Upsides to the Down Economy/ Buy Generics

Remember when Generic items came in white packaging with black letters? Well, they've come a long way baby! When generics first came out in the late 70's, I was skeptical. I first delved into generic products with paper goods, which seemed like a pretty harmless way to go. How much damage can a paper towel or TP do? When my kids were little, I would occasionally buy the store brand cereal, because name brand cereal was so expensive (paid for by those Saturday morning commercials shown during cartoons, I guess). Of course, they "claimed" it tasted different, so I would save the carton of Cheerios and pop in the Publix "toasted oats" cereal. Devious, eh? At any rate, these days a lot of my purchases are store brand and honestly, I can't tell the difference. Many store brands are manufactured on the same production line as the name brands, but since you aren't paying for advertising, etc... it is cheaper. When my family did a "We All Grew Up on McArthur Milk" commercial, we confessed that we usually bought Publix brand milk. Guess what? It was McArthur Milk all along. In a taste test by Consumer Reports of 29 different food categories, most tasters couldn't tell the difference between branded and store brand products. Even more surprising, generics actually beat out brand names in taste four times! Since store brands are 27% cheaper, buying them is a no-brainer. Cotsco now even sells wine and champagne under its Kirkland Signature Label. So, pop a bottle of Cotsco champagne and celebrate the evolution of Generics!