Naomi’s Top 5 Sainsbury’s Basics Products

Naomi is a Miss Thrifty reader who blogs at Slender Means: a UK site dedicated to money-saving ideas and bargain alerts. Her blog has only been going for a few months, but already she has filled it with practical advice. In particular, I enjoy the posts about Lidl and supermarket budget ranges.

It turns out that Naomi is a Sainsbury’s Basics superfan, with a keen knack for scouting out the top buys. So I asked Naomi if she would be kind enough to share her 5 favourite Basics products on the Miss Thrifty Blog, with fellow Thrifties. And here they are… 

Hello, Miss Thrifty readers! Here are my top 5 Sainsbury’s Basics products:

5: Tortilla Chips, 50p for 100g 

As far as I can tell, original tortilla chips are made out of just three ingredients: maize, oil and salt. So, these are a perfect example of a product you don’t need to spend a fortune on. We eat these chips on ‘chilli night’: half the packet with the chilli con carne at dinner time, and the rest get tipped in a bowl and munched in front of the telly. They are very moreish!

Note from Miss Thrifty: I’m a fan of the Sainsbury’s Basics tortilla chips too. A little plainer than their pricier counterparts, these remind me of the chips served up by Mexican restaurants when we lived in Arizona. 100g is a big bag.

4: Soap, 50p for 3 x 125g bars

I started buying this soap for my hubbie who likes ‘proper’ soap. By that he means ‘not Dove’ or anything similar. (I actually like Sainsbury’s cream bar – their version of Dove – but since that’s not from the Basics range, it doesn’t make it onto this list). Anyhoo, yes, the husband has more of an oily skin type and he uses this soap on his face.

The fact that it cuts through any grease or dirt also makes it an ideal household soap so I keep a bar by the kitchen sink too.

3 (I’m cheating, it’s two products): Brown Sauce and Ketchup, 30p for 450g

Knowing that Miss Thrifty is now a northern lass, I might be on dodgy ground when I suggest replacing a branded brown sauce with a basic version. I’m from Southsea (and you can’t really get more southern than that, unless you cross the water to the Isle of Wight) so feel free to just switch your ketchup if you consider brown sauce to be sacred!

Sainsbury’s used to sell these condiments in glass bottles and, because I can’t be doing with trying to coax the sauce out, I would decant them into squeezy bottles. However, the Sainsbury’s Basics brand has been undergoing a repackaging recently and they now sell these in squeezy bottles instead. The price went up a few pence but I’d still recommend both.

2: Toothpaste, 25p for 75g

Some people might be a bit concerned about using ‘cheap’ toothpaste. Don’t be. I’m a gal who never misses a dental check-up, and when I saw my dentist in January he remarked, “Yes, nice and clean. No problems here.”

I’ve been using this toothpaste for a couple of years now so there is certainly no issue with its quality. The other thing I like about it (and this goes for a lot of Sainsbury’s  products) is that it’s BUAV approved (it has a leaping bunny logo on) so you can be sure no beasties were harmed during production.

1: Chocolate Mousse, 40p for 6 pots

These are a favourite in our house. What can I say? They are chocolatey, and yummy and cheap! Actually, there is one tip I’ll share with regard to these little treats… and that’s to turn the pack upside down before you buy them and check the container hasn’t split. The plastic is very thin and a bit delicate so be careful with them in your trolley. With this product, Sainsbury’s save money on the packaging but not on the contents…. and I’m happy with that!

What do you reckon, Thrifties? Any other Sainsbury’s Basics gems by which you swear… and which you think we should know about?