Back in the day did you ever know one of those kids who talked tough? I mean the kid that everyone was intimidated by and NO ONE wanted to cross. Then one day somebody got sick of it and stood up to the bully and found out he wasn't so tough after all. Well, that is the deception of Wal-Mart. They have this reputation, which they've spent millions to build, of having the lowest price any where in the land. But, like the bully, they are all talk. When faced with a public armed with "shopping savvy" they roll over, or "ROLL BACK" as the case may be, and play dead. I grew up in Wal-Mart country. I remember the FIRST super-centers. Every time the would open a new one, they would start HUGE price wars with the local grocery chains. Milk for $1 a gallon, Bread for $.25, and so forth. This is one of the ways they got the reputation for having the lowest price. But man can not live by bread and milk alone,,,and Wal-Mart knows this well. Wal-Mart will price comp your ads.....this is a fairy tail most of the time. They will price comp, if: you have your ad present, the advertising store is local, you are wearing a striped shirt at the time you are making your purchase, AND if the cashier is in a good mood. LOL but really THIS is where I was deceived. I was a shopper who would look at the ad for other stores, and see that most of what they had on sale in their ad was not what I was buying, and just assume that everything else they had was more expensive than Wal-Mart. So I didn't even bother going to them. The truth is, that other stores are on to this price matching game and have more UNADVERTISED sales than they have in their sale ad. Quite often over HALF of the good deals I find while shopping are unadvertised. AND..even if they were, and I had Wal-Mart to comp them, they won't double my coupons like Kroger will. They don't have Wal-Mart coupons online that you can match with manufacturer coupons like Target does. I think if more Target Super Centers would go in, Wal-Mart would have to change the way they do business.
I was among the imtimidated, and shall I say it, uneducated shoppers who threw money at Wal-Mart in obscene amounts. I thought at one point we'd be better off to have our paychecks directly deposited to Wal-Mart and they could just pay us what was left. In loose change. I have gone from spending well over $600 a month at Wal-Mart, to around $150 or so per month.
Once I began to coupon, and started shopping at stores other than Wal-Mart, mostly because they are not overly coupon friendly, I began to see how I'd been deceived. Wal-Mart does still have their good deals. But all in all, NOT the best bang for the buck, FO SHO!! Our local Wal-Mart is pretty easy going about couponing. But I've been to a couple that are insane about it. They'll take your coupon if both YOU AND the CASHIER are wearing striped shirts, and she/He is in a good mood.
I say all of this to encourage you to get out and look around. It may take a little time at first to familiarize yourself with other stores prices, but it's worth it. If you are shopping at Wal-Mart for convenience, then they can't be beat. Otherwise....it's time to see other
people...umm, err, stores.
