The quality thing is a big one. A 5 dollar t-shirt is a 5 dollar t shirt, and a 5 dollar Chinese pair of pliers is going to break in your hand. I manufacture clothing in Australia on a small scale and we keep high quality standards, and I totally agree that many labels sell rubbish at very inflated prices. Many designer brands are Chinese sweatshop and poor quality with a premium price tag and a "label". I have had an experience a while back where I paid $900.00 for a coat from a store in Paddington, they assured me that it was 100% wool. Soon after it turned into a dishrag, and I found a label hidden inside one of the pockets marked "100% synthetic". I don't sympathise at all with retailers (and wholesalers) selling rubbish at huge mark-ups, it is a greedy practice. I do sympathise with the retailers and wholesalers that sell a quality product and are being put out of business by those who flood the market with low grade look alike stuff from China that breaks and becomes landfill and has to be re-bought, something is not cheap if you have to buy it twice. I have to say that I have never found a $5.00 t shirt that hold a candle quality wise to a $12.00 Bonds, even after Bonds moved their manufacturing off shore. Once you have bought tools from Super Cheep Auto's a few time and had them break, or bought a teflon pan for $10.00 from X Mart and had it peel apart and then had to go out and buy a decent pan to replace it you soon get over the idea that cheaper od always better.
As a side note does anybody else find it objectionable that Premier decided to hire Mark McInnes after the scandal at David Jones. I refuse to invest in companies (you can add Premier to that list) where management lacks integrity. Eventually they will try to screw shareholders over big time or stuff up big time and cost them a lot of money. Either way it probably won't end well for shareholders in the long run. This sort of behaviour also goes to show that many in the business community are happy to do business with douche-bags.
Don't get me started on white flour. I wouldn't even feed it to the birds. And that stuff they sell as wholemeal in the shops. That factory bread? Oh my god, a mix of poo & piss (actually most of it is white flour if you read the ingredients). Can you tell I don't eat out much? Hah. Even when it coems to pizza (home-made of course), I can't stand that the shops use white dough. Argentum, hah...I know.
+1 on quality over junk. Regarding pans, look into cast iron pans. They are great and won't kill you and most of all, don't cost much at K-Mart or wherever. Just don't wash them in detergent and water like you normally would (I just rinse mine). Even heat distribution, food tastes great and they are heavy...will last a lifetime if taken care of and won't give you health complications like all the non-stick stuff does. Plus remarkably, things don't tend to stick to them half as much as you think. I guarantee you won't look back..
I've been buying 10kg sacks of potatoes for $6.80 for the past few months from an local grocer and stock rice for a little as 12c/100g when ever I see it. But $35 per week per person would still be pretty low, maybe more like $45 - $65 once you throw in some beer and clear skin reds. But with food, you have to keep an eye on the quality and risk of contamination. The incidents of plastic in milk product from China is never far from mind. Edit: As for clothing retailers, the industry has been sliding to the downside for the past 18 months or more and is not getting better. Not to be confused with broadscale staff reductions and flooding the media with advertising, or flogging a dead horse. :lol:
Being totally tight when it comes to food, I don't buy packaged drinks (very occasionally I go the juice), but I don't feel I'm missing out on anything being frugal; it's in the blood Bulk is definitely the way to go for food. 10KG wholemeal flour = $12. Organic about triple that price. Still good value. Absolute bargain considering how long it lasts me. I bake bread once a week and keep the rest in the freezer. Even if you only save $10 a week in food (a little over a dollar a day), that's $520 a year. Doing that isn't hard at all. Plus there's much less waste with packaging. Saving 2-3 dollars a day can put the savings $1,000+ per year. No small potatoes. Clothing, with the exception of socks, jocks and shoes (which I buy once in a blue moon), I get from second-hand stores. Great value can be had in some of them. Tightness: it's in the genes! (though I prefer to call it less waste)
