As tax season nears, it may be a good time to look at your overall budget. Usually people find that a large part of their budget is spent on food. Do you know how much you really spend on food each month? If you find that you are spending more than you like or just want to find ways to spend less, follow my blog for the next few weeks as we talk about ways to save at the grocery store.

One way to start to save is by buying store brand or those products know as "generic". Often these products are exactly the same as the brand name, but usually cost less. However, I have had friends tell me that they think generic or the store brands have different ingredients or taste different. Over the years I have tried to investigate the generic versus brand name debate. On most occasions, I can't tell the difference. However I encourage you to try it for yourself. If you usually by the brand name, try doing a side-by-side comparison.

When making the comparison, here are a few things to look for:

Ingredients: Are the ingredients the same? Somewhere on the box all the ingredients in the product are listed. They are listed from most ingredients to least. Popular ingredients to look for are sugar, sodium, and fat. Sometimes a generic may use a different type of sugar or fat, but the results are probably minimal. Just as a reference, sugars usually end in –ose (like fructose or sucrose), fats have the word oil or gly in the name (like glyceride), and sodium is listed as salt or sodium.

Nutrition Facts: Does the product have the same nutrition? Again, look at the grams of fat, sodium, and sugar per serving. Are these numbers similar?

Appearance: Does the product look the same? This is the area that I find the most difference. Sometimes the generic or store brand may be a little smaller or it doesn't whip up the same way. In this case, you have to ask yourself, how much does it matter to me if the product looks slightly different? Most of the time, it probably won't matter.

Last week I was at the grocery store and had to decide between brand name or generic mandarin oranges. The generic were a lot cheaper, but I wanted to make sure the nutrition was the same. Turns out the brand name oranges had more sugar in it. It was a total win win by buying generic, less sugar and less cost!

I am always looking for a good buy, so email me with your generic and store brand successes.