LOL, Sorcha! Well, I fortunately get to avoid panty hose any more, but I always had excellent luck with Hanes Sheer Energy. If you get the Hanes catalog (or go online) you can buy "seconds" for half the price, which usually meant that one leg was 1/8" longer than the other. Big deal.

I guess the time issue depends on your situation. I do all my grocery shopping at the local coop. There's an amazing fish market that has local fresh fish on the way home. My coop has an excellent bulk foods section, where I buy all my staples, and local organic produce, but if I want a bigger selection, I go across the road from my office on my lunch break to hit the farmer's market. Once upon a time I used to "subscribe" to a farm for $50 a month -- once a week I picked up a box of seasonal produce, and I had to split the box with someone because I couldn't eat it all.

If I need clothes, I have a handful of local shops that I go to... I just make a shopping circle and I'm done. That happens once or twice a year. But there aren't any clothes I want at Wal-Mart anyway. The 5 and dime by my house sells underwear, socks and kitty litter, candles and knick-knacks for less than wal-Mart. I have an Ace franchise next to it if I need to fix something around the house. My pharmacy is near my office; another lunch break trip once a month. I don't have any local shops for books or music and the big chains don't carry much of a selection, so I buy from Amazon.

There's aren't big lines and cash registers at any of these places. As a matter of fact, I wish they had MORE customers.

That pretty much covers my shopping needs. What else do you really need? My car is a diesel so I hit the truck stop next to the freeway every two weeks. If I *must* go to the Maul, I just park at the light rail station near my house and take it to the mall downtown. No fuss, no parking spot woes, no driving around.

I honestly don't understand this culture of needing to go out and buy things every weekend. What does Wal-Mart have that's so special you would want to shop there all the time anyway?