One thing that seems to be rather common around here is distinct divisions of quality and price within the same stores. To clarify, there are numerous opportunities to go into one store and either buy things on the cheap or to class things up a bit. Much like when flying you have a choice of economy or first class.
Exhibit A: the grocery store. Tesco and Sainsbury's (and I'm sure other chains, I just can't think of them right now) both have 'regular' food items and their gourmet food items. At Tesco it's Tesco's Finest, at Sainsbury's it's 'Taste the Difference'. These product lines cover vast spectrums, from pre-made sandwiches to condiments to noodles and frozen entrees. For a little more money, you get something with slightly more pretentious ingredients and a heftier price tag. The down side of this is that if you just get a regular sauce there is the general implication it is made with cheap crap as all the good stuff is in the pricier version. For example, when I was at Sainsbury's buying cold soup on Sunday, I had the general option of paying £1.99 for their fancy soups, including root vegetable, or paying £0.99 for regular, which included flavors suchs as minestrone and potato and leek. In this case I opted for the cheaper as I enjoy minestrone soup and it was very delicious. I think things only get really complex when you have to seemingly identical items, like pasta sauce, where one is fancy and the other is not and you feel like you are having to choose between having a tasty dinner or not. And now that I think about it, Sainsbury's also features Sainsbury's Basic, which in some respects is kind of like slurry and/or cardboard.
Exhibit B: the clothing store. My primary example of this is Zara, where they have two completely separate lines: Zara Basic and Zara Woman. Zara Woman costs about 50% more and features more substantial fabrics, some classier designs, and usually occupies the prime floor space in the store. Like having a Banana Republic and an Old Navy under one roof. I think everything I own from Zara falls under the Zara Basic classification. While this to me implies they clothes are more likely to fall apart after two months, I'm just a bit cheap like that. Plus I think the Zara Woman clothes often go a step too far in their fashionable-ness when I need something simple that I can get away with wearing to work at least once a week.
There are many more examples of these divisions. Like, Marks and Spencer features 'everyday value' products which tend to be simpler and cheaper than other items (and more likely to include polyester). And I'm sure there are many others. I just can't think of them right now.
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3 comments:
I think it depends what you buy like I’m more than happy to buy Sainsbury’s basic tinned tomatoes as a tomato is a tomato! But I would definitely increase the quality of the fresh meat! Normally only get the good stuff on pre-made things…
Of course I’d be up for getting the basic toilet paper but girls for some reason have to get quilted or the one with the puppy!
Have they started playing the grocery store membership game? 'If you let us track your purchases, you can have a dollar off'. Or worse: Macy's. 'Get our 25% interest credit card and we'll give you $10 off your purchase if it's bar code ends in '8' and it's Tuesday and you stand on your head and whistle Dixie.' I'm afraid I said something to one of their checkers which caused her to respond with 'Mam, that's not appropriate'. Oops.
I think a good way to save on groceries and eat better is to cook from scratch and not buy a lot of prepared foods. It's suprisingly easy to make good quick sauces, for instance. We subscribe to Cooks Illustrated, and I learn a lot from that about how to cook quickly with good ingredients, plus they evaluate different products, and sometimes the cheaper one is the better one! The Whole Foods website also has a lot of good, quick-to-make recipes.
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