Sadly, I'm so rural that the closest JoAnn's is over an hour and a half away, so I'm stuck with Hobby Lobby, Walmart and LQS. I've noticed the decline of the Walmart fabric departments over the years, but I've also discovered that it depends on the location. I know I can travel a half an hour north and find some good prints, batiks or blenders, but when I go a half an hour south, it's mostly kid prints, faux furs, tulle, organza, and a very large selection of solids. That Walmart has a much larger yarn selection than the one to the north, which seems to be geared towards quilters and there is at least one LQS in that town.
Hobby Lobby isn't that bad, basically the same prices at JoAnn's but they're always running a coupon for 40% off any item and I believe that includes full bolt prices up to 15 yards, though don't hold me to that 100%. My stash is so small and pathetic that I actually have to rebuild it before I can get any project off of the ground, so I'm looking for smaller items...layer cakes, charm packs, fat quarter bundles, jelly rolls, honey buns. A couple of layer cakes can make a good sized queen sized quilt and the only yardage to pick up would be for sashing, borders, backing, binding, etc. and all of those bundles always has solid packs for backgrounds.
I don't see a problem at all with buying one yard of fabric if your pattern only requires a half or even a quarter of a yard, it'll rebuild your stash effectively if you are working a multi-colored quilt. I'm looking at a Planned DWR for my younger sister in fall colors, that quilt only uses 1/4 yard per color, so I'm picking up a full yard so I can rebuild. Eight different colors and then a full bolt of Muslin from Hobby Lobby using the 40% coupon, my stash will be well on the way to getting rebuilt.
My issue comes with getting to Walmart, Hobby Lobby, LQS', I had a stroke in 2014 that grounded me from driving anymore, so I'm reliant 100% on my sister-in-law to get me from Point A to Point B and I'm on her schedule. So if there's a big fabric sale somewhere, I have to hope that we're going to be out and about those days or I miss out on it. Because of that, I've started looking online for fabric sales, Hancock's of Paducah has peaked my interest quite a bit and my LQS has a website and I can get fabric shipped from there.
I've also started off-setting my quilting budget by doing online surveys and getting paid for them, but that's for another thread entirely, lol.