this is an area where hubby and I learned from each other and reached an agreeable middle ground most of the time.
I was a cheapskate type person, I would always look at price tags first and make my decision based on price. He was the opposite, looked for the best a store had to offer, or make a decision based on features or color or taste.
I could also browse through stores for hours and not buy anything. for him there was too many items crying out, "buy me!"
a lot of the stuff that I bought, which was the absolute cheapest, would fall apart and I would buy it again and again. He bought good stuff so it held up for years and years. So I've learned to look at quality instead of just price. he 's learned that sometimes they put a lot of features on things that you won't use anyway so maybe the model just below the best is the one that has everything you'll need and it's lower in price too.
Grocery shopping was a big issue for us too. Being a typical cheapskate, I bought all the store brand, generic products. He had always bought manufactured brands for everything. He complained the food tasted terrible. I would complain about prices if he picked up brand names. It's been taste and decide through the years. I have to agree that on some items there is a big difference between brand name and generic. And he had to agree that on some things, the generic tasted as good as the brand name at a much lower price. So our grocery cart is a mix of brand names(higher price) and generic products. keeps everyone happy.
As far as saving, we've had periods where we could save and then usually followed by a period when something used it up. but it was good to have the money on hand to cover whatever came up. Better than using credit cards.
Sadie
