Ask Lemmy

Ben & Jerry's ice cream. As someone who's lactose intolerant, their non-dairy stuff is amazing and so worth the extra money.

Chocolate, coconut milk, tea, coffee, mustard.

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.

Canadian maple syrup.

I'm going to sound like a hater, but the food in season and local is what you should be eating, and that will always be the cheapest. If you're talking processed food brands and shit in boxes in the middle of the store, I'd argue none of it is worth the extra money, its all bad for you, stop. That said, the frozen arby's curley fries are bomb, and no one does cheesey things like cheetos or smartfood.

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.

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.

Olive oil, although it's not really 1-5 extra where I am. There's a lot of advice to buy cheap oil for cooking, but that's not really true. The truth is that a lot of 'extra virgin' oil is sold in an old, rancid state, and you have to upgrade into the mid tiers to get away from that.

Buy the best olive oil you're willing to spend money on, even for cooking.

Eggs. I bought the expensive ones once just for laughs and they taste great without the weird funk. Now I have my own chickens, and the eggs are better than anything in the store. It’s probably more expensive though!

Carrots and celery I always buy organic because they seem to take on the flavor of whatever they were watered with. It makes a difference there for me.

And tortillas, I get the local boutique ones instead of the national mass market ones. Big difference there.

Pasta. It takes pasta dishes from "eh, it's food" to "this is really good".

Paper Towels and Trash Bags - the cheap ones just don't hold up as well

Mozzarella (talking about the balls of fresh mozzarella you get sealed in with their brine).

Can't do store brand anymore after having tried Galbani.

Canned tomatoes. Get the good ones if you can!

Local
Whatever the product is, I'll pay an extra dollar for domestic (and especially within the province)

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.

Lunch meat. I eat sandwiches every day for lunch and I have tried all the discount store brands for various types of ham, turkey, and chicken, and it's all pretty shit, so I'm quite happy to pay the buck for the Hillshire Farms stuff cause it's the best.

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.

Believe it or not, top-shelf bacon. It's got more bacon in it. Less water. You're not paying nearly as much more per ounce of actual meat as it looks at first.

Lots of "organic" produce has a significantly longer shelf life than the basic stuff too. Never mind whether it's any healthier or tastier, I'm not saving any money if I pay a dollar less and it starts molding before I can eat half of it.

Good ketchup Real butter, not reconstituted which should be illegal Good bread, fresh or at least not the cheapest stuff

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).

Cream cheese. The store brand might be okay for maybe baking with, but you can't spread that excuse for caulk on a bagel and say it's anything near as good as the Philadelphia brand.

Silverware

The cheap metals taste like a magnet, have rough edges, and lose their appearance after a few washes

Kerrygold

All of them really. Once I find a brand I like, I'll stick with it. I'm usually not paying attention to prices anyway. I'll even go to another country just so I can get the proper brand of tomato paste. (It's not that bad, just around 15km away).

Huy Fong Sriracha. Just don't even bother buying any other bottle of "sriracha" sauce. It's not worth it. Your disappointment will be immeasurable and your day will be ruined.

Nice try, Kroger.

Just had some of the worst “store brand” honey mustard. How do you mess that up? Tasted like they watered it down by adding extra vinegar. Watery. Gross tasting. Lesson Learned.

I will add that I’ve yet to find a decent tasting store brand soda or sparkling water. I have no idea why it’s so difficult for them to get the flavoring right.