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Honestly a lot of stuff I like to get the nice version. Most packaged products you can get away with cheaper, but paper products you wanna splurge on, and produce you wanna get from a local store with good stuff rather than your local megamart when possible. A farmer's market or even just a neighborhood grocery store is usually gonna have fresher, tastier veggies in my experience. A little more expensive, but worth it.
The paper thing stopped being true in the past year around here. Name brand paper towels are now so thin, store brand is thicker at half the price. Q-Tips don't have the same cardboard in the middle, less cotton Kroger brand is closer to the old q-tips (but still a step down from what I grew up with).
Toilet paper is basically a toss-up, the nicer store brands are about comparable to the non-specialty name brands now. For the extra strong or extra soft, name brand still wins, but it's changing.
Real parm instead of the canned stuff.
Chicken breasts - you can get massive pumped up chicken breast for the same price as "normal" chicken breasts. The problem is when you cook the big ones, they just leech out all their liquid.
Plus they're so inflated it's hard to cook them properly
150% on real parm.
I’d also argue for getting whole chickens (and spring for the nicer ones too). Roast it, pull off the breasts and eat those, eat the drumsticks if you enjoy them, or use the entire rest of the carcass for making really good stock.
The huge ones are just gross.
I think "woody" is the technical term.
Fresh corn tortillas.
Tequila.
Haircare stuff
Husband bought "the good eggs" once and has not looked back since. I used to keep chickens and the bougie store eggs are much closer to those than they are to the factory farmed thin shelled light yolked ones.
I got a tortilla press and masa harina. I will not buy premade corn torillas again. Masa isn't that expensive, add salt, water, mix, press, and cook on a dry pan (or super lightly oiled, i put a very light layer on mine since it's cast iron)
So much tastier than store bought and better texture.
The best eggs are eggs from a farm that are unwashed and you keep on the counter. They taste a zillion times better and last for a long time. I get 3 dozen for 15 dollars at the local farm. It's honestly better than the store.
4-ply toilet paper.
If the IBD folks don't unite under this answer they are probably living with bidets.
No, just perpetually constipated.
Good ketchup Real butter, not reconstituted which should be illegal Good bread, fresh or at least not the cheapest stuff
Real butter for things where you can taste it. Store brand for things where the other flavors are more overpowering and don't really notice the butter.
Paper Towels and Trash Bags - the cheap ones just don't hold up as well
Toilet paper too! As someone who needs to use it for peeing, it likes to stick if you get the cheap stuff. Not fun!
For purely economic reasons, the less often I need to buy it, the more I allow myself to splurge.
So vegetables and my go to drink I consume everyday are bought the absolute cheapest, but that spice blend for those veggies lasts me months so I really don't care if there's a cheaper alternative.
Of course, expensiveness is measured per kg/litre, paying a bit more up front is always worth it if it means a lower price per kg (if you can consume it before it goes bad).
If I'm going to skin or peel the vegetable, I go with the cheap stuff. If I'm eating the skin then I go organic. I never buy the prewashed lettuce and salads when they are on sale because those have already started to go bad usually. And when it comes to things like berries, strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers I go with whatever looks like it will taste the best. Cheap blueberries for instance, absolutely do not hold up against the good stuff; life is too short for tart blueberries.
Spices are a great investment! Small independent Asian stores often have amazing ones which last way longer that supermarket ones. I don't have any shops like that near me so I buy on amazon and have found great ones there
Local
Whatever the product is, I'll pay an extra dollar for domestic (and especially within the province)
Coffee. It's something that I refuse to compromise on. It may be especially important to me because I like to drink it black. If it doesn't taste great without adding anything to it, it's not with drinking at all in my opinion.
Coffee seems to be one of those things supermarkets regularly price cycle.
If i buy 4x 1kg bags when it's 30% off, i rarely have to buy any at full price.
This doesn't work for artisan's coffee you buy direct from the roaster obviously.
Lube.
Pasta. It takes pasta dishes from "eh, it's food" to "this is really good".
Ever since I tried bronze pasta I cannot look at regular pasta the same way. I cannot buy that yellow stuff anymore.
Whole Foods, oddly enough, is the place I find the cheapest good pasta. Their store brand is less than most places and really good.
Farmer’s market tomatoes. I went through my whole life thinking I hated tomatoes. Turns out, I hate grainy tomatoes that taste like nothing, and real tomatoes grown nearby and picked ripe are wonderful.
I grew up eating garden tomatoes. Went to college, for the first time bought a grocery store tomato. Cut into it, tasted it... turned to my friend, what the fuck is this shit?
Absolutely. I was the same way then my mom make a margherita pizza mostly from scratch with tomatoes she grew herself and it was life changing
Tomatoes are also quite easy to grow in the summer and are very prolific.
Also in season are strawberries. The ones I've got are small and don't look good, but the taste is superb.
Both can be grown potted, and the strawberries are quite hardy.
strawberries are quite hardy.
They're insane. We didn't weatherize our beds for winter but the strawbees didn't care. They took over nearly the entirety of both beds. They also try to escape the beds occasionally.
Butter, life is too damn short to cook with and eat shitty butter.
Also anything that goes between me and the ground, my bed, my shoes, and my tires.
I can say from personal experience this applies to vegan butter too. Get Miyoko's, or Violife if you absolutely have to, but for all that's good don't get shitty butter.