By the time my sister and I got to high school, my mom was running a full-swing real estate business and was working a lot. We had already begun learning to cook simply because quite often, mom got home late. My dad began to specialize in awesome stuff like Veal Oscar and his famous Kiwi Shrimp. It was around this same time that Mom turned over the grocery shopping to us girls.
We would make the list, decide on dishes for the upcoming days and then Mom or Dad would hand us a blank check and off we'd go to the old Winn Dixie in Irmo. Y'all remember that place? When they built that grocery store, it was monumental. No more trucking up Broad River Road to the old Big Star for us Irmese anymore! The cashiers all knew us, so we never had any issues using our blank checks. And, we never abused it either. We stuck to our list, for the most part. Every now and then we'd find something that jumped out at us and we'd indulge. But overall, we were good little shoppers.
So, here's today's lesson: Mom told us something very important. She said, "It's ok to buy generic. It all comes from the same factory. They just put different labels on it." Now, we all know that sometimes there is a difference. For instance, Aldi's brand of Cheetos just isn't worth the time of day. Folger's coffee is crap, no matter what label you slap on it. But for the most part, Mom is right. Take this example that I noticed just today:
See this butter? The stick at the top is Publix brand. The bottom one is Aldi brand. The difference in color is because I just took the Aldi stick out of the freezer. You'll notice that the fonts look exactly alike, right? Well, look at this:
Good ol' Plant # 55-360 packed both sticks! See? It IS all one big factory, just like my mom said all those years ago! The only difference is that a pound of butter is about $2 less at Aldi than at Publix. And, if you're one of those people who think you need to pay even more than the Publix price for something like Land O'Lakes, well...
We would make the list, decide on dishes for the upcoming days and then Mom or Dad would hand us a blank check and off we'd go to the old Winn Dixie in Irmo. Y'all remember that place? When they built that grocery store, it was monumental. No more trucking up Broad River Road to the old Big Star for us Irmese anymore! The cashiers all knew us, so we never had any issues using our blank checks. And, we never abused it either. We stuck to our list, for the most part. Every now and then we'd find something that jumped out at us and we'd indulge. But overall, we were good little shoppers.
So, here's today's lesson: Mom told us something very important. She said, "It's ok to buy generic. It all comes from the same factory. They just put different labels on it." Now, we all know that sometimes there is a difference. For instance, Aldi's brand of Cheetos just isn't worth the time of day. Folger's coffee is crap, no matter what label you slap on it. But for the most part, Mom is right. Take this example that I noticed just today:
See this butter? The stick at the top is Publix brand. The bottom one is Aldi brand. The difference in color is because I just took the Aldi stick out of the freezer. You'll notice that the fonts look exactly alike, right? Well, look at this:
Good ol' Plant # 55-360 packed both sticks! See? It IS all one big factory, just like my mom said all those years ago! The only difference is that a pound of butter is about $2 less at Aldi than at Publix. And, if you're one of those people who think you need to pay even more than the Publix price for something like Land O'Lakes, well...
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