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This topic actually comes up a lot with my family of cars (requires 91 octane). The car has a knock sensor and will retard the engine if the octane isn't adequate. However, as has been stated earlier, the question is whether increased engine wear and damage will result from not using fuel with the octane level that the engine is tuned to run on.
Regardless, I think people also tend to forget the most pertinent detail in this situation. @ ~ $4.00 per gallon for premium versus ~ $3.80 per gallon for regular, the difference in price is only $0.20, or roughly 5% cost savings. Basically, $4.00 on a 20 gallon tank. So, as long as you are not worried about potential engine damage and the switch to regular gasoline does not result in a measurable decrease in fuel economy, it *might* be worth it to use regular instead of premium.
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