I highly doubt the 5 percent discount you might get at wal-mart makes the difference between ‘average suburban family’ and the Rockefellers. Who knows who the hell the Rockefellers are these days anyway? I’m sure a more appropriate line would be “What are we, the Waltons?”
Most of the grocery stores around here have major discounts for Thanksgiving, including deals where if you spend so much, your turkey is only 10 cents a pound or something like that.
In fact, Wal-Mart would probably be MORE expensive than these places.
My employer, for the past three years, has given each employee a $25.00 gift card to one of the supermarket chains, along with their Thanksgiving pay packet.
'Course, once I retire, I’ll need to go back to work to get one of those…
What do they eat? $30 a person for home cooked food is a hell of a lot. Do they have crown roasts or something, not turkey? Expensive wine I can see, but a traditional Thanksgiving dinner?
[QUOTE=ShelliBean]
And Voyager?
That wasn’t actually targeted at WalMart, but at all those who freak out at Thanksgiving, as if they’ve never made vegetables not out of a can before.
Stating who WalMart targets their ads for doesn’t mean that everyone who walks in the door is like that. Remember, they just had a bad quarter since they tried to improve the quality of their fashion, and it was too much for their customer base. I truly regret you’re stuck shopping there. The one I go to once a year, at most, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is universally dirty and disordered.
I’ll not list the other reasons I despise the place so as not to get into a WalMart hijack.
I’m English, for the record.
I just live here.
Incidentally, I’d never heard of “Thanksgiving” as an English event. Generic harvest festivals are fairly common, so I imagine the name is archaic now.
Dancing girls.
I can’t speak for others, but when I saw the $450, my jaw dropped. When I was younger, we used to have extended family over. We didn’t have any prep time for things, except maybe to bake pies the night before and to begin the turkey the night before. This is for maybe 10-20 people or so.
I would guess the cost at around half / a bit less than half of the $450 mark, especially less if others brought their own beverages and we did a potluck type thing for dessert.
If we spent almost 500$ on Thanksgiving, we wouldn’t have had a Christmas.
Maybe that means we weren’t really ‘middle class’ either, I really don’t know.
I haven’t seen the commercial but from the description it’s like this:
The man is typically just a stupid moron.
The woman is typically intelligent and reassures the husband-idiot she knows how to best spend his money.
Why isn’t everyone a little insulted?
Bring Carol Stream over and show it to her. She’ll spin up reeeaall good.
I know that. I chose to ignore it because I was feeling touchy about money lately. Sorry about that. I myself am guilty of making fun of people in WalMart.
My thoughts exactly. I try to take a little pride in my Thanksgiving dinners. I would no more consider shopping for it at Wally World than I would consider buying fresh produce at Ace Hardware.
Try True Value for your produce. There or Menard’s. 
I haven’t seen it either, but I’m picturing belligerent stupid moron.
I really don’t like companies that don’t bother to respect their own customers in their own advertising. Usually (at least lately) Wal-Mart is smarter than this (the whole “look at the lovely things I can get here to make my home a nicer place for my family on a real budget” is respectful - and the ads they were running that featured their own employees were respectful of their employees.)
Better ad is when Dad comes up and says “Wow, what a spread! I thought we had a tight budget this year” and Mom says “I got it all at Wal-Mart.”
Look, I know part of this is me being touchy, but please don’t say that I don’t take any pride in what I do for my family just because I shop at WalMart for groceries. I do, I just happen to do it as cheaply as possible because money is tight right now, and probably will be until the youngest is out of full time daycare. I’m fine with that. It doesn’t mean I don’t do the best I can with the money I’ve got or don’t take pride in it. A turkey is a turkey. They sell Butterballs at WalMart just like they do at regular grocery stores. They sell milk and meat and canned foods and fresh vegetables and fruits just like any other grocery. Shopping there doesn’t mean picking through the hammers to find bananas. It means getting 52 diapers for $10 and a bag of chicken breasts for $6.50 in the same trip. It’s not as fancy as yours, I’m sure, but it is what I cook for my family and provide for their needs. I do it on what money I have and I do take pride in it.
I’m on course to derail this thread from the commercial aspect so I’ll get off my (WalMart supplied, made in China) soap box. Just know it does hurt a little to know that you (anyone) thinks that I don’t do what I can for my family and don’t deserve to be proud of my efforts because it came from a store you are looking at down your nose.
ShelliBean, you’re not being sensitive and I don’t blame you for saying something. Shopping at Wal-Mart does not automatically mean you’re a bad person, it simply means you’re money-conscious.
Whether we like it or not, Wal-Mart has some things on sale for cheaper. I prefer Target for clothes, but Wal-Mart has cheaper furniture. It’s still the only place around where I can get decent quality furniture with most pieces running at around $100. I don’t need mahagony, I just need something functional. I got my sewing table there, for $110 - everywhere else I looked it was closer to $200. And it’s got a lot of the amenities of higher class places.
Same with food. Some of the groceries are substantially cheaper. I don’t buy my produce there because our local Price Chopper wins awards on its produce, but dry goods, sure.
The ad in the OP sucks, true, but people who look down on all wal-mart shoppers should try being in a tight budget sometime.
Ok, I’ll j oin Shellibean and get off my high horse, too.
To be fair, tdn never said I was a bad person. And Voyager did make the point that just because some are like that, not shoppers all are. But it is the general tone of some of the posts I object to- peering through small glasses perched on the end of her nose, the guest of the house holding a can of Great Value sweet peas saying “Dahling, you bought food for your family where?”
No I didn’t, and sorry if that’s what I implied.
I do look down my nose at WalMart, and admittedly I do this from a position of ignorance. I’ve been into only one, and only one time, and that was a decade ago. But it was such a godawful negative experience that I vowed never to repeat it. The mere thought of taking anything from that place and putting in my mouth makes me gag a little.
I’m not entirely certain you’re making things any better with that, tdn.
A turkey isn’t a turkey. Some of the people are simply saying that they won’t buy Butterballs. I used to get my turkey fresh from the local butcher - those were some great birds (I haven’t hosted Thanksgiving in years). Fruits and vegetables from my co-op or the farmers market are so much better tasting than the ones from the grocery store (and the hamburger from the co-op - twice as expensive, but the best hamburger ever…).
It isn’t that Wal-Mart can’t be a decent grocery store (the Wal-Marts around here are horrible, but I’ve been in parts of the country were they aren’t, so I’m willing to believe they can do groceries well) - its that grocery stores aren’t the best source of quality food for an “occation” meal - of course, that quality comes at a price not everyone has the luxury of affording.