Wayne Boatwright wrote:

I can't afford to think "global ecomony" or even "local economy" when I
need to make every single penny count. Wal-Mart generally has the best
prices on almost anything I need to buy. I really can't afford to not shop
there. If I find good specials at other stores, then I go to those stores,
but inevitably I end up at Wal-Mart for a lot of my shopping.

We have no Wal-Mart very close to us, but I find when traveling,
especially on vacations involving camping, they're very useful. Unlike
Target, they have an excellent sporting goods and camping department. I
also like Fred Meyer (Kroger owns them now) for that type of stuff when
up in Oregon.

The Wal-Marts closest to us have no grocery stores, so I can't comment
on them. But from what I've seen of them, they don't have a lot of what
I'd be buying anyway, Costco has much better quality stuff like meat,
fish, and produce.

What I like about Wal-Mart is that unlike stores like Safeway and Lucky,
they don't gouge on everything other than what's on sale that week. When
I "save" more than I spend at Safeway it means that everything I
purchased was less than half the regular price.