|
I've been told repeatedly by folks to try staying at Walmart, because it's free, but I can't stand them. I hate to even shop at them if I can help it.
We used to live in a small college town that had a fairly healthy downtown strip. Then Walmart moved in, with prices you just can't beat, and in no time the tiny stores were driven out of business. Now I would have no problem with this if the small stores were just jacking up the profits on stuff, and it was a result of fair competition, but Walmart, because if it's size and the tactics it uses on it's suppliers (even making money off of THEM at times) buys stuff for prices the little guys can't touch. Sometimes selling items for less then small stores can BUY it for! I've been to many supplier conferences and heard the horror stories of how Walmart works. In many citys they get tax breaks (sometimes for years) for coming in with all their part time/no benefit jobs, so right there they have another benefit over the existing small businesses that have to pay their taxes like everyone else.
I paid to sleep in a real campground every night we were on the road. It's still a lot cheaper than staying in a hotel, and we had full hookups every night. They all had late night check in for those who wanted to keep driving until late. And no one even blinked at the age of my trailer.
Sorry, I'll quite ranting. I just can't say enough how much we HATE Walmart!
__________________
Stephanie
|