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.

As a notorious deal hound I was excited to find out about a new service which makes use of Pricegrabber.com's comparison and searching abilities to provide users with email alerts when an item drops below a certain price. Its similar to having a limit order on a specific stock, except in this case, you have to make the purchase yourself. DealAlerter.com goes beyond traditional deal hunting which for example focuses on finding the cheapest LCD TV over 40 inches with 3 HDMI ports and helps you find the best price on a specific TV.

By letting me first select a specific item based on user reviews and brand experiences, DealAlerter helps find the best item at the best price! DealAlerter also recognizes that not every store on the Internet has stellar quality and customer service, allowing you to choose what stores to include in the alert. You can further limit your price alert by quality to include brand new items or to look only for refurbs, which often provide an excellent quality at a much lower price. Unfortunately as good as the Deal Alerter system is it won't catch deals which revolve around coupons such as the current 12% off coupon for BestBuy.

DealAlerter looks like it will free up a lot of my time and money the next time I am in the market for a major purchase. One final thing I like about this kind of deal alerting system is that it reinforces the idea that you don't need to buy something the second you decide it is what you want. With a little bit of waiting and the right technology you can hold off until the price drops to fit your budget. Too bad they don't have a deal alerter like this for used cars!

In a new article on compulsive shopping, there is discussion about including this behavior as a "mental disorder" in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Considered the diagnostic bible of mental health professionals, the new edition is due out in 2010, and there is discussion about including the so-called "behaviorial disorders." This group of disorders includes internet addiction, compulsive gambling, hypersexuality and compulsive shopping.

As a psychotherapist, I have treated compulsive shoppers for many years. All describe the cycle of exitement (buying), remorse (second thoughts), and guilt (low self-esteem) that is common with compulsions. Like a dopamine squirt to the brain, the shopper seeks out the next high with purchases that they don't need, purchased with money they don't have.

This video has been around for a while but Rob Gruhl does such an excellent job at explaining how to purchase a car that it is well worth your time even if you aren't in the market just yet. Even though the focus of the talk is on how to buy a new car, you can easily adapt most of this advice to the used car hunt as well. I've lamented my last car purchase on WalletPop before and I wish I had watched this video before we set foot in the dealership last year.

My favorite piece of information from this video is to remember that you as the buyer have the power when you go into the dealership. There were numerous times during out purchasing that we thought things were iffy but we didn't walk because we got too attached to the car and forgot that we held the power in the transaction. Something that I don't think most people realize when they go in to purchase a car is that, unless you are buying a first edition Dodge Charger, there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of almost identical cars out there for you to purchase.

I wish we had remembered that when we went shopping, instead I got in the mindset that this is the only one we will ever find in our price range and began justifying this and that to ourselves, eventually purchasing the car and getting suckered into GAP insurance and dealer financing. Both of which we ended up switching within a month and saving a bundle. Remember, "If you're doing it right, you'll feel like an ass."

Check out our previous coverage on "How not to buy a car" by Zac Bissonnette

I went to the mall on Monday and bought an Aeropostale t-shirt that fits me beautifully for $4.50, and the color -- baby blue -- is my color.

I mention this partly because it's always fun to save $15 but also because, for me, the thrill of saving $15 is more exciting than the actual savings. Saving money makes me happy and, if you're a dedicated bargain shopper, you know exactly what I'm talking about: it's not just about money.

Developing a thirst for bargains and a love of saving money is a great way to increase your chances of a prosperous future. It's also one of the best gifts you can give to your children.

This coming Fall it looks like prices for LCDs will once again plummet as consumer demand has tapered off leaving excess stock in the retail channels. It seems that early in 2008 manufacturers of LCD displays shipped a record number of LCDs especially large ones, which coupled with a faltering economy has turned the HDTV and display business into a "buyer's market". This price drop comes on the heels of a spat of price cuts in May of this year as Sony began to drop prices on its Bravia line.

The price drop is coming because of simple economics, and consumers should hold off at least until September to pick up any large LCD displays. If you are hanging on for another month or two before making the purchase it would be a good time to sock away more money towards your new TV rather than putting it on your credit card. If you can hold off until November, I wouldn't be surprised to see rock bottom prices on name brand LCDs. If prices drop enough you can toss a 42' LCD into that house you're still trying to unload and throw it in with the purchase. In this market you gotta try something!

Staycation has become the marketing buzzword of the season. I've been guilty of using it