Wednesday 11/11/09: Undo your brand loyalty

Brand loyalty is the term advertisers use to describe the situation where a certain brand has won you over, so you keep buying that brand. It's especially common with cars and clothes. Once a Toyota owner, always a Toyota owner, and so forth.
If you're serious about saving money, you've got to get out of the mindset that you have to have a certain brand of everything. Now, for some things I really do. I love my Schick Quattro Pro razor. Generic canned corn tastes weird to me. But as much as you can, resolve that you will get whatever offers you the best deal. I promise, regardless of ad campaigns, Crest is every bit as effective as Colgate--if you doubt it, read the endorsement by the ADA on the box. I prefer Coffeemate, but when International Delight is having a good sale and I have a coupon, I switch because saving money is more important that exercising my brand loyalty. And don't invent brand loyalty out of what the advertisers say. Ignore Swanson broth commercials and look on the Progresso and even store brand broth cans to see that no, they do not have MSG either, and work just as well in recipes.
As you're clipping coupons, this plays out by clipping several coupons of similar items. Clip both Progresso and Campbells. Clip both Colgate and Crest. You never know which one will be the closest to free next time you need it.