I was strolling through the men's clothing department at Wal-Mart yesterday and realized something: it's not that cheap.

Plain, ugly, Faded Glory jeans were $12.88 and oP polos are $13. Of course that's a lot cheaper than Macy's but it's also pretty poor quality clothing. A lot of families will head to Wal-Mart because it seems like it would be a cheap place to do back to school shopping but the reality is that you can do much, much better. Here are a few ideas:

• TJMaxx and Marshalls: if you limit your kids (and yourself) to the clearance rack, you should be able to find plenty of nice, name brand stuff for less than you'll pay for much lower quality stuff at Wal-Mart. Example: I recently found American Eagle jeans for $10 at TJMaxx. That's less than the Faded Glory ones are at Wal-Mart, even though American Eagle jeans retail in the $40 range.
• Plato's Closet: The absolute best place for teens. With brands like American Eagle and Abercrombie in gently used condition at 80% off mall prices, it's worth a bit of a drive. Bring friends!
• Steve & Barry's: Recently filed for bankruptcy but still operating all of its stores, this chain offers shoes, sweatshirts, jeans, t-shirts, etc all at $8.88! Great place to buy stuff with college logos.

Also, check local thrift shops and consignment shops, if you can talk your kids into it. With stores like TJMaxx and Steve & Barry's, you should be able to do your back to school shopping just as cheap, if not cheaper, than you could at Wal-Mart and you/your kids will look infinitely cooler.

Unemployment is up again and so is oil, so happy weekend to everyone. Doesn't that kind of news make you want to run out to the mall this weekend and blow lots of cash? Maybe that's why a lot is hanging today on Wal-Mart's shareholders meeting.

Here are the news nuggets you need to know today:

Wal-Mart Benefits from New Merchandising Focus

The Latest Gas Pain: More Job Losses

Americans Are $1.7 Trillion Poorer

IRS Small Business Audits Increase

Japanese Black Watermelon Auctioned for $6,100

LA Sues Time Warner Cable Over Lousy Service

Ex-Champ Holyfield KO'd By Finances

Elsewhere in business news on the web...

Computer Games as Liberal Arts?

Banks vs. Consumers (Guess Who Wins)

Taxing the 'Not-So-Rich' Rich

iPhone 2.0 Takes on the World

US Automakers Catching up on Productivity

Demand for Rarest Diamonds Outstrips Supplies

US Buyers Drive Christie's $350 Million Art Auction

Investors Drool as New iPhone Nears

Nuggets of news you need today:

• Continental Airlines to Cut 3,000 Jobs
• Consumers Hit Malls, Boost Retails Sales After All
• Summer Airfares Double, Triple, Quadruple
• Wal-Mart May Sales Going Up
• Seaside City Suffers Nation's Priciest Gas
• Charles Dickens Desk Sells for $850,000
• McCain versus Obama on the Economy
• Iditarod Raises Race Entry Fee by More than Double
• Next Food Shortage: Ice Cream?

Your money elsewhere on the web:

• More Than Even, Warren Buffett is the Face of Financial Success
• Some Small Towns Opt to Buy Terrorism Insurance
• Be Cautious When Funding FSA's -- How Safe is your Insurance Company?
• The Trick to Getting a Bad Mortgage Fixed
• Save the Planet, Save Some Money with a Green Lifestyle
• Six Fixes for Pricey Gasoline
• 16 Sweet Used Car Fuel Sippers
• Wal-Mart, Your Friendly Drugstore
• All Business, Always Trouble: What's at the heart of the all-business-class airlines failures? Real estate
• Housing Downturn is a Boon for Some Renters
• How the Rich Spend During a Down Economy
• The 50 Highest-Earning Athletes in the U.S.

Blog Roll:

• Trying to Save Gas Makes People Very Angry
• The Digerati Life Compares Life Now to 1998
• The Frugal Dutchess Book Party

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

Wal-Mart might not seem like the best place to find out about hot new music. Actually, if you're of the indie-rock school of thought, it's probably by far the worst place to discover new artists.

But if you're more commercially-minded, Wal-Mart has a new site that will be updated every week, offering a new song. According to Wal-Mart:

Build your playlists without breaking the bank. With a new free song every week, you'll have plenty of opportunity to explore the latest bands, reconnect with some old favorites and expand your collection - without investing a cent.

The first song is "Libertad" by an outfit calling itself "pacifika." Check out their MySpace here. Kind of a cool sound actually.

Whether or not you shop at Wal-Mart, the company still helps you pay lower prices for lots of things your family buys. How can that be? When Wal-Mart lowers prices, other stores tend to offer more discounts too in an effort to lure in shoppers. And it works!

