Loyalty is always a two-way street when it comes to the brands and the products we buy.

With some of the insane (and unjustified) price increases so far this year, loyalty to any one product can shred your wallet. That’s entirely unnecessary when there are normally substitutes that are just as good! I would estimate that there must be almost a dozen items that I’ve changed since the start of the year because of price increases of over 25%. Sorry, that’s not inflation – that’s taking advantage of the “everything is going up” resigned attitude to stick it to me.

Other items have always been less expensive, but brand-name companies know how loyal we are. Here’s a great example: I was loitering in the pharmacy area of Walmart two weeks ago waiting for a prescription. At the end of the aisle (companies pay for that prime spot) was a sale on Tylenol.

While I stood there for about 10 minutes, at least a half dozen people walked by and grabbed one of the packages. Yet, right beside these, just not on the end-aisle were the no-name acetaminophen. Same product without the brand name!

They’re almost 350% cheaper! Yet nobody reached the two feet further to save three and a half times the money! No, that wasn’t very scientific, but it sure got me wondering where else we buy something blindly because of loyalty instead of checking the price!

For comparison, assuming it has to be Tylenol for some specific reason, here are the Walmart and Rexall prices from the same day:

While not everyone has a Costco membership, their no-name at 1.6 cents per compared to Rexall at over 8 times as much is a reason to re-think your brand loyalty, to shop around, and to consider a Costco membership (because half of it would have been paid for with this one purchase).