Ok I never thought I'd be the one to admit this but there are times in life when you can be to frugal!! Most of the time I'm a firm believer that name brands are NOT better than off brands and I had a really great time putting a certain brother in law in his place once with my "generic frito chill pie"--lol!! He was such a snob at the time and we were a very young, married with kids struggling family. Listening to him go on and on about how he would NEVER buy generic labeled food and that there is a HUGE difference in taste and quality of generics over name brand, and how buying his clothes at the mall guaranteed his were of better quality than those at the discount stores, left me with the need to show him otherwise. So I made a local favorite for our region better known as "Frito chili pie" I used the cheapest of meat, generic season packets, generic corn ships and generic cheese all of which I took out of the bright yellow labeled bags so they couldn't be identified as generic, and had him over for dinner. It had been years since he had had this and he ate 3 bowls full and went on and on about how good it was---all the time I laughed my head off as he polished off the last of it. Then me being me I gleefully informed him he had just eaten generic food and showed him the bags--lol!! It was the best fun I'd had in a while at the time and I will always remember the look on his face as he enjoyed his humble pie--lol!!!!
So the frugal streak in me continues to this day but this time the joke is on me!! I have a dry eye condition along with some other things going on in my eye and the specialist recommended these eye drops that you can only purchase through an eye care professional. I bought one box to the tune of $22 for 30 vials which only last about three weeks if I use them as much as the doctor wants me to and thought they were great and did notice a big difference in the comfort of my eyes. But at $22 a box and needing to use more than one box a month I thought I surely could find something over the counter that was a thick and cushioning as these were. I went to the discount store and found a box of THICK eye drops for severe dry eyes that where only $12 for a box of 30 vials. I was gleeful as I left thinking I was saving a huge amount per month and went home to try them out. This box advertised all the same comforts and benefits of my "doctor recommended eye drops" and even included the caution that they would make your vision blurry when you first place them in our eyes because they are so thick. I figured they would be the exact same as the expensive ones but one drop in and there was a difference!!! The cheap drops are like putting in liquid silicon and the blurriness lasted several minutes not 30-40 seconds like the doctor drops. After about 10 minutes the comfort these drops provided wore off and my eyes HURT and BURNED---it's 15 hours later and they still feel uncomfortable!! It feels like a layer of something was placed on my eyes and then someone SCRAPED it off---ugh!!!
I'm stuck at the house with my two boys and grandson, I'm out of the good eye drops and no way of running to the eye specialist to purchase some more until late afternoon. I have learned my lesson to listen to the doctor and do what he wants and not worry about the money!! Sometimes it's well worth the extra few dollars!! I only hope that I didn't make the eye condition worse by using the cheap stuff. Lesson learned!! I humbly repent for thinking I knew better than the man that spent YEARS becoming a specialist.
But I think we will have cheap chili pie tonight for dinner just to remind me that sometimes fugal is just as good--lol!!
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