Consumers feeling the pinch of higher gas and food prices are looking for more sales than ever before. Wal-Mart is using this to their advantage by lowering prices of key items. The company reports that in the first quarter of 2008, prices were cut on thousands of items. Some of the price cuts were as high as 30%.

I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart stores, but whether we love or hate the company doesn't matter. We benefit from their price-cutting. So you might be ticked off that Wal-Mart was able to grow company sales by 10% in the first quarter. Who cares! Consumers benefit whether they recognize it or not, and those lower prices at Target, Costco, Walgreens, and CVS are in part thanks to the price slashing of the mega-retailer. Happy shopping!

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

When Wal-Mart first lowered the price of certain generic prescription drugs to $4 for a 30-day supply, consumers wondered how they could do it. Wouldn't they lose money? Of course they would lose money on the prescription, but the master of merchandising knew they'd more than make up for those losses on what you'd purchase while you were waiting for your prescription.

Now Wal-Mart has announced that it's going to make even more drugs available for $4 (30 day supply) or $10 (90 day supply). These aren't your newest, fanciest drugs. But they are common generics that many people take daily. They will now have over 1,000 prescription drugs available at bargain basement prices.

And there's another bright side for consumers: Even if you don't shop at Wal-Mart, you might benefit. Consumers filling their prescriptions at Target also receive the same bargain pricing, in an effort to compete with Wal-Mart. And I'm sure there are other chains that have also followed suit, giving consumers several options for extremely affordable prescription drugs.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Nothing is private these days.

That's all well and good if you're an open book and don't mind people knowing intricate details about your lives. Some writers -- I'm one -- are apparently genetically disposed to being an open book -- and certainly millions of people have a yearning to tell everyone's what's on their minds on blogs, Facebook profiles and the like.

But what if you don't want people to know what's going on?

The business community is starting to get a taste of that. As you may have read -- there was a great story about it a few weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal -- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc found that a treasure trove of their corporate secrets are no longer secret. In fact, they're on sale. For almost 30 years, whenever Wal-Mart had a high-level corporate meeting, they employed Flagler Productions, Inc., to film their meetings where while being filmed, everyone nevertheless felt free to speak freely.

When I first read this, I thought, "Good idea. Tape those meetings. Stave off the brain drain that happens to so many companies when older executives leave, and later their replacements are left thinking, 'Surely, our company has dealt with this crisis before?'" But Wal-Mart had suggested to Flagler that to save money, they reuse the videotapes, and so for whatever reasons they decided to videotape everything, it apparently wasn't for posterity.

I know: the idea of Wal-Mart as a green-friendly company is a little strange, but bear with me. For $7.50, you can buy a t-shirt made of "cotton blended with polyester made from recycled Coca-Cola bottles."

What? I'm not really sure. They also have a line of Faded Glory t-shirts made of organic cotton at the same low price-point. The collection totals 94 items and includes tote bags, pajamas, shorts, and baby outfits.

Major props to Wal-Mart for offering products like these at such a great price.

Get it on paper! If you come away from this video of Wal-Mart executives dressed in drag with only one tip, it's this: Remember to get your business dealings down on paper! (well, that and to avoid dressing in drag in front of a camera unless you want to be a Youtube star. )This rather embarrassing and possibly litigious situation could have easily been avoided if somebody, I don't care who, had taken the time to get a paragraph signed stating that Wal-Mart owned the content of these meetings. Even though Flagler Productions recorded the meetings for Wal-Mart it isn't apparent to me that the company actually produced anything; rather, it acted as a simple recorder of events.

While Wal-mart contends that the videos are of little interest to outsiders; a slew of anti-discrimination lawyers, documentary makers and late show audience members will likely disagree. If this goes to court it will be very interesting to see how the judge rules, given the intent of the parties and agreements which exist solely in the memories of two parties with significant stakes in the outcome.

I have to side with Wal-Mart in this instance, because no reasonable company would save a few bucks to pass on control of video from internal company events and meetings. The risks of doing so greatly outweigh any initial savings and I believe a judge will reach the same conclusion. Of course by the time any rulings have been made Flagler Productions may have already released footage of senior management dressed in bikinis rocking out to Bon Jovi.

In this economy -- and in any economy -- the best daily deal is a free deal.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Wal-Mart's frequently updated free sample page. All you have to is click "Get your sample", type in your address, and they mail it to you. No shipping charges, no nothing.

Among the products currently available are Vaseline moisturizer, Glad trash bags, and Dexatrim Max20.

If you want more free stuff, visit www.startsampling.com, and start clicking away. I ordered me some Brut aftershave balm moisturizer.

Check out this frequently updated blog for the latest news on free samples.

When my sister Ella first started having liver problems in December 2007, I went out to visit her. When I got to her hospital room, she was trying to be brave, but was deeply worried. In addition to her fears about treatment, Ella was terrified about her finances. As a graduate teaching assistant, she didn't have very much money, and she wasn't insured; frankly, she had no idea how she was going to pay for the drugs and medical care that she needed to save her life.

