Oh yeah, I don’t take any issue with going for a store-brand product to save money, if the store brand product is roughly the same quality or better. In fact I routinely buy certain store brand grocery products because they actually taste better than the name brand shizz! (Rice pilaf, for example…nummm.)

The problem lies with opting for the cheapest option, just because it’s cheaper, even though the quality of the cheaper product is horrible. You wind up spending a little less now, but more later.

As for being “frugal,” if it’s something like spending a little less on William Schallert Brand (er, CVS brand) that’s identical to the “big name” stuff (like autographed tubes of toothpaste or something equally disposable), that’s fine. But on bigger stuff it’s stupid. Especially since, as you also noted, the price differential is negligible at best.

I agree on “gas deals,” if you actually have to plan for them, they are usually not worth the money and hassle. Especially since (although they won’t always tell you this up front) the”deal” is usually only good for the first 20 customers or some such thing. If you hit upon a gas deal by accident, then it’s a real benefit to you — but how likely is that?

I used to not care where I got gas, but now I’m a little more cognizant of it. Even so, I won’t drive miles out of my way just to save a few pennies, because that comes at the added cost of burning extra fuel to get there so I may as well not be saving at all.

For example, a station close to my home might be selling gas for $4.05 a gallon. Filling a 16 gallon tank costs $64.80. A station eight miles away, meanwhile, is selling gas for $3.99 — which would cost me a total of $63.84. Am I actually going to drive all those extra miles to save 96 cents? Abso-friggin-lutely not. But there are people who will. When in reality you could order a smaller size Starbucks coffee one day out of the week and save more.

These are usually the same people who will by a shoddy product from a crap brand because it costs 5 cents less than the better-quality competition, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. When these people try to tell me that they’re “frugal,” I want to laugh. How frugal is it, really, when you’re replacing your broken stuff more often than anyone else because you always buy the crappiest thing on sale?

Some people have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees, having have no concept of “value” — only “initial cost.”

And only sorta related, but I love on the news when they try to publicize “deals” on gas. Not only does such publicizing result in insane lines that cause massive traffic backups, but in the end, is it really worth wasting so much gas to save 2 cents per gallon? (Especially since said “deals” are usually way out of your way?)