Grocery Shopping on a Budget: 5 Items to Always Buy Generic

Every grocery store and supercenter offers a generic version of most products, but it can be hard to know which ones are worth the price difference. As a single-income family, we live on a tight budget and that includes our groceries. We have been experimenting for quite a while with which items have the greatest value for the dollar. Here are five items that in my opinion everyone on a budget should be buying generic.

Cereal: The average box of name brand cereal can cost anywhere from $3-$5 and it seems like the boxes get smaller every day! Cereal is a great breakfast for families, but these prices can be prohibitive. However, with the exception of only a very few "high end" cereals you can find a generic version of almost any cereal. The price for these generic cereals can go down to often under $2 for the same size box and we could not find any difference in flavor when we tried many different kinds. The bottom line here is that there is no noticeable difference in taste and saving between $1-$3 a box will add up to quite a bit of savings for a year for your family. It's a win-win.

Over-the-counter medicine: Many people ask for generic prescriptions, but forget that there are generic brands available for their over-the-counter needs as well. The cost difference here is larger than for almost any other items we have found (sometimes over $5), however there is no difference in the actual product. We have checked and re-checked labels and they are identical and we have not seen any difference in the results from taking these medicines. I definitely recommend that anyone on a budget start buying store brand medicines because the cost savings is huge!