Do you buy Advil, or generic ibuprofen?
Q-Tips or Walgreens, cotton swabs?
Starbucks coffee, or Safeway brand?
Hefty’s “cinch saks,” or CVS garbage bags?
When you buy brand name products, you are probably just a sucker for good corporate marketing. Often the product quality is no better than its generic, no-name cousin.
Buy Generic
So an easy way to save money is trying generic – same quality product, no sucker premium.
But notice I said try generic.
Some generic products are truly awful – generic cotton swabs are like cleaning your ears with a tree branch. So I “indulge” on Q-Tips. On the other hand, ibuprofen is ibuprofen.
So look for ways to buy generic. If you decide the product is inferior, then go back to the brand name product. But you can at least try it out.
Small habits add up
Just like health and fitness, financial success is the cumulative product of small habits over time.
Saving a few bucks on garbage bags might not seem like a big deal.
But saving a few bucks every week over 30, 40, 50 years — it adds up.
And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather splurge on retirement vacations than Hefty (Hefty) Cinch Saks.
