I wouldn't call myself frugal as such, but I've always tended to seek out
value as opposed to something that is merely
cheap.
Main thing is I tend to buy reasonable quality, look after it properly and keep it until it's worn out. Appliances, furniture, cars and so on. I don't go for luxury, but I always try to buy things that are well designed, well built and likely to last. And, within reason, I maintain them properly too.
This approach seems to be working well financially so far and avoids a lot of hassle with cheap goods breaking down etc.
Using the same logic, I don't bother with 5 star hotel rooms or first class travel. If I'm going on holidays then I'm not going there for the flight and to sit in a room all day so I'm not going to spend too much on those things. But if some local attraction charges $150 to get in then I'll just pay up and consider it part of the cost of the holiday.
Same as I generally don't wear expensive clothes. I'm at home today and about to do some gardening - I just don't need the latest fashions to do that so my $25 jeans and $15 jumper will be fine.
And I certainly don't buy ridiculously over priced junk food. Either I'll eat at home or go somewhere that actually serves something decent. I'm not paying $20 for a few lumps of sugar and trans fats shoved in a paper bag that's for sure.
Nor am I paying $2 for a litre of water when there's 80,000 litres of the stuff running off the house roof for free every year, there's a creek over the back fence and the mains supply is neither metered nor restricted. Paying for water in that context would be quite simply very poor value.