To ask your "same but cheaper" hacks?

[Fishface77]

I've read that
Blue tin Nivea is a cheaper version of creme de la mer so I've bought 3 tins!

Please can Anyone recommend anything that is as good as the branded version but cheaper?

Lidl perfumes are good bootlegs of Chanel (No.5 and Mademoiselle I think).

Primark sensitive facial wipes are great - very effective and doesn't irritate my skin. At two packs for a quid are cheaper than buying clearer, toner and cottonwool.

Love this thread, thanks OP!!!

Mine is the MUA make up range they sell in Superdrug, it's really good and a fraction of the price of branded products!!

Aldi for Prosecco, nuts, crisps, wine, cider, cereal bars, fruit drinks

Need to take a day of work and go to Aldi i think! Some fab stuff in there!
Used their nappies which are wonderful and their pasta and sauce sachets are great for a quick snack!

I suspect M&S ground coffee is made for them by Taylor's of Harrogate, the house blend tastes just like ToH Italian. Often 20% off with the Sparks card.

Aldi Abbot & Broome hand wash smells just like Molton Brown.

Waitrose hot cloth cleanser is a good substitute for Liz Earle at a fraction of the price.

Does anyone use Aldi Lacura cream. Is it any good?

I bought DH a "razor sharpener" thing off amazon for Christmas one year. He swears by it now as his razor blades last ages (like months rather than weeks). It's just a silicon thing that you run your razor up and down, I think it cleans the blade making it feel sharper/shave closer.

If you like Hellman's Mayonnaise then try the Aldi one as taste the same too me. These are the only brands of mayo I'll eat as all others taste rank.

Waves @HelsinkiLights sorry, not been on this thread for a while!

Waves back @Vanilla

Marking place

I've got the Aldi Lacura day cream and night cream and rate it highly (dry, mature skin aka i'm an oldie!).

@VanillaSugar - yes I do and have done for years. I used the one in the white bottle (for normal skin) as my face moisturiser and the one I found the blue bottle (for dry skin) on my body. It's my little secret, everyone assumes I uses very expensive face creams, I do have excellent skin even if I do say so myself .

I read about using lanacane anti chaffing cream as a primer on here and I made the switch from smashbox. Best beauty tip ever, exactly the same ingredients, larger tube at a fraction of the price!

I find Aldi washing up liquid better than fairy, it's more sudsy and lasts way longer. It's been a while now since I needed them, but I switched from pampers to their mamia nappies and wipes when dd2 was a baby and I couldn't believe the quality, way better than pampers imho. We still buy their wipes now and dd2 is 6.

We buy branston beans instead of Heinz, we prefer it and often it's cheaper. Costco Kirkland triple satin toilet paper is the bees knees of toilet papers. The rolls are biggger than standard toilet papers and they are super thick and soft. Won't buy anything else now. Ditto Kirkland dishwasher tables, about half the price of Finish and does a far better job.

Whoever said about Aldi wotsits and Norpak are comparable to their branded equivalents - I've not found this to be the case at all. Norpak tasted bland and was very hard to spread. Their own brand wotsits tasted very artificial and the kids wouldn't touch it.

I agree with buying generic paracetamol, but I've stopped buying cheap ibruprofen. They might be the same active ingredient but they take far too long to start working for me whereas nurofen always seem to do the job

I apologise if someone's already said this one, but if you don't have access to a Lidl/Aldi and are forced to shop in a big Sainsburys then their "world food" section is often way cheaper for spices, tinned veg, nuts, pulses etc.

I love the morrisons mayonnaise it is really tasty and just as good as branded. as for coffee I love Carte Noir, you can get a jar of it for £2 in poundworld I think it is.

Aldi Lacura brought me out in a rash!

Aldi Almat washing detergent is just as good as Persil IMO and less than half the price.

Bourjois Rose D'Or blusher is like Nars Orgasm, lasts a lot longer too.

