I'm going to say what needs to be said: if you go to a restaurant to order pasta you are a sucker.
It may seem like a good deal, but it's not. You've seen pasta in the grocery store: it's extraordinarily cheap. If you were really really frugal, you could live on pasta every day and barely spend anything.
Possible Flurries and I just had a massive spaghetti meal featuring broccoli in the sauce and cheese bread on the side. I estimate the meal cost us $4.25 combined. Combined! If we got that at a restaurant, I'd expect it to cost around $8 each. And all it took was a little effort to cook.
So don't be a sucker. There are some things that can be cost effective to purchase at a restaurant (it would be hard to reproduce a Subway veggie sub at home for the cost you can get it at the restaurant. Now I'm going to go throw up because I just called Subway a restaurant. Someday, when this blog really devolves, I'll start sharing stories of the summer I worked at Subway). But pasta is not. If you want to make a killing, open a restaurant that serves pasta. The raw products cost little, but if you cook it, people will pay you a lot for it.
But don't go to a restaurant to overpay for a meal you could easily throw together yourself. Because it takes little to no skill and very little effort to make freaking spaghetti. Any rube can make spaghetti, and make it very cheap.
And now for discussion. Several months ago, WCCO did a story on generic and store brand products. One question Ben Tracy asked people was "Is there anything you wouldn't buy generic?" And that's a good question for this blog, since generic and store brand products are a necessary aspect of a frugal life.
So I'm turning this question to our readers.
Is there anything you wouldn't buy generic? What products do you require brand name only?
For me there are two: ketchup and beverages. I only want Heinz ketchup, and I don't want any generic pop, or any generic iced tea, or anything generic I have to drink (other than booze: only the cheapest gin for me, thank you very much).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Here's the thing with pasta, though -- it isn't the noodles that are interesting. It's the sauce. If I want red sauce and meatballs, basil pesto, or even alfredo? That I can make at home. BUT -- if I want seafood linguini with scallops and squid and clam sauce, I'm happy to pay a restaurant 16 bucks for it. It would cost me a lot more to make at home.
ReplyDeleteEating cheap is not brain surgery, sure. But eating well on the cheap is a different story.
Cream cheese needs to be name-brand for me. There is nothing grosser than generic cream cheese.
ReplyDeleteGeneric pop is gross, but I still drink it. I don't like it, but I drink it when I can't get a decent sale.