I’ve got great news! I just saved a bunch of money on my grocery bill!

I used to be a grocery snob. You know the type, those people who fall for the raz-mataz of a “name brand.” I’d go grocery shopping and look down my long, anglo-germanic nose at “those people” with the store labels in their cart. Well a funny thing happened on my way to insolvency… I decided to try and save a little money.

There are several ways to solve a budget problem:
1. increase income;
2. decrease expenses; or,
3. die.

I’m a happy-go-lucky civil servant, so that rules out two options…

So I decided to take a looksie and see where my budget could stand some shaving. As it turns out groceries are one of our biggest monthly expenses; and somewhere between gluttony and malnutrition there’s some wiggle room. So I went to the store this afternoon and set aside my petty bias and had my self a generic brand ho-down. It wasn’t until I was checking out that I noticed that my cart looked like something out of science fiction. Where else do you see a collection of different kinds of food in nearly identical packaging and labeling. All I could think of were those scenes from Lost where they discover caches of Dharma Initiative food stuff, with the identical, generic black and white labels. So far so good though, I did save some money.

Now we just have to see if the stuff is edible.