Another vote for Aldi Mamia nappies way better than any other brand (we don't even have Aldi in Northern Ireland but my lovely NDN is a sales rep who is in the south a few days a week) also DH likes their whiskey.

Lidl nappies are better than Pampers and any of the Sainsburys ones, and much cheaper.
Lidl dishwasher tablets are better than Finish and much cheaper, and their rinse aid and salt, or Sainsburys ones, ditto.

Lidl veg is cheap but won't last as long (some has been to another supermarket, not sold, and been repackaged for Lidl), so if you are going to use it that day, stock up.

Lidl lasagne is as good as the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference and 1/3 the price.

Someone recommends body shop instablur on another thread as a primer

Another massive vote for Aldi WU liquid and a bigger one for the DW tablets.
Next perfumes are fine for day use.
And Zoflora cotton wools instead of expensive Reeds.
I also find Garnier Micellar better than Decleor.
And this one hurts a bit - holidays, daytime t-shirts for boys - £1.50 in Primark ready folded! £15, you're done and folded!
*scuttles back to Jonnie Boden guiltily...

Re: pet insurance - just because the same insurer is behind the brand name, doesn't mean that it will be identical. The only way for you to decide if it works for you to switch, is to have a look at the T&C and compare excesses, limits of cover, exclusions etc.

Re: makeup - I love my Asian beauty stuff from eBay. I have a mix of pricier items (MAC, Olay Regenerist, Hylamide, Clinique), some Asian stuff which is brilliant and incredibly good value for the 'punch' it gives. I've also got some budget stuff which is great - the M&S Formula milk cleanser with hyaluronic acid is lovely and only £6 for a pump bottle. The Aldi Lacura serum is good and I really like the caviar day and night creams that they do as well.

Top tip - pick up your spices and 'world food' items from the world food sections of the supermarket, rather than the dedicated shelves for Indian, Chinese etc. You can get them even cheaper if you go to the international supermarkets but it's out of my way so not a great time or money saver. I wanted coconut milk and cinnamon sticks - went to the Asian food section and got a tin of coconut milk for less than a quid (when the 'Blue Dragon' one a couple of aisles on was almost double the price). Massive packet of huge cinnamon sticks was less than half the price of the tiny little Schwartz jar in the herbs and spices section.

Don't know if anyone has mentioned poundland for food. I buy coffee, instant hot chocolate, branston baked beans, bacon, gammon steaks, cathedral cheddar, all for £1.
My other tip - I use Ted Baker body spray (£6/bottle) instead of perfume. I prefer it anyway because it's much lighter.

EBay make up is more often than not fake. There was a news story a while ago which analysed it and found it contained lead, arsenic and even rat droppings.

I like to save a few quid like anyone else but there is no way on earth cheap mac and the like it's going anywhere near my face.

In answer to earlier poster who asked for good ground coffee recommendations I would firstly ask what type of coffee it is for i.e expresso or filter?

I consider myself to be a bit of a coffee snob but as my partner and I drink a lot of coffee we can not afford to go to the boutique roasters.

If you like Columbian taste profiles I would recommend M+S house blend.

If you wanted to get into fresh coffee buy a grinder and my go to brand right now is coffee masters 100% arabica blend. It is freshly roasted and is £13 per kilo delivered from amazon. For the price of supermarket coffee you are getting something far superior. Once you start drinking freshly roasted you will have a hard time going back to supermarket stuff.

My partner and I have many low cost brands we go to for flavour or ingredients over name brands.

Lidl pasta sauce with parmesan is the best pasta sauce I have found at a reasonable price. Although it does have quite a lot of heat from chillis.

Lidl jams have a very high fruit content at 50% and are much nicer than many name brands at twice the price.

We like to go to the local chinese stores in town to get all our aisan ingredients like soya sauce/oyster sauce wonton skins etc.

We also often good independent health food store are much better price and freshness for spices.

There are many more and I will update this post when they come to me.