What Value things have you tried and liked?

DavidHayton

MummyEm wrote: »

Tesco value porridge oats. They are fantastic. Great for porridge, cooking and baking. Much prefer these to more expensive brands. I tend to stock up on a few bags when they have them in as they are often out of stock in our Tesco so guess they must be popular!

Would agree with you 100%. Oats are oats for goodness sake. I really don't see what you can do to turn them into a premium line. David

Balgair

Thank you everyone for this thread, it's encouraged me to try a few cheaper things! I've been pretty much exclusively brand-name only for the past few years, ever since living in my first flat where I couldn't afford anything better than the cheapest and had so many bad experiences it put me right off anything foodlike marked "value". Seems there's some good stuff out there though - I'm a picky eater so wary of trying too much at once, but had a few successes so far:

Tesco Value toilet roll - been using this for years; frankly I can't stand the overly thick ones now.
Morrisons value toilet roll - only tried this a few weeks ago, Tesco feels pretty cheap by comparison so think I've found a new favourite!
Tesco value/Asda Smartprice food storage tubs - they all hold food sealed from the air, no need to pay more
Tesco value baking trays - small size = pluspoint for figuring out reasonable portions of chips
Tesco value kitchen roll
Tesco value flour
Tesco value lemon curd
Tesco value/Morrisons value marrowfat peas - Morrisons ones are absolutely delicious!
Tesco value bourbons - tastes exactly like the expensive ones, thanks to the people who mentioned those upthread!
Morrisons value pineapple chunks - look a bit funny but taste fine

Ones to avoid (note most of these were years ago; I'd hope they've improved since):
Asda Smartprice toilet paper - it used to be pretty decent about 8-9 years ago but went downhill to the point where it shredded if you looked at it funny, and especially if it got damp, which was hardly ideal given its intended use.
Asda Smartprice tinned mince - looked like catfood, smelt like catfood, tasted like... well, I've never tried catfood but I'd imagine that tastes like this mince. Yuck.
Asda Smartprice white bread - blue furry bits within 2-3 days, bland and tasteless even when not mouldy.
Asda Smartprice cheese - blue furry bits within 2-3 days, sure, every brand says use within 3 days but more expensive stuff lasts 1-2 weeks which is rather more realistic for me to be able to actually eat it and not throw most of it out.
Most brands cheap square ham slices - all brands I tried would relatively often go off (smell horrible etc) before the use-by date, at least 3 times had them smelling awful on the day of purchase. Never happened again since I switched to the more expensive (not square!) slices.
Asda smartprice lemonade - fizzy water with slight chemical taste
Asda smartprice cola - fizzy brown water with strong chemical taste

You can probably see why I'm scared to try Asda again... I'm sure it's not really that bad but I'll stick with Morrisons and Tesco for my experimenting for now I think

GetRealBabe

Hi

Asda Smartprice cheese - blue furry bits within 2-3 days, sure, every brand says use within 3 days but more expensive stuff lasts 1-2 weeks which is rather more realistic for me to be able to actually eat it and not throw most of it out.

I found it really greasy. Never again

Asda smartprice lemonade - fizzy water with slight chemical taste

You could use it to descale a kettle.

Rebelle

In the interest of balance, last night I had Asda SP digestive biscuits with Asda SP full fat soft cheese and it was yummy, doubt it would have been nicer if it were real Philly and McVities!

Have also had SP mild cheddar before and not had a problem, mainly used it grated for cheese on toast, jacket spuds etc and it's been fine - much nicer than Asda's own brand cheese which is VILE! (Do get my cheese from Netto now though as it's about the same price as SP but better quality.)

Don't buy everything SP, but the loo roll is fine, so is the flour, butter, tinned toms, cashew nuts and tortilla chips, the 30p bars of SP chocolate are excellent for baking with but are equally nice to eat on their own, surprisingly!

Also bought some SP pork belly slices as an experiment, 4 quite large ones for about £2, roasted in the oven in a Chinese-style sparerib marinade and they were gorgeous! :drool:

[Deleted User]

I agree tesco's value porridge oats are extremely good value and as good as the dearer oats .I wait until the price drops in the spring, and buy several kilos at a time they are then around 38p a kilo.
Sainsburys basic shampoo and conditioner are excellant value and I decant them into different bottles as my eldest DD moans if she sees 'basic' bottles .
the boxes of sainsburys chopped tomatos are really good as well, and at 33p good value

princess_skint_a_lot_2

Hi all

there was a thread on here about the nice value range products that we buy but i cant find it. We already buy a few value things that are lovely, e.g 8p curry sauce from tesco and tesco value carrots biscuits and pots, but am looking to expand this a bit. Does anyone have a link to the old thread, as i cant see it anywhere.

kind regards

princess:beer:

BitterAndTwisted

Are you sure that it's not in the Grocery Shopping forum?

Penelope_Penguin

princess_skint_a_lot wrote: »

there was a thread on here about the nice value range products that we buy but i cant find it.

I'll add this to the thread so that you'll find it again

mcculloch29

Tesco do a range of low cost shampoos and conditioners which are wonderful - I love the tea tree conditioner, I think it was about 45p. I also really rate Tesco's Continental air-dried ham aka Black Forest Ham aka Westfalische Schinken. All these are basically the same thing, a really low-cost version of Parma ham or proscuittio (sp).
Tesco's tins of Value curry sauce sometimes appear on the shelf for pennies, a very mild curry that I like. The Value shower gel was 10p, I noticed, if I wasn't on the Not Buying Toiletries thread I would have investigated that.
It's a long, long time since I was disappointed by anything bought in Aldi. My weekly treat is a ready to drink chilled coffee that is some 40p cheaper than the equivalent in Tesco. Their Siana and Lacura toiletries range is great.

CandyB101_2

Tesco Value Bagels .... really can't taste the difference at all.