Everybody knows that buying things that are cheap is much better than buying things that are expensive, right? Well, not exactly. What you need to understand is that there is a difference between being frugal and being cheap.
The biggest problem that people have is they get these two definitions mixed up and it makes them look bad. You are being cheap when you spend very little but in doing so you sacrifice quality. You are being frugal when you are spending very little but you are getting good deals on exceptional products. For example, if you search cheap London hotels, frugal folks will find great deals on really nice hotels. Every one knows that traveling in Europe can be expensive, however, if you are willing to do a little leg work, you can really find some amazing deals online without having to sacrifice quality. Alternatively, cheap customers will end up in a dumpy hotel that is uncomfortable and perhaps even unsanitary. Frugal customers will have gone online to a website like Priceline.com or Travelstay.com and got a great room for the same price as the cheap customer, but will be staying in a comfortable, clean room. So you see there is definitely a big difference between being cheap and being frugal. Below are some more examples to drill home the point: