My girl and I shop at Wal-Mart...But we almost have no choice any advice?

[noahmijo]

We're both college students on a shoestring budget. There is a Wal-Mart not far from where we live and we tend to do all of our grocery shopping and stuff there.

We live in a small town called Oro Valley which is just outside of Tucson.

I'm aware of how they screw over workers ect which is why I'm not particularly proud that we shop there.

The thing is the only alternatives that aren't nearly a 20 minute drive is a Safeway (whom to my understanding it's exactly labor friendly either) whose prices are nearly 20% more than Wal-Mart, a Fry's (even more expensive than Safeway) and an Albertson's (which would probably be the only viable alternative, but again they're about 10-15% more expensive than Wal-Mart.

Now nothing that will change is we always get newly released movies at Wal-Mart because they are always dirt cheap, and even though by doing our movie shopping there exclusively some may say we're "feeding the machine" what's the alternative? pay some corporation like Suncoast twice as much? they're not exactly a small business who is in an underdog position.

We don't have any major media stores like "Media Play" (those of you back east know what I'm talking about) and even if we did we'd still pass their ridiculous prices.

So the point is we shop at Wal-Mart but not happily. We can't stand the crowds or the fact that their workers get ripped off.

But on the other hand, we're too poor to be paying the ridiculous prices of the competitors around us for basic needs like groceries. Then to boot it's not like the competitors are extremely labor friendly anyway. Unions are pretty much outlawed here in Az (although rumor has it that Fry's uses them supposedly anyway, dunno how but that's what I heard)

So what would any of you do if you were me? advice?

[burythehatchet]

1. Order online from Costco and minimize your need to wal mart

[Don_G]

2. You Do What You Can To Get By

I, for one, can't critize you because of your circumstances.

[maggrwaggr]

10. I second that. It's not your fault.

Shop at Walmart for now, but vow that later in life, when price isn't everything, to exercise your choice that the freedom of money gives you.

[noahmijo]

12. Well when we have such freedom

We plan on moving to Washington state where stuff actually grows lol and I plan on growing whatever vegetables and certain fruits, and for everything else I'll make sure to pick a place that takes care of its workers.

[Pepperbelly]

34. off subject and not intended to hijack ...

I live in Arkansas and just today got one of the very biggest treats of the year: fresh, home-grown tomatoes. I found my first roadside vender of the year and the taste .... ummmmmmmmm. A little pricier than the corporate, hot house variety but far, far better.

Nonetheless, I can sympathize with your position. I can recall when I was in college, the town had a thriving downtown community, filled with small retailers ... newstand, clothing, shoes, music, a few restaurants, smalltown Arkansas. And then Walmart moved in. I left college for a few years to do a stint in the Navy and when I returned ... musta been '79, the town's transformation was stark. The center of town seemed almost gutted. Many of the little shops had closed and the town's growth was at the edge where the Walmart first appeared.

I realized then what a town killer Walmart is.

Sam Walton, no matter his intentions, created a monster ... the Frankensam.

Remember what Abe Simpson said: "Short and to the point has an origin which is long and rambling ..."

[NMDemDist2]

3. online at costco is good, and farmers markets for fresh stuff eom

[noahmijo]

5. Might look into that...do you have to be a member?

And are the shipping charges ridiculous?

My father actually shops at Costco and sometimes I have him get stuff for us from there.

[NMDemDist2]

11. don't ship----drive in once a month, since it is a bulk store, you don't

need to shop weekly


membership is only around $35 bucks a year, you could piggyback on your dad's membership

[JanMichael]

32. $45 and you'll get that back almost immediately. We've been members

for three months and our grocery bills are practically a third of what DU'ers were posting in the Lounge less than a week ago. The excellant salmon steaks are dirt cheap and delicious. Chicken for practically nothing, thick juicy breasts that we freeze then use later. Gourmet spinach/cheese raviola that has about 8 separate servings for $7. Dockers and jeans for $12-16.

Gas for 15 cents less that any other local place.

Less crowded than Walmartizilla and the workers are treated MUCH better.

[sandnsea]

45. It all comes from the same place

About the only difference between shopping Wal-Mart and someplace else is U.S. unions. That's important, but that isn't everything. I love it when people get all self-righteous about buying something at Target when if you look at the product, it's made in a foreign country with foreign labor, just like Wal-Mart. Shop where you need to shop and just commit to making a difference to change the economic structure in other ways.

[noahmijo]

4. Well that's what sucks is that

Living in this desert hell nothin grows out here so there's no farmer's markets. I'd gladly go to farmer's markets and vendors for food liked I used to when I lived in NY, but out there such things don't exist.

[barbaraann]

14. Do you know about this one?

http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/M7389

[noahmijo]

17. Hmm thanks never heard of it but

Considering I live in Oro Valley driving out to Old Spanish Trail is a road trip not a routine trip to grab some goods.

I'd be willing to check them out someday for fun and maybe grab some stuff but as far as replacing any grocery store with that farmer's market (especially with gas prices nowadays) can't do it :-(

[barbaraann]

18. Well, maybe one will pop up closer to you someday.

:-)

[noahmijo]

19. Yea would be nice

Right now the closest thing to a farmer's market I heard of is the one that is downtown on Wednesday's and as far as food goes last I checked it tends to consist of mostly jams and jellies.

Are you from Tucson?

[barbaraann]

29. No, I live in Washington State.

But I've driven through Tucson! :-)

[noahmijo]

35. HA! The girl and I wanna move to Washington State!

The girl actually refers to her old hometown of Silverdale as "The Shire" and Tucson as "Mordor"

[Andy_Stephenson]

37. Boy is that an accurate description.

I am from El Paso...same weather and geography as Tucosn...Mordor.

I would never live anywhere else outside of Washington State.

[noahmijo]

38. I visited Washington state for the first time

last spring break. We stayed in a hotel in silverdale and visited Seattle and the areas around.

Absolutely beautiful, I used to live in NYC and upstate NY and I miss the trees and grass and life for that matter.

I loved Washington because of its geography but also because it's hopping enough to be cool, yet doesn't overdo it to the level of say a huge city like NYC.

In other words I like the big city flavor, but not the big city prices and overwhelming population like NYC. (But pay me a million a year and I'll live in Weschester!)

[daligirrl]

44. Stop beating yourself up. . .

You're a hostage. Maybe engage in a little civil disobedience. . .go to the book section and cover up every wingnut book you see.

[demosincebirth]

6. try Target or K-Mart,...any where, but the "low wage" leader in the world

All Grocery chain stores, as far as I know, are union

[I_like_chicken]

7. you could order DVDs online,

just shop around and Im sure you could find deals somewhere.


ps. How can you be a Yankees fan and live in Arizona??

[noahmijo]

9. Youse right on that

About 40% of the time we do use Amazon.com for our media needs.

[Doctor Smith]

8. I buy groceries at Wal*Mart

because you don't need those damn discount cards like at the grocery stores.

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

13. Coupon!

Don't overlook using coupons! I have been called the "Super Shopper" by my hubby. I do my research (on-line if you don't get the paper). Do you have a King Soopers? They double vendor coupons. Both King Soopers and Safeway are unionized and aren't even close to Walmart in their treatment of employees. I shop Safeway because their products are fresher and the service is 10X's that of Wallyworld. Buy what's on sale and use coupons on top of that and I guarantee you'll save more than Walmart. I save generally between 30-40% using coupons and buying either the store brand or what's on sale. Good luck!

[salin]

25. I was going to suggest that starting a coupon habit

can more than make up the difference in prices.

[sbj405]

31. I agree with coupons and shopping sales

regular grocery stores are just as cheap as the evil empire.

[Dying Eagle]

15. We shop at Wal-Mart too.

I am in Appleton, WI and that is the only choice. The K-Mart closed (6 months after opening a new store) and we have VERY tight budget (Thanks Shrub) So we buy almost everything at Wal-Mart. I am not proud of it, but when you get the same item for 40% cheaper, I can't affords to pass it up. I do go to Target and Shopko on occasion, when I can afford it. Most of the time I can only afford Wal-Mart, It sucks

[Nikia]

39. I didn't think Woodman's was that much more expensive

We don't get over there as much since we don't live in Appleton anymore but still shop there occaisionally when we come in to town since it is cheaper and has a bigger variety than our local grocery stores in our small town. They expanded their store not too long ago and I noticed they seem to have a bigger selection as far as cleaning supplies, toiletries, and other general items. Best Buy usually has good prices on media items. As far clothes, look for sales. We also stopped in at the Big Lots there last fall and they had a lot of cheap stuff.
We live in a small town now where Walmart is the only general/discount store aside from a smaller store which I have been in only once because their lack of cleanliness scared me away. We usually do go to Appleton or other larger towns/cities when we need to buy non essential items. It also happens to be within short walking distance of our house so we go there more frequently for the convience than we would otherwise. I only buy what I can carry though.

[OpSomBlood]

16. eBay. Learn it. Love it.

And Costco for everything else.

[OneTwentyoNine]

26. Heh he...Yeper...

Bought a Hoover Steam Vac a few weeks back on E-Bay. Brand new in the box.I think the person selling buys from stores liquidating,he always has a few for sale.

Got it about 40.00 cheaper than WalMarts on-line price,about $50.00 cheaper than their store price. But screw WalMart,I would have bought from the guy on E-Bay even if it would have been the same price.

David

[Capn Sunshine]

20. the Media gives you the impression there are no alternatives

but there ARE. Imagine , for one, if there were no Walmart there, where would you shop?

Answer : Albertsons, lowest prices.

Hey what about media?

online, (used are a particular bargain---want rentals? there are online dvd rentals with no late fees. ever.

Fresh produce? Certainly the major quality difference of local farmers markets is worth the slight extra money you pay.

Clothes? For Wal mart prices, second hand stores offer slightly used quality goods, and generally your money goes to a good cause.

Everything else? Ebay, and private party ads.
There are most certainly co-ops in your area.

The answers are there, it's not always the lowest price that makes the best buy.

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

22. Oh yeah forgot about those!

"Clothes? For Wal mart prices, second hand stores offer slightly used quality goods, and generally your money goes to a good cause."

Not only that, but you can also get some really unique items! I recently was lucky enough to find a handmade Mexican peasant blouse that obviously somebody put hours and hours of times into. It was hand embroidered and sewn! Plus some places offer a "bag deal" where you can fill a bag full of clothes for a low price of say $15.00.

"The answers are there, it's not always the lowest price that makes the best buy."

You can say that again! I work part time at a shoe store and most times buying a good quality shoe is cheaper in the long run. It kills me when I see my sons friends in cheap vinyl shoes that need to be replaced after a few weeks. Not only does it make for stinky feet, they end up buying 3 pairs to my kids one.

[1monster]

30. Albertsons? I used to shop there all the time, but they merged with

another grocery store several years ago and their prices went through the roof. When their price for an item is double and sometimes triple what it is at Walmart, forget it! I still shop there for their specials, which can be decent. But their everyday prices are outrageous.

[napi21]

21. Don't worry too much about buying groceries at WM.

They only have groceries because it brings customers into the stores so they'll buy other stuff. If all people bought at WM was groceries, they'd be out of business within a year!

Are you buying DVD's? Why? Subscribe to the online DVD rental. The cost is less than 1 purchased DVD each month, there's no shipping, no late fees, and they have a great assortment.

http://www.netflix.com

You don't have the $$ right now to be building a DVD library.

Use coupons, but only if the end price is better than buying the store brand.

Learn to make things from scratch! That's the biggest killer in your grocery cart! For most things, it's really easy and doesn't take more than another 5 minutes. There's lots of standard stuff too, like buying whole chickens when they're on sale instead of cut up parts. Why pay somebody to cut up a chicken (which is very easy) when they charge so much to do it for you?

[Tansy_Gold]

40. Wal-Mart is now going into the business of grocery stores

at least according to a report from my son last night. Not Wal-Mart supercenters with groceries, but stand-alone grocery stores to compete directly with all the others.

I, too, am on a limited budget and do not live close to convenient shopping, but under no circumstances will I set foot in a Wal-Mart store of any kind. That means Sam's Club, too. No way, no how. Costco is a viable alternative, if you have the capacity to store larger quantities than you'd normally by at the grocery store.

Fry's, Safeway, and Albertson's are all union stores; their employees make something at least approaching a living wage, which only the upper echelon at Wal-Mart do. One way or the other, you subsidize WalMart either by shopping there and supporting them directly, or through your taxes. The only way to stop it is to stop shopping there and getting everyone you know to stop shopping there, too.

Tucson is MUCH more liberal/left-wing than Phoenix (my neck of the desert), and if you spend a little time you should be able to find all kinds of non-Wal-Mart sources for just about everything a person could need. As others have suggested: second-hand stores, estate sales, yard sales, etc. for recycled items; coupons; efficient buying; and determining what you really need and what you can do without.

And don't say you can't grow things in Arizona!!! You just have to know how to do it------ and WHEN.

Tansy Gold, Phoenician by choice and not regretting that choice at all

[noahmijo]

42. Well you make some good points

We do grow citrus fruits, but that's about all you can really grow I think in terms of fruits and vegetables.

You can attempt to grow tomatoes here as so many other New Yorkers have, but you spend so much in water to keep them alive you might as well just buy them. Plus the excess in sun time makes for a quick murder on plants that belong in the east coast.

[Tansy_Gold]

46. If you're college students, check on campus for info

You should be able to find someone who has information on co-ops -- there has to be something similar to Tempe's Gentle Strength co-op. I mean, if Tempe has a co-op, U of A must, too! ;-)

Find some books on desert gardening and plan on growing stuff in the winter, not the summer. I'm not a successful gardener; couldn't grow more than green peppers and cucumbers when I lived in Indiana. But I do know people who grow all kinds of things very successfully in Arizona. You just have to forget virtually everything you "know" about gardening in a more temperate climate.

I have friends who produce cherry tomatoes in buckets on their patios. Same with strawberries. It all depends on how much space you have and how much effort you're willing to put into it.

I worked at Wal-Mart for over a year, and I'm BEGGING you not to go in there any more! :-) To those who say things like, "Well, if WalMart shut down tomorrow, where would all those $6/hour employees go?" I've got your answer -- they'd go back to working for the small retailers WalMart forced out of business in the first place. No, it wouldn't happen overnight -- but then who expects WalMart to go belly-up overnight? Those small retailers -- and the domestic manufacturers who provided the goods they sold -- paid decent wages and treated their employees far better than the Waltons treat their wage-slaves.

WalMart's central purchasing office is in China; the workers who produce the cheap plastic crap, the "associates" who sell it, and the struggling Americans who buy it often think they have no choice, and all the while the Walton heirs -- who amount to five of the ten wealthiest humans <?> on the planet -- just live in obscene luxury and demand more, more, more (via tax breaks, particularly repeal of the estate tax).

WalMart Stores, Inc., received something like $1 BILLION in local tax breaks from the communities in which they located in 2003; where do you think those local revenues are going to come from?

IMNHO, WalMart has no excuse for existence any more. If the original discount chain founded by the original Sam Walton did some good, and I'm not sure that it did, then at least the cancerous behemoth it has become needs to be excised before it completely kills the American economy.

Tansy Gold, looking nervously over her shoulder for the ghost of Carlos Jiacinto. . . . . .

[AP]

23. Shop on the internet.

[troublemaker]

24. Shoplift

[Lakerstan]

27. For media needs...

Movies: DeepdiscountDVD.com or outpost.com (which is essentially Fry's)

Music: Download and burn your own! Itunes or something like that? 99 cents a song..

Books: Try strandbooks.com or fetchbook.info

Check out bizrate.com and ebay also, but look for those with good feedback...

[1monster]

28. Honey, stop feeling guilty. If Walmart goes bust tomorrow and

shuts down all of its stores, will it be good for the people who work there? No. Instead of low wages with the possiblity of group benefits for full-time workers, they will be unemployed with hundreds of others from their store. Even jobs slinging burgers will be hard to get and wages will go down in the area because there will be a glut of people looking for work.

I, too, shop at Walmart because their prices tend to be lower, but also because I don't want to travel fifty miles to the big city to get things that can't be gotten anywhere else in this area.

I talk to a lot of people who work in Walmart here, and while it is true that the pay is not great, it is not out of the norm for this area where the average pay is somewhere between $5.50 and $7.50 an hour. And the folks making $7.50 and hour are glad to make that much.

[sbj405]

33. Do you have a co-op near you?

In addition to being "food for people, not profit", you can volunteer for even bigger savings. Most things are in bulk. The one I shop at generally has organic produce cheaper than the regular, pesticide laden stuff at the grocery store.

[Piperay]

36. Catalogue shopping

and online shopping is a good alternative for some stuff, of course not for groceries and things like that. I live in Los Angeles County where I have a choice of hundreds of stores but I like to catalogue & online shop for stuff like clothes, shoes, appliances & household items. The traffic here is so bad that it takes forever just to get across town, so I like the alternative of having stuff delivered right to my door. Of course as I said you can't get everything from catalogues & online but it's easier to compare prices that way and often you are helping out the 'little guy' too.

[GreenPartyVoter]

41. I'm stuck that way too

We do most of our shopping at Mall*Wart cause we can't afford to go anywhere else. But as you say, there's not exactly a plethora of cheap fair-trade stores around.

[Forkboy]

43. How important are your movies?