Healthy Choice deal, and a disturbing trend

I went to Wal-Mart this afternoon with my $2 Healthy Choice coupons in hand. I had heard you can get them free with coupon. But when I got a look at the selection, I realized it was the entrees that are priced for $2 and not the dinners. Since I was getting these for my husband, I knew the entrees would be more of a snack for him than a meal, so I decided to go ahead and buy 3 of the 'complete meal' dinners that were 2.50 each. I figured 50 cents per box was still a great deal. When I got to the checkout, the cashier rang them up at 2.50 each, but then stopped and said "Wait!" and dashed off to another register. She came back with the Bi-Lo sale paper and showed me that Bi-Lo has all HC entrees, dinners and steamers on sale this week for 1.98. So she price-matched and I ended up making 2 cents per box after coupons. Sweet! I'm so grateful she helped me get an even better deal! I hadn't really looked at my Bi-Lo ad too closely yet this week since it got soaked lying outside in the rain Wednesday. I did run in and grab one at the store yesterday, along with the new Bonus Deals booklet that just came out this week, but with all the ebaying I was doing yesterday, I didn't get a chance to look at it when I got home. I have since scanned through it and they've got some really good specials this week so I need to plan my trip there this weekend. I'm very close to my next Fuel Perks reward too, so this next trip should push me over.

I have been noticing a disturbing trend at the stores over the past month or so. I first saw it happening at Wal-Mart. They have begun raising prices on many grocery items. (So much for their "save money" pitch, eh?) Prices have gone up on Pop Tarts, Hershey's chocolate syrup and Kraft Mac and Cheese (jumped from 50 cents to 76 cents!), to name a few. Which, you know, OK, inflation. They kept their prices relatively low during the worst of the economic downturn, and I wouldn't really have an issue with them doing this merely to start boosting their profit margin now that the economy is slowly picking up again. But here's the other thing I've noticed happening at the exact same time as these prices are rising: the store brands of the same items are now on the shelves showing the same prices that the name brand items had 3 months ago. If they are raising the prices of the name brands simply to encourage shoppers to buy the store brands instead, then I do have an issue with it. I can't use coupons on the store brands, so I'm not getting as good of a deal, and that irks me. Plus, to be honest, I don't care if they were to GIVE AWAY Wal-Mart brand mac and cheese, I won't be buying it over Kraft! No way! I have limits, people! (I did try the Wal-Mart chocolate syrup -- unfortunately, it's not as good as Hershey's.)

It's happening at Publix too. I was in there Sunday getting some sale items, but I needed to grab some vegetable oil while I was there because we were out and needed some for dinner that night. I always use Crisco, but they only had the smallest size and the largest size of Crisco in the store. However, they conveniently had every size of the Publix brand, so that's what I bought. I'm not opposed to store brands -- I use them on many, many items (milk, bread, buns, sugar, paper products, soda, coffee, chips, etc.) but I think it's a bit underhanded to take away the shoppers' options so they are forced to buy your brand. Hmph!