A few days later, when the hospital released Ella, they gave her prescriptions for Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic, and Percocet, a painkiller. While we were in Wal-Mart picking up a huge pile of assorted health-care paraphernalia, she dropped off her order at the pharmacy counter. When we picked it up a half-hour later, we had a huge surprise: Ella's medications came to less than $15.

Later on, discussing this with Ella's doctors, we realized that the low cost of her meds wasn't an accident. Understanding her financial situation, her health-care team had carefully chosen Ella's drugs. Taking into account both efficacy and cost, they had determined that Cipro and Percocet would not only do the job medically, but would also minimize the strain on my sister's wallet. Apparently, the Geisinger clinic had consulted with Wal-Mart, determined which medications were less expensive, and was careful to prescribe them whenever possible.

Wal-Mart's not exactly the fashion aesthetic I aspire to but, if you or someone you know just needs some cheap sweatshirts, they've got a pretty good deal for you: $4 each. The Athletic Works - Men's Performance Contrast Pullover Hoodie is on sale for just $4 -- and you can order it on Wal-Mart.com, where it qualifies for 97 cent shipping.

They come in a few different colors and while they hardly qualify as stylish, they'll get the job done. They look perfect for jogging or the gym.

But if you're more fashion-forward and willing to do some digging, you can probably find something a heck of a lot nicer for not that much more money at a store like Marshalls, if you hit on the right day.

Can't stand the thought that the holidays are over? Well, surprise -- they aren't! According to USA Today, Sunday is Three Kings Day, a holiday celebrated in the Hispanic community that commemorates the arrival in Bethlehem of the Three Wise Men.

El Dia de los Reyes is in many Spanish-speaking countries the day on which children receive gifts instead of Christmas, which come from the three kings rather than Santa Claus. The same date is celebrated in another traditional Christian tradition, the Feast of the Epiphany. This feast commemorates the appearance of the Father and the Holy Ghost at Jesus' side.

I wonder how our department stores missed this opportunity to extend the sales season AND show cultural diversity? Actually, Wal-Mart is already on board with Three Kings Day, with displays and products in stores in the Southwestern U.S. Look for the marketing pitch to spread quickly.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some frankincense, myrrh, or Wii. Happy Three Kings Day!

Wal-Mart has been running television advertisements lately trumpeting the assertion that they save the average American family something like $2,200 per year. At first I just let the promotion blow right over my head but on a recent trip to our closest Wal-Mart (about 40 miles away) I took a few moments to think about their promotion because my wife and I found ourselves saying "we can get that cheaper at home."

First off, those Wal-Mart dudes have a lot of gall assuming that they know exactly what price every other retailer on the planet is charging for the same items they have stocked in their Wal-Mart stores. Secondly, it's more than a bit arrogant for Wal-Mart to assume that every item purchased in their stores is a must have item which a person will immediately find another retail source for if Wal-Mart doesn't sell it to them. That would be the only way they could have a valid claim about how much money their pricing saves for anyone.

I live in a region with a population small enough that once Wal-Mart stores become entrenched in an area, their level of retail competition drops to nearly zero and in light of that I have noticed a particularly interesting dynamic. It seems that where Wal-Mart has a captive audience such as is the case here in the northern most regions of Wisconsin, once the competition dies out, Wal-Mart's prices become conspicuously similar to or even higher than the prices of the retailers they drove under. I don't care what anybody says: that's a mode of operation similar to the way Al Capone and his boys did business in Chicago.

The deal goes like this: You come in low priced, undercut the competition until they starve out and then set your price points wherever you'd like to because you've become the only game in town.

Sam Walton must be rolling in his grave.

Starting in February 2009, analog television signals will cease transmission in the U.S., as the transition to digital television should be complete. Actually, progress is heavily underway right now. Go into any store that sells televisions and good luck finding any without the digital tuners already included.

Stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart will begin selling digital television converter boxes starting after the new year (February, to be exact) to allow American television watchers ample time to prepare for their destiny as digital consumers.

Here's an idea: instead of upgrading to new televisions for your home or office, why not save some dosh and bring home converter boxes? They will give your older, antenna-only boob tubes a longer lease on life. As an added bonus, the government will credit you up to $80 for your effort. Where's the downside?

Keep in mind, these credits are really only for the Luddites still using rabbit ears and roof antennas. Cable and satellite customers will be unaffected. Still, there's an estimated 13-21 million households that will need one (or more) of these boxes. If you have a large investment in a big-screen TV or a bunch or perfectly working older TVs, you'll need some of these boxes. They'll be widely-available wherever home electronics are sold.