Via Miss Jane Galt, I got sucked into a long debate between Barbara Ehrenreich and Jason Furman about Wal-Mart. I’m still reading it all, but I had to pass along this interesting fact from Furman:
A range of studies has found that Wal-Mart’s prices are 8 percent to 39 percent below the prices of its competitors. The single most careful economic study, co-authored by the well-respected MIT economist Jerry Hausman, found that grocery sales by Wal-Mart and other big-box stores made consumers better off to the tune of 25 percent of food consumption. That doesn’t mean much for those of us in the top fifth of the income distribution—we spend only about 3.5 percent of our income on food at home and, at least in my case, most of that shopping is done at high-priced supermarkets like Whole Foods. But that’s a huge savings for households in the bottom quintile, which, on average, spend 26 percent of their income on food. In fact, it is equivalent to a 6.5 percent boost in household income—unless the family lives in New York City or one of the other places that have successfully kept Wal-Mart and its ilk away.
Apt. 11d 
Very pertinent fact from Furman. W while back I commented on a post by Dawn (this woman’s work) that people with a tight/tiny budget like our family cannot be so fortunate to choose where we shop (her post was about this issue of being able to afford choosing certain things).
I’m thankful everyday for grocery stores like Aldi (my favorite), Price Rite and even Save-a-lot (which I don’t like much). I try to avoid Wal-mart, but sometimes it’s just not possible. [the funny thing is that we’re vegetarian and try to eat as healthy as posible, though we can’t afford organic, so we do go to Whole Foods once in a while for certain things – it’s almost painful…]. Trader joe’s is great in this respect – reasonable prices, yummy and healthy stuff, but we have to limit ourselves to once a month and certain items.
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