The number one frugal tip I can think of is to stop being loyal or nostalgic for any brand or product.
The moment a brand develops a reputation for being high quality is the moment that brand will begin exploiting that reputation by reducing the quality of their products and jacking up prices. That is just a natural consequence of a poor regulatory environment and a low-information consumer base. Exceptions to this are rare (e.g., maybe like LL Bean, Arizona Iced Tea, Ball Jars..., lol I can't think of many others)
So many people I know fall into this trap. Paraphrases below:
"Sony is good quality though, I must have just gotten a bad one".
"They would never switch to glue instead of real stitching, this is Eddie Bauer!"
"Yeah, it's $7 instead of $2.50, but it's better because it's the brand name".
"I'm not going to buy that cheap worthless Ibuprofen, I only use Advil, because that's what my mom used".
You have to assess the quality of each individual product, each individual purchase. This is the only way.