My Food Chain Gang

And my husband is on the bandwagon too.  My husband is a clearance maniac - he loves finding good deals on stuff that’s been marked down from its original price.  He found he especially loved the clearance deals at the Defiance Ohio Walmart, which is not too far from us.  But yesterday, that changed…

It turns out that the Defiance Walmart, which is only a few months old, by the way, changed their clearance prices overnight!  They used to have some really good discounts, and it was fun to go there and try to find them.  But now, they haven’t just changed the way they mark stuff down; they’ve taken actual clearance items that were already marked down and marked them back up!
Case in point:  My husband had a Plantronics Headset that he bought last week for $5.  It broke, so he was going to return it, but he forgot it at home.  No problem, he thought, I’ll just buy a new one for $5 and return the old one another time.  WRONG - unless he wanted to spend $21 on the new one!  That’s right, they took a $5 clearance item and marked it up to $21 - more than quadruple the price!!!  So he asked the lady in electronics if they raised their clearance prices, and she said, “I’m not going to lie to you.  We did raise the prices.  They took away our clearance budget.”  Whatever that means.  Not something I, the consumer, should be concerned with…  except that they took all the fun out of clearance shopping at Walmart!  And of course the people at customer service couldn’t help us return our headset since we didn’t have the broken one with us…  their suggestion?  Buy a new one for $21, then return the broken one later for $5 - thanks but no thanks!  Here are some other examples of clearance items that they re-inflated: ATI Video Card from $50 to $115, Panasonic Cordless Phone from $30 to $69, and a US Robotics SkypePhone from $5 to $16.  Each of these items had at least a 100% increase in price.  I understand that the economy sucks and inflation and blah, blah, but I think Walmart should have kept these items on the clearance where they had them; then started their new clearance policy with new clearance items.  I mean, come on, is Walmart really that worried about going broke?

The bottom line is, Walmart keeps finding ways to take away whatever fun is left in shopping.  First it was by playing their little pricing games that get us to spend more and close down their competition, and now they’ve taken away their good clearance deals.  Well, maybe their policies will bite them in the you-know-what come Christimas time when they don’t have any room on their shelves for the new Christmas products because no one wants to touch their crappy clearance items at their not-so-clearance prices!

Now that I’m well on my way to full recovery after being unable to do normal things for so long because of the pregnancy and cesarean, I’ve resumed my big grocery shopping days at Walmart.  And since I haven’t been there much in the past few months, I was shocked to find how much many of the prices have raised.  So this inspired me to make a list of all the prices I remember from when our Super Walmart opened 26 months ago.  I did some math, and this is what I came up with.  The first price is how much the item was for the first few months the Super Walmart was open.  The second price is how much the item is now, and the percent is the percentage the price has increased in 26 months.

parmesan cheese - $2.94 to 4.18 = 42%
american cheese singles - 1.98 to 2.58 = 30%
shredded cheese - 1.98 to 2.58 = 30%
garbage bags - 1.67 to 2.98 = 78%
bananas - 19¢ to 58¢ per pound = almost 49%
toilet paper - 1.00 to 1.24 for a six pack = 24%
baby wipes - 1.44 to 2.16 for one pack = 50%
baby formula - 10.64 to 11.88 per can = 11%
milk - 2.00 to 3.80 = 90%

I’m no math whiz, but if I did the calculations correctly, this is insane.  I realize there is inflation, the economy is terrible, and food comes in on trucks which use gas whose cost has also skyrocketed, but this is still ridiculous.  I used to love Walmart for their one-stop shopping concept, but now I hate them for ruining the little guy and for always changing their prices.  It makes it impossible to shop around for the best price unless you have no job or kids - and they know it.  WALMART SUCKS!  But I will keep shopping there, and they know it.  Why?  Because with 4 kids, I don’t have time to go to a bunch of stores trying to find the best price.  I need to go where I can get it all under one roof.

Ok, I’m done venting…  at least until my next Walmart trip…

My fellow Northwest Ohioans, this is a call to action!

Have you noticed that we are being taken advantage of?  Yesterday, the national gas price average was $3.22 / gallon for unleaded.  Yet here in NW Ohio, every station in this town had gas for $3.39 / gallon.  The price of gas in the Northern suburbs of Chicago has reached $3.27.  We (especially in our family since we have loved ones in that area who we have to watch pay through the nose for EVERYTHING) have always prided ourselves on having lower prices than they have, MUCH lower actually.  We used to have gas prices about $.25 / gallon lower than Chicagoland.  This is no longer the case!  Their gas is now $.12 cheaper than ours!  What will follow?  Will we no longer have cheaper food than they have?  Will we soon be paying $10 for a hamburger, have an average restaurant bill of $30 for lunch for two, movie theater tickets at $10 each?  Where does it end?  I can’t help but feel the gas stations have called our bluff.  We can’t boycott them, because let’s face it, we’re an island.  We get to enjoy our relatively crime and pollution free extistences because we are so far from the nearest large cities.  However, the local gas stations are starting to take advantage of this, because they know it will cost way too much for us to get out of town to get some gas somewhere else.  The average price in Toledo yesterday was $3.22 / gallon , but to get to Toledo, it would cost about $5-$10 in gas, depending on your car!  And who has time to run to Toledo for gas, anyway?  But why is it that Toledo has cheaper gas prices than we do?  Everything was always cheaper here…  at least it used to be.

I’m just worried about how they will gouge us next.  I looked into filing a complaint with the attorney general of Ohio, and their website said to contact the stores first.  So I guess it’s only fair that we first let the gas stations know that we’re terribly unhappy.  I would write to the newspaper here in town also, but they’ve never printed my letters.  Maybe I complain too much?  Actually, one letter was very nice thanking the person who turned in my lost wallet with all the money still in it, but they still didn’t print it.  Anyway, if someone else wants to write to the paper, that’d be great.  The more the merrier on this, I say, what could it hurt?  Complain to the local gas stations and ask them questions, write to the newspaper, write to the attorney general, anything and everything anyone can do will help.  Remember, driving season hasn’t even officially started yet, and when it does, the price gouging at the pump will only worsen!  Here is a link to the complaint section of the Ohio attorney general’s website - it tells you how to fill out a complaint online, and also gives phone numbers and email addresses:  http://www.ag.state.oh.us/citizen/consumer/complaints.asp

Please help me - let’s do SOMETHING!

Just a short little venting post because I made my weekly stop at Walmart today…  and not one, not two, but THREE price increases awaited me!

1.  drawstring kitchen garbage bags - when I started shopping at Walmart in Ohio only 5 years ago, these were $1.33 / box of 20.  Last time I went to Walmart, they were $2.88 for the same box, and today, they are $2.98 for the same box that was $1.33 not more than 5 years ago!  That is more than DOUBLE the price in 5 years!

2.  bananas - when they opened our brand new SuperWalmart a few years ago, they pretended like the regular price of bananas was a cheap $.29 / lb.  but the truth is, I haven’t seen them at that price since!  They have gone up and down constantly, and are now a whopping $.67 / lb - the most expensive bananas I have ever seen and I refuse to pay it!  And let’s face it, Walmart has the worst looking produce I’ve ever seen!

3.  dryer sheets - before today were $.88 / box.  Today, they decided we should have to pay $.96 / box.  If they go over $1, I will no longer be getting my dryer sheets at Walmart.

To complete my complaint session, I actually had to email Walmart the other day to complain about their photo service.  I used to get all my digital photos made into prints at Walmart because it was cheap and convenient.  I would order between $1-$10 at a time.  Since I have a lot of kids, they (used to) get lots of business from me.  But now they won’t let me pay for my orders in the store.  I like to order the pictures when I take them; sometimes there are only a few at a time.  And I refuse to sit there and make teeny weeny charges on my credit card over the internet every few days - it’s a bookkeeping nightmare, not to mention how little trust I have in Walmart after all the other crap they always pull.

About the grocery prices, I understand that there is something called inflation, but this is ridiculous!  No wonder Walmart has abandoned their “rollback” campaign - rollbacks are extinct!