Originally Posted by MCH
OK, folks, here's the deal with WalMart and the fall-out from all the other "big-box" stores.
The convenience of a one-stop shopping "big box" store does enable an economy of scale, i.e. lower prices (sometimes), but at what price? That's where the choice of how and where we spend those "left over" dollars comes into play. "Left over" dollars = what's left after all the assotred taxes levied on us by those who are so concerned about the "good of the community", allowing us to attempt to acquire some of the necessities of life.
I agree that it's sad what is happening to small downtown America. It's disappearing so fast sometimes I want to cry.
However, I cannot afford to shop at those stores. I don't have any "left over" dollars. Hubby and I are living on less than $35K a year, just over 1/3 of what we were making 2 years ago. The bills have gone up...electricity, gas for the car, the cost of food...but our income has crashed. The mortgage company doesn't care if we eat or not as long as the payment comes in. If we don't pay the electricity, it gets shut off.
The one place I can afford to pinch a little is by shopping at a "big box" store. It enables me to buy a decent sugar substitute for my husband so I can make him muffins (no, I don't buy them, I make them from scratch...store made costs too much!) once a week or so as a treat. I can even splurge on a carton of sugar-free ice cream once in a while.
I feel like a deserter sometimes but the way that the economy is going I can't see only eating once a day so we can patronize the local grocery, which carries 2 sugar substitutes on a good day and no sugar-free ice cream at all...and as for low carb stuff, forget it...only the basics there.
I make my own bread. I make my own muffins and a lot of other baked goods, mostly for cost but also because decent-tasting diabetic-friendly baked goods simply aren't available. I cook from scratch. I don't buy mixes or pre-cooked foods. We have chickens for eggs and occasionally some meat. I have to make sure my husband eats 3 meals and a snack daily to regulate his blood sugar and that we both get all our medications and even with union insurance we're still putting out almost $100 a month for that.
When I was working we shopped at Schnuck's or Dierberg's or wherever...but I can't do it now. They are further away and therefore not only am I paying more for food, but more for gas as well. When you have $3 left to get through the week after the bills are paid and you've bought groceries and put gas in the car to get to work and back, choosing to shop at a smaller store further away that costs more simply isn't a choice.
As for the local quilt shops...I don't go in there any more. I can't stand to see all that pretty stuff and know I can't buy it. I look for the labels at WalMart that tell me that the fabric is overstocked major designer stuff and I get it there, or on ebay, or on sale on the Internet. I just can't do the $8-9.50 a yard these days.
We don't eat out. We don't go to movies. We drive a 2000 minivan with no A/C and 133,000+ miles on it. We have one TV, one computer, no blackberries or ipods or laptops. I sew on a Kenmore and I got a Janome on sale right before I got sick. I made our curtains and our shower curtain. I make Christmas and birthday gifts.
We don't waste a penny. I have to replace hubby's jeans this summer somehow because the patches are wearing thin. I'm serious. This isn't a convenience thing for me or a cheapskate thing. This is what we can afford, like it or not, and there are a lot of people in our community in the same situation we're in. This is a lower-middle-class rural community being eaten up from the edges by the yuppie crackerbox "neighborhoods" and we're fighting tooth and nail to keep what we have.
Trisha in MO