I don’t use ketchup myself at all, and I don’t drink ANY kind of soda.

Mostly of our grocery stuff is fresh. Fresh fruit, fresh bread, fresh meat. We get a very few tinned items, which we keep for emergencies or when we run out of fresh.

We do get canned tomato sauce, but store brand is fine (we do practically all our food shopping in Publix).

Not on any particular health kick, but I really like Publix Greenwise Vanilla Soy milk. I can’t taste the soy – it’s more like drinking half and half, but it’s got to be that brand, the other ones they do taste like… soy milk!

I enjoy a beer some evenings, and I’m particular what I have. With all my food and drink I’m big on flavor, so the “lite” stuff, is out, and most of the megabrewery offerings like Bud and Miller.

Within reason I’ll pay more for something I enjoy more.

Same with coffee. I’m not any kid of expert on coffee, but I try different blends until I find those I like. On the occasions when we’ve bought the cheap store brands I can tell the difference for sure.

Don’t get me started on cheese. I’ve never found any cheese that lives up to real Cheddar. That’s real Cheddar from Cheddar, a small village in Somerset, in England. It’s wonderful, and even before getting to try some a few years ago, I though most supermarket cheese was bland… Extra Sharp, Strong? Oh Per-leeze!

The only cheddar style cheese that actually comes anywhere near to pleasing my palate is actually on sale in Wal-Mart where we seldom shop for food. Their Vermont Extra Sharp has a reasonable flavor, and that’s about the best I’ve found in the local supermarkets so far, without taking out a second mortgage!

I was always happy with the cheapest laundry detergent, but Hubby insists on Tide. His toothpaste is Colgate original, mine is Tom’s of Maine spearmint.

I buy as few processed/premade things as I can, but when I do buy them, I get the highest quality, which usually means the highest price. Also we tend to buy things at Sam’s, so they are cheaper but usually name brands.

Agreed that some cheaper brands actually have fewer additives – I just discovered that Falfurrias butter (I’m in Texas) is vastly superior to the twice-as-expensive Land O’ Lakes.

Not quite food, but it’s Crayola crayons all the way for me – you may keep the Prang and RoseArt and all the others – nothing says good clear colors like Crayola!

Most of the time, I do a lot of shopping at our Grocery Outlet, so our brands change around by what they carry that week.

Oddly enough, my fav. generic is Jafeera tampons, at Aldi. $1.99 a box, and they’re every bit as uh… sturdy…as Playex or Tampax. I hate spending big bucks on necessities like that; the industry has us over a barrell–we HAVE to buy them…

Everything else…cheaper is better

I do insist on good fresh fruit. Cheap stuff is small, unripe, and just not as appetizing. We get it at Sam’s club. It’s usually about 25% more than the cheap stuff at Walmart, maybe 10% higher than Kroger, but so totally worth it!

As far as the rest of the food I buy goes, I can go Publix brand generic on most things, except yogurt (Stoneyfield Farms non-fat tastes like the full fat version of any other brand). I usually buy whatever is the least expensive at the time I need it.

I agree with everyone else though. Name brand TP is a must. I had a roommate in college whose father worked for a company that made the god awful industrial TP with the wood chips in it that you could use to sand a deck. Even though we could have gotten that for free, I bought Quilted Northern every quarter. Worth it.