WFMW: The Brand Loyal Edition

There seems to be an idea that if you are frugal, then you never, ever use brand names. You turn a blind eye to the bright red packages of Coca-Cola and head right towards the COLA PRODUCT bottle hiding on the bottom shelf. Yes, if you are trying to save money, you can't go with the expensive name brand stuff all the time with every product, but I am loyal to a few brand names. Luckily, I am still able to obtain most of these for far cheaper than regular retail price most of the time. Here's my short list of brand loyalties:

1. Coke: We don't drink much soda, but when we do, it must be real coke in the red can. When I drink real, delicious Coke, it is bought on hard core sale. This is about the only time we buy it. Water is healthier and cheaper!

But if you are a habitual name brand soda drinker, you can get it for next to nothing if you're willing to stock up when it is on sale. Our roommate drinks Mountain Dew every day. Pepsi products (like Mountain Dew) happened to be a sale last week at Dillons. The 24 packs were on sale for 5.50 each. If you bought two, you got a dollar off at the register, so they became five dollars for each 24 pack.

There were coupons in our roommate's last 24 pack (watch for these in packages of things you eat/drink a certain product a lot!) for .55 cents off a new 24 pack. The coupons will double to be worth a dollar each at our store. With two coupons, that means two more dollars off. With the coupons and the store sales, two 24 packs ended up costing $8, or four dollars each. Each can cost about 17 cents , which is far less than getting it out of the vending machine! Point being- just because you enjoy name brands does not mean you have to pay an arm and a leg.

2. Van Camps Pork and Beans: If I eat pork and beans, they must be Van Camps. I recently got eight cans for .19 cents each by combining coupons and sales like shown above with the soda example. Eight cans will last us a year- we don't eat them often- but the .19 cent yummy brand was still cheaper than the generic brand's everyday price!

3. Gap Long and Lean Jeans: I love these jeans. I love how they look, I love how they fit. I won't wear any other jeans unless I am desperate. I won't pay the Gap $68 dollars for them though! That's just crazy talk! My favorite source for Long and Leans is E-bay and Plato's Closet. I've worn Long and Leans for over five years, and I've never paid more than $15 a pair by using those two sources alone.

4. Scott Extra Soft Toilet Paper: It lasts longer. Even with coupons, it is still more expensive than generic or other name brands, but it lasts so much longer that I won't go for the other stuff unless it is free or nearly free. (It does happen. We're still working on the nearly free Cottonelle that we got using sales and coupons several months ago!)

5. Clinique Take the Day Off Cleansing Balm: To be fair, I've never paid a dime for this. $28 dollars is a bit out of my budget for makeup remover. My sister works at a very high end department store and is drowning in makeup samples, so she gives me tons for birthday gifts and stuff. I hated wearing makeup before she gave me this, because I hated scrubbing to get everything off. Take the Day Off gets it off in no time flat, and does not break me out. You also don't have to use very much of it. I have not even made a dent in the sample size my sister gave me, and I've had it for months. If you don't have somebody to score free samples for you, E-bay is a great source for stuff like this.

You can have the good stuff without breaking the bank! Just be patient, check other sources, and stock up on things that you use often when you find them at a rock bottom price. If you're interested in learning more on how to get rock bottom groceries, Crystal is still having her sale on her Supermarket Savings 101 e-course! Hey, getting the name brand goodies for less works for me!