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Saving a buck or two is always advisable no matter what your financial circumstances. Sometimes it’s hard to know when to buy an original or a cheaper knockoff.
Thankfully, an AskReddit thread asked commenters to share which brands are just or almost as good as expensive ones. Maybe these tips will help you save some money!
25. Bass Pro Shop Gloves = Mesh Gloves
“You guys should see the stuff we deal with in the medical field.
I wanted to get a mesh metal glove to protect myself when using a saw during autopsies.
Our medical supplier, Fisher Scientific, sold the hospital a “medical grade” chain mail glove for $300. They forgot to take the Bass Pro Shops tag off.
It was a $12 glove for cleaning fish.”
24. Mr. Clean Erasers Truly Are Magical
“Years ago I was on a similar thread and found that melamine sponges are the same thing as Mr Clean Magic Erasers.
So I hopped on AliExpress and bought 300 of them for a few bucks at 3am. I totally forgot that I’d done it until they showed up 6 weeks later. My wife was really confused.
They do work great though and now we’ll never run out.”
23. Costco Brand Items Are Always Great
“Costco Kirkland brand is often white labeled brand name items.”
22. You Can Buy Regular Silicone for Your Aquarium
“Aquarium nerds will know this one – silicone.
Aquariums are usually held together with silicone, and silicone is just 100% silicone so generally predictable product no matter who makes it. EXCEPT, many brands for kitchen and bathroom sealing have added chemicals to keep mildew from growing on the cured silicone. This is a big no-no for aquariums (basically poison that would kill your aquarium pets). So you gotta read the ingredients and information carefully to make sure it’s not anti-mildew or anything dubious added.
Or, you can pay double or triple for a pack of silicone with a big aquarium brand stamp.”
21. Benadryl is Cheaper Than ZzzQuil
“ZzzQuil is at least a 200% markup from Benadryl.
The only active ingredient in ZzzQuil is 25mg of diphenhydramine, where’s Benadryl is also 25mg of diphenhydramine…”
20. Store-Brand Food Is The Same
“I used to work food packaging for Kroger. Roasted peanuts, dry oatmeal flavored or unflavored, cereal, chips. When we changed from store-brand to branded item, we would stop the line and change the box and the package. The food is the exact same. Exact.
Edit: for one thing, this thread was great to read. We all shared something today. Lol.
For another–although I thought it would be self evident–not every type of cereal, not every type of chips.
Those of you who love your brand. Fuck yeah. I get it. Cascade all the way. It’s better and no one is going to tell me different. But when we say there is no difference, we mean it.
Food handlers unite!”
19. Laptop Bags
“I was in a shop looking at laptop bags and there were 2 brands right next to each other that were exactly the same, same dimensions, colour, materials, padding, everything.
Except one was almost twice the price than the other.”
18. Frozen Pancakes and Waffles
“I worked in a frozen waffle/pancake factory once and the only difference between the name brand and off brand frozen waffles and pancakes was a little metal arm flipping back and forth to ensure every other waffle/pancake of the same bakery/freezer line made it to the name brand packaging line or off brand packaging line.
Edit: It wasn’t fucking Eggos.”
17. Crisps… or Chips
“In the UK, there was a news story about a man finding another brand of crisps (chips) in a multipack.
This made national news.
16. Store-Brand Batteries
“Duracell and Walgreens brand batteries are the same.
Source: I used to work for Duracell.”
15. Champion Shoes Come in a Cheap and Expensive Variety!
“Champion does this so much. They have like “cheap champion” and the more pricey one. Champion literally used to be shit and you’d get made fun of for wearing it and now it’s all hyped up but you can still find a champion shirt for less than 10$ I have three.
Edit: Thanks for the likes guys 🙂 I woke up and just saw all this and I didn’t know it would blow up.”
14. For Canadians, President’s Choice!
“A lot of no name or President’s Choice here in Canada is just as good, if not better than name brand food items.”
13. Aldi Products Are a Bargain
“A lot of food on Aldi is (at least here) overproduction from name brands which is labelled differently.
And one of the cheaper beer sorts here is entirely from overproduction. Which has the fun effect that you will always get a Pils type beer, but depending where you brought it, it is very different.”
12. Family Dollar Coffee
“I bought the family Dollar coffee the other day – the “aroma seal” said Folgers and it had Folgers imprinted on the side.”
11. Pretty Much All Bottled Water
“Dasani water is just bottled tap water. Most bottled water is, really.
In the UK they tried to release Dasani and news that it was just bottled tap spread quick. The release failed miserably.
Despite that, and the revelation that most of the waters in the store are this way, other bottled water sells fine.”
10. Store-Brand Bread (UK)
“UK my dad works for Hovis (bread factory) and alot of the supermarket homebrands are made by named brands.
I believe Hovis used to make M&S bread.”
9. Basic Printer Paper
“Printer paper. I used to work in a factory that cut the paper down to size. We would load up the packaging material for say Staples, do our run of that then switch packaging to the generic packaging without switching the bulk paper out.
The plain white package holds literally the same as Staples brand but the brand name is expensive.”
8. Spices Are Better At Ethnic Stores
“Supermarket spices cost twice as much for a third of the amount when compared to packets in shops for ethnic minorities.
I grew up black in a very South Asian community, so the idea of paying 2.50 for a tiny bottle of Schwartz when a full bag is .89…just, no.”
7. Dishwasher Detergent (With Exceptions)
“Great value dishwasher detergent and cascade. GV is literally the same but more diluted.
I won’t skimp on Dawn tho.”
6. Maserati Car Batteries
“Car batteries.
Same car battery from Maserati quattroporte can be found in some Fiats for ¼ price.”
5. Less Expensive Chocolate
“I use to work in a supermarket those Ferrero Raffaello coconut balls were fucking expensive.
There were cheaper brands that literally tasted the same. Also Mounds chocolate were more expensive than the Bounty. I don’t know why. But they tasted the same to me. My Supervisor always insisted on putting cheaper brands near the expensive ones. His logic they are the same kind of product so they should be found in the place.
What would usually happen is people would take the cheaper brands and the expensive ones would just expire on the shelves.”
4. Canned Vegetable Brands
“Canned Vegetables, often the only thing that changes in the production line is the label.
Commodities can be this way. Soda can be this way. On the flipside I feel Outlet malls have items made just for the discount Oulet Lines of fashion.”
3. Milk is All The Same
“Milk.
I was in a WalMart looking at milk and an old man stopped me. He said he retired from the dairy industry. He told me the same milk plant, from the same cows, fills different colored cartons, from the same batch. He tapped his nose and winked and said, ‘it’s all the same shit.'”
2. Girl Scout Cookies
“Girl Scout Cookies.
I have noticed that some grocery stores carry cookies with different names, maybe different shapes, but parallel to the Girl Scout Cookies, from a green box of chocolate mint cookies to a yellow box of shortbread cookies with lemon icing.
Probably the girl scout mafia will come after me for this post.”
1. Expensive Air Conditioning Units
“Back in the nineties I took a tour of a Frigidaire plant in NJ.
I was told half the air conditioners in the country were produced there, with different brand names put on them.”
Were you surprised to hear that certain cheaper items are just as good as more expensive brands? Do you think Redditors missed anything?
Go ahead and let us know any tips and tricks you know about in the comments section. Then we can all save a few dollars!
