Shoes. You don't end up saving money and it's not worth the pain. I tried for years back when I couldn't afford a thing and concluded that there's simply no such thing as cheap good shoes.

Chocolate. Really cheap, off-brand chocolate is horrific, waxy, and has some weird aftertaste, like mint when it isn't supposed to be, or ketchup (for real).

Soy sauce, Kikkoman isn’t going to be beat by a store brand. Likewise with Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce.

Q-Tips. Every alternative I've ever tried fucks it up somehow. too much cotton that it comes off, not enough and it's scratchy, cardboard sticks that dissolve the second a single drop gets on them, or plastic ones that don't hold onto the cotton (which is, as discussed, almost certainly already inadequate), and the weight and balance are always off too. Now, I ain't trying to impact my earwax here (which is very annoying BTW), but nobody only cleans the outside with the Q-Tip.

Plastic food storage bags, at least since I saw this: https://lemmy.world/post/13153346

Mmm, marinated chicken with a pinch of PFAS.

Anything that you need to have working when you need it.

Ketchup is always Heinz and mayo is always Kewpie .

Screwdriver bits, any type of storage — drives or pendrives, PSUs.

Coffee, some snacks (like cheap/unknown brands of chips or chocolate) can be really terrible, even some spices.

Mt Dew.

Dr. Pepper.

It's the only thing I can think of that has tons of copy-cats but not one of those copy-cats comes even remotely close to replicating the original.

Pop tarts. I've been burned by too many off brand toaster pastries to ever trust any other brand.

Mayonnaise. I'll get more expensive gourmet kinds or make it, but won't step down.

Also ranch, ricotta, mozzarella. There are a couple of each of those I'm willing to buy, but store brand doesn't have any of the flavor.

Heroin

Ketchup.

I had knockoff coco pops once and they tasted like cardboard

Botox. I got paralyzed from the waist up. Everyone calls me Riverdance now.

Mountain Dew. Fuck Culver's and any other restaurants switching to Coke products

Hmm, regarding food... I'm not sure if there's anything. Some things I don't like, but we have multiple supermarkets with different store brands and usually there's at least one store brand somewhere that I don't exclude.

But laptops would be an example for me. I really like enterprise hardware more than a generic and slow Wallmart laptop made from cheap components. And it'll probably last me longer and be cheaper in the long run.

The prices have become insane, but I will never cheap out on toilet paper. This is a Charmin household gdi.

Also JIF peanut butter, and Hellmann's mayo.

Paper towels. Nothing quite compares to bounty.

Chunky peanut butter - generic creamy seems to be fine, but I've never had a good store brand of chunky. They are always just slightly off somehow. Most often they're too dry, but I've had some where it tasted like the peanuts were burnt.

Cream cheese. If it's not Philadelphia, it just isn't quite right. I've tried every other brand, and I've, so far, always been disappointed.

Clothes. A lot of tiny local stores here have clothes hung on racks in between the aisles and the checkout, mostly things like t-shirts, hoodies celebrating the local town, and occasionally uniforms when schools like mine have one. Aside from the latter, they'll often feel like they fit on some parts of the body but not others, meaning they'll never actually fit. Being a small store also means they won't let you just try one on.

Irn-Bru. The store brands are passable and I would accept them if offered, but the real thing is much better.

Cottage cheese. Store brand has a bunch of additives and odd things in it.

Additives and preservatives are usually my decision maker. Yuka app is pretty handy.