Saturday, May 11, 2013
Store brands
Most people feel the need to say the following sentence, pretty much verbatim:
"I'll buy store brands on everything except toilet paper. I don't want anything generic down there."
My experience has led to the opposite conclusion. Being a frugal* old coot, I try to go the cheap way, but most store brands have turned out to be disappointing. Generic canned soup often tastes wrong and sometimes is flat-out spoiled. Generic Windex smells funny.
Toilet paper is the big exception. Safeway's "Ultra Softly" store brand is the Platonic ideal of TP, the Goldilocks** of wiping. Just the right balance of rough and smooth to get the job done with minimum material usage and minimum irritation. Cheaper one-ply stuff requires way too much wadding, and the name-brand soft stuff is too smooth.
About a month ago (just after I praised Safeway for all-around competence!) the local Safeways stopped carrying "Ultra Softly", and my nether regions are unhappy. Please, Safeway, bring it back!
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*Footnote on frugality: Saving a few pennies here and there by seeking bargains and switching brands isn't effective anyway. You end up wasting time, traveling more, and often getting dubious quality. If you really want to live cheaply, you have to skip entire "normal" parts of life. Don't eat in restaurants, don't drink fancy coffee, don't own a car, don't watch cable TV, don't use credit, don't try to keep up with the Joneses. Those are the real money-wasters.
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**Footnote on Goldilocks: Yes, I know the analogy is faulty. It wasn't Goldilocks who was just right; it was Mama Bear's stuff that was just right. But calling something "the Mama Bear's stuff of wiping" isn't understandable.
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A month later: Yay, sort of! After trying several name brands with no luck, I tried Safeway's even more generic brand. It says something like PANTRY. ESSENTIALS. TOILET. PAPER. on the package, which reminds me of Milspec labeling. It doesn't match Ultra Softly, but it's still better than any of the Big Name Brands.
¶ 7:17 AM 
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*Footnote on frugality: Saving a few pennies here and there by seeking bargains and switching brands isn't effective anyway. You end up wasting time, traveling more, and often getting dubious quality. If you really want to live cheaply, you have to skip entire "normal" parts of life. Don't eat in restaurants, don't drink fancy coffee, don't own a car, don't watch cable TV, don't use credit, don't try to keep up with the Joneses. Those are the real money-wasters.
= = = = =
**Footnote on Goldilocks: Yes, I know the analogy is faulty. It wasn't Goldilocks who was just right; it was Mama Bear's stuff that was just right. But calling something "the Mama Bear's stuff of wiping" isn't understandable.
= = = = =
A month later: Yay, sort of! After trying several name brands with no luck, I tried Safeway's even more generic brand. It says something like PANTRY. ESSENTIALS. TOILET. PAPER. on the package, which reminds me of Milspec labeling. It doesn't match Ultra Softly, but it's still better than any of the Big Name Brands.
¶ 7:17 AM
