little thing. Time is money.

I’ve found that if I spend the time that I would have spent clipping coupons, on preparing food from scratch using basic ingredients, I save more money and the food is tastier and healthier. I can spend the time chasing deals at the grocery stores or I can spend it in my kitchen. I choose the latter.

I do coupon a little bit, but nothing crazy. I do like that my grocery store’s loyalty card tracks my buying habits and sends me coupons for the things I buy most, often the coupon will say, FREE salad mix, or FREE bag of apples, etc.

For clothes, the Goodwill in the rich part of town has name brands. I have gotten Lucky jeans for $10, Banana Republic skirt for $4, etc.