You CAN Live without Wal-Mart, I promise!

Michelle and I decided to start this blog because of our disdain for the evil entity we know as Wal-Mart. We have boycotted Wal-Mart, and will step foot into a Wal-Mart store for reasons only related to this blog.

As I started my draft of this first installment, I thought about my neighborhood Wal-Mart (4.58 miles from home), and what used to stand on that piece of property. There is a White Castle, which still stands, a liquor store, and an oil change place or something. But what used to stand on the spot that this particular Wal-Mart occupies was a Central Hardware. I happen to have a sign that came from their parking lot, courtesy of my ex-husband. He fancied himself some sort of skater and hell-raiser. He stole this sign after they went out of business. What a troublemaker. I think the slogan for Central Hardware was “from scoop to nuts…” I remember going there as a child when my dad had home improvement projects. It really was the only large hardware store in the area. I now have 2 Lowes, 2 Menards, and a Home Depot, all within a reasonable distance from my home, as well as a couple of smaller stores. But I will never forget that sawdust smell (reminds me of puke at an amusement park), the rusty shopping carts (as a parent this makes me cringe, tetanus just waiting to happen), the bins full of nails and bolts that you could buy by the pound, and hauling rolls of Owens-Corning pink insulation in the back of our station wagon.

This Wal-Mart of course was only a basic store in the beginning. The only super center in the area was in Franklin, Indiana. I did my grocery shopping there one time with a friend when I was first married to my ex, the skater, and before my son was born. This was circa 1994. When I walked in to this super center, I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the store itself, and the faint odor of sour milk and pine sol. I followed behind my friend with my own shopping cart, and was content to not venture too far from our goal, which was to grocery shop, and nothing else. I managed to escape Sam Walton’s grip without much more than a half cart full of basics. Some of this was due to the fact that I was broke, I had just built a new house, and the travel time from the Franklin Wal-Mart to my home on the east side of Indianapolis was about 45 minutes. It seemed as though I had avoided being sucked in to the super store addiction. I did not make that trip ever again.

The Southport Wal-Mart has gained a reputation of being dirty, and it has, quite possibly, the most poorly planned out parking lot. Some may blame this on the fact that it converted to a super center later in life. I blame it on the location. This store should never have stayed on this piece of property. It is like putting Shaq’s foot in my size 7 1/2 shoe.

So, let’s get to the meat of this thing. I kept track of my purchases for the week, and compared prices with my local Wal-Mart. I started with Race Day, which, for those of you from Indianapolis, you know this is a big deal. You absolutely have to cook out on Race Day, if you aren’t going to the race.

I started out the day miserable from allergies from hanging out at my parents’ house the day before. Cut grass gets me every time. My son and I missed church. Apparently, he was wiped out from swimming on Saturday as well. So about 2pm when we finally came to life, we decided it was way too hot not to go back to my parents and hang at the pool for a little while. After listening to the rest of the Indianapolis 500 and playing some Waboba ( http://www.waboba.com/ ), we headed back home to grill out some burgers. Because my boyfriend did not want to wait for me to shower and get ready, he decided to make the trip to our local Kroger store alone (distance from home 1.2 miles). I usually don’t advise this, as he likes to make impulse purchases. He hates going to the store with me because I am very calculating. It takes time to be a smart shopper, to search through the coupons I have, compare prices, to stretch one dollar in to ten. I asked if he wanted me to make him a list, and of course he said no. I then reminded him that we needed pretty much everything from buns to tomatoes. He decided I should write some of this down, to which I replied, “If you wait 20 minutes, I can be ready to go with you.” He ran out the door like his pants were on fire.

He was back in what seemed an impossibly short amount of time, which worried me. I had a feeling that we were about to make a second trip. I headed to the kitchen to investigate. He had brought in about 7 bags. Impressive. Let’s see what we have here…
· Catfood, wet and dry in several varieties (our cats are very persnickety)
· Jumbo sesame seed buns, 8ct
· 3.17lbs ground beef
· 3 lbs mustard potato salad
· 2 lb bag of lemons (for lemon shake ups)
· 2 roma tomatoes (as our garden is not producing yet)
· 2 vidalia onions (not sure why he got two, but I will find a recipe for the second one)
Total purchase $26.51

For seven shopping bags, this seemed like a small amount of groceries to me, but I went to work seasoning and shaping some patties. I cracked open a Miller High Life, you know, the champagne of beers…

Fast forward to Monday, Memorial Day. The weather had taken a turn, it was not warm enough for swimming, and there was a possibility of some rain. My boyfriend would not be spending this day with us. He had some laundry and other various chores at his house. I think he was ready to spend some time away from me anyway. So, my son and I decided to see a movie. Funds are tight these days, so we checked out the local Cinemark theater that features $1.75 tickets. We were pretty disappointed in their choices. We also belong to the Five Buck Club through Kerasotes, which has been recently acquired by AMC. We were all set to see Iron Man 2. I was happy to possibly get a Robert Downey Jr. fix. We always sneak our own candy and drinks in to the movies, so we were formulating our list of goodies, and I was getting out the “big” purse. We thought it had been out long enough to be on the club list, but, it was not. We overcame our disappointment and decided to rent some movies from a Red Box. So we ventured, once again, to our local Kroger for some movie appropriate snacks and drinks. We made the following purchases:
· 4pk toilet paper (we always seem to be almost out. Is it a guy thing? I am reminded of the Charmin “less is more” commercial)
· 6ct donuts (for breakfast the next day)
· 2 cup o’noodles (my son’s lunch choice for the next day)
· 6pk ramen noodles (because we are secretly college students)
· Red vines
· Kroger brand mint sandwich cookies
· Chocolate covered raisins
· Sour fruit slices
· 6ct cinnamon raisin English muffins
· 2 liter of diet Dr. K ( for some reason we seem to be drinking a lot of soda, which I usually discourage, but I for one needed the caffeine if I was going to stay alert through three movies)
· 2 liter of Diet soda w/lime
· One gallon 1% Kroger milk
We proceeded to the Red Box in the front of the Kroger store where we selected Where the Wild Things Are, The Blind Side, and 2012.

Total Kroger purchase $14.08
Red Box $3.21

The rest of the week was pretty busy, and my son spent some of it with my parents. He came home Thursday evening. Poor kid gets pretty bored with me working from home, and Friday was especially busy for me. Once I returned home from an appointment at about 6pm, he was anxious to get out of the house. He had some money he was itching to spend.

Our first stop was our local Dollar Tree store (3 miles from home). I have discovered some great buys there, and we were in need of some cat litter. Cats are like newborns. All they do is eat, sleep, and poop. Our purchases were as follows:
· 4pk toilet paper (once again, we were running low, really?)
· Duncan Hines Sugar cookie mix
· 8ct Ruffies drawstring kitchen trash bags
· Cooking spray
· 2 cans Friskies cat food(eat, sleep, poop)
· Slim Jim beef stick
· 4ct 100 watt light bulbs (some of my light fixtures seem to eat light bulbs)
· Tongs for use at the grill (the boyfriend has been using my Pampered Chef tongs at the grill, which are plastic, and they have become a little warped)
· Small jar of orange marmalade
· Small box of Deli Cat dry cat food (once again, cats eat, sleep, and poop)
· Pair of new bath gloves (for my shower, my others were worn out and I need something to scrub the hatefulness off)
· 2 inflatable swim rings (we popped one at my parents on Race Day, and I felt like I needed to replace it)
· Two 7lb bags of Hartz cat litter (eat, sleep, poop)
· Package of frozen Tyson chicken thighs
· 4pk AA batteries
Total purchase $ 18.91

From there we ventured to Kmart, which is basically next door(even though it is technically closer to home than the Dollar Tree, the distance on Google maps says 3.2 miles). My son wanted to price some video games. I also wanted to price SD cards, as the one in my camera seems to not want to download any pictures, something I desperately need to do in order to post my own “People of Wal-Mart” photos. The game he wanted was $49.99, out of his price range. I saw a 2 GB SD card for $8.99, and I should have purchased it. I was distracted by the guy working the electronics department. He obviously had ear piercings, and Kmart must have some policy that states that they cannot be visible. They were covered by band-aids. Don’t get me started on this topic. That is something for a whole other blog. We both left this store empty handed.

From there, we went to Target (4.4 miles from home) Once again, my son priced video games. He was getting discouraged at this point and started to whine. A whiny 13 year old is about as pleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard. The photo department was strangely busy, so busy they had to get the uniformed security guard to open the locked video game cases for people. There were too many people gathered around the cameras that I was not able to get close enough to price an SD card. Further, do you ever get the feeling that you have a booger on your face, or that you are being mistaken for a celebrity? I was starting to feel rather too conspicuous for comfort. Once again, we left a store empty handed.

From there, we went to Play-N-Trade, a privately owned video game store located in the same area as the Target. My son proceeded to choose a new Pokémon game for his DS. It was $25.19, used, with our membership card discount. I bought it for him as a reward for getting all A’s and B’s on his final report card. The whining subsided.

We travelled across the street to Goodwill. I hadn’t been to this one in awhile, and wanted to take a peek to see if I could find anything I just couldn’t live without. They also have some video games from time to time. This particular Goodwill receives shipments from Target and Kohl’s, and I have purchased many new-with-tag items for cheap. Alas, I did not see anything that was a must have on this trip.

It was now after 8pm, and we were both getting hungry. We would have gone to the Aldi’s right next door to Goodwill, but they close at 8pm. I knew we didn’t have much at home, plus I was in the mood for a couple of beers. We stopped at our favorite Kroger on the way home. Our purchases:
· 2 Red Baron frozen pizzas, buffalo chicken and supreme (I seem to eat like a teenager these days)
· 1 liter Dad’s cream soda for my son (once again with the soda, really? am I getting lazy as a parent?)
· Kroger cheese Danish (for breakfast the next day, and these were the kind in the refrigerator roll like cinnamon rolls, YUM!)
· 6pk Miller Lite bottles (of which I only drank one that day...WHAT???!!!???)
Total purchase $16.43

So, yesterday, my son and I decided to go to Wal-Mart to see how we did on our purchases in comparison to Wal-Mart prices. Trying to find a parking space without running over someone in a motorized shopping cart, or being side swiped by an early 90’s Ford Taurus with mismatched doors and a missing bumper was a challenge. As we got out of the Jeep, I had a flashback of a visit he and I made to this very store looking for something specific to take on vacation several years ago. It was a last resort, and my poor little guy who was 5 at the time got knocked down twice by other people’s shopping carts, with no apology. I snatched him up, went to the front of the store, got our own cart, and barreled through the store demolition derby style, with my 5 year old inside the cart surrounded by pillows we picked up in house wares just for the occasion.

We then made our way to the entrance, where crossing that drive is much like a game of Frogger. There is no straight path across. You must weave your way around moving vehicles and pray they don't decide to step on the gas without looking up, or that Roy doesn't release the brake while Lenore loads up all 5 kids in to 3 car seats and 2 boosters, and two carts worth of groceries, all while parked in the fire lane.

We started in produce, where we found roma tomatoes @1.25/lb (Kroger price 2.49/lb), Vidalia onions 1.14/lb (Kroger .97/lb) and lemons .48 each (Kroger 2lbs, or 7 lemons 3.99). Incidentally, there were only 4 lemons in the bin. We headed to the back of the store to find cookies 1.77, but no mint flavor in the store brand, only real Oreos for 2.78 (Kroger price 1.99) We then priced cat products. The Friskies canned food was .44, 9 Lives .38 (Kroger price .40) Meow Mix Wholesome Goodness was 3.98 for a 6lb bag (Kroger 4.58) Cat litter was 3.94 for the Special Kitty 25lb bag (I paid 2.00 for 14 lbs) Hamburger buns were 1.97 but they did not have the jumbo sesame seed variety (Kroger 1.69) Milk was 2.08 ( Kroger 2.35) 2 liters of Sam’s Choice soda were .66 (Kroger brand was .68) They did not have any Dad’s cream soda, and the 6 pack of Miller Lite was 4.97 (Kroger 5.59) Toilet paper was .97 for a 6pk, and I paid 1.00, and .88 for 4 packs at Kroger and the Dollar Tree. I found a package of comparable drawstring kitchen bags in a 20 ct. for 3.17, my cost for 8 was 1.00. Chicken thighs were 1.78/lb, my cost 1.00/lb. Ground beef was 1.67/lb (Kroger was the same) We could not find any comparable cheese Danish product, and the potato salad was 2.98 for a 2lb container (Kroger 4.49 for a 3lb container) The candy we found was the same price as we had paid at Kroger. The cookie mix was 1.72 (our price 1.00) A can of store brand cooking spray was 1.74, our cost 1.00. Ramen noodles .18 each (Kroger price the same) the cup of noodles were .44 each, we paid .69 each. The marmalade was 1.68, our cost 1.00. Wal-Mart only had donuts similar to what we bought at Kroger for .89 for 6, for .58 each. The Red Baron pizzas were 2.88 and they didn’t have the buffalo chicken flavor. We paid 3.50 each at Kroger.

We then had to venture to the other side of the store, which of course feels like you need a golf cart for. No wonder there is a person in a motorized cart in every aisle. I wasn’t carrying anything or pushing a cart, and I was already worn out. We priced out batteries at .75 each (our price .25) Light bulbs were 1.50 for a pack of four 90 watt bulbs; we paid 1.00 for a comparable product, except that they were 100 watt bulbs. Wal-Mart did not have any 100 watt bulbs. Inflatable swim rings were 2.00 each. Our price was 1.00 each. A pair of bath gloves were 3.00, my price was 2.00. I also priced an SD card at 9.88; the one at Kmart was cheaper at 8.99.

So, all things being considered, if I had made these same purchases at Wal-Mart, I would have spent $81.75. My cost was $75.93. But now I will end this first post with the real reason it was worth it for me not to do my shopping at Wal-Mart. When my son and I were done with our research expedition without purchasing so much as a .25 can of Sam’s Choice cola, we were making our way back to the door, when I slid and nearly fell. Once I caught my breath, and started to feel that nauseous nag in my stomach that you get when nearly making an ass of yourself in public, I looked to see what I had slipped on. We were nowhere near the grocery aisles. I thought perhaps someone spilled a drink or it was some condensation or whatever. I looked down to see a puddle of liquid. I looked again. Again. Again. I tried from another angle. I asked my son to come back and look at it. I started to feel even more nauseous than before. I took the flip flop off of my foot and slowly raised it to my nose. Oh yeah. That’s what that is. Urine.