Monday, March 30, 2009

Brand Name vs Generic

So this is a poll for all you mom's out there. As my clothes get dingier and my floor is harder to clean, I keep wondering if it's worth it to pay for the more expensive things in life, ie Clorox and Mr. Clean. What brands do you guys think it's worth paying full price for? I general buy store brand food, and I don't notice a big difference in that most of the time, but I'm wondering if cleaning products, especially detergent, would be worth paying full price for. So chime in, I need my clothes to last!!

6 comments:

Jenny said...

I generally buy more name brand stuff. I really like Mr. Clean and I think clorox works a lot better on most everything than the generic. I always buy name brand windex too. We buy tide laundry soap and it works really good on all those lovely farm stains Eric picks up. I would suggest giving name brand a try for a month and see if the extra $$ is a noticable difference.

Judy said...

So, I don't know. I think on some things it matters. I did a project at BYU in one of my classes where we kind of looked into this and we found out for example that most of the milk at the grocery story came from the same place. They just put different labels on it. I heard the same thing about Mayo, my roommate SWORE by Hellman's mayo (which is big in the East I guess) and she found out it was the same thing as an off brand, from the same factory... but I know that isn't true in everything. I use Costco's version of Tide... and I like it and my clothes smell good. But sometimes my husband complains that he doesn't think they're getting clean enough -- maybe because I've stuffed the machine too full ;)
But I have noticed a difference in some things. I always mop with the lemon smelling pine sol because I think it smells good and makes my house smell clean.
Good luck!

Kris said...

I have the answer for you in regards to saving $ on laundry detergent. A friend of mine started making homemade laundry detergent and saved lots and lots of $ (she has 3 kids). I was hesistant to try it but thought...why not? So, I bought all the ingredients in bulk and I love it!!!! It cleans your clothes so well and doesn't leave a nasty smell at all! I make a double batch each time and it lasts our family months! I haven't had to buy any store bought laundry detergent since October and I still have lots of the ingredients left to make several more batches. If you want the recipe, go to our blog and click on Kristyan's blog under our "Friends". She has the recipe on there. You just have to search a bit because it was an older post of hers.

Sylvia said...

I too just found out about this homemade detergent from my cousin. I have not tired it yet but they said the same thing as your friend Kris. It works great and is very inexpensive. She told me it cost $.03 a load verse Tide which was about $1.75. She lives in CA so cost of living is higher but all the same huge saving! I was going to give it a whirl. Hope that helps!

TheTerry's said...

For cleaning products, I usually go mid-range name brand. Not too expensive, not too cheap. Oh yeah, hi, it's the terry's (sara and kyle). Jenny tipped us off on your blog. Come visit us at sarabterry.blogspot.com. You guys look great! Hope all is well.

kellebelle said...

So one time way back I bought a bucket of the cheapest cheap dry laundry detergent, and i definitely noticed the dingy factor after a while and swore off cheap buckets o' detergent forever. Usually I just buy the Costco brand liquid detergent (it used to be All brand, I think, then Kirkland made its own... in any case, a few bucks cheaper than the Clorox) and I have been perfectly happy with it.

As for floors, I don't mop much, and I think you have wood, right? No help there... though someday we aspire to tearing out all this wretched carpet and linoleum upstairs and putting in wood. However, if you do have tile/ linoleum to clean, I learned several years back in a married student apt. with a tough cleaning inspector that Soft Scrub works a lot better than cheaper alternatives.

Oh, and if you try out that homemade detergent, let us all know what you think... I'd be curious.

Happy cleaning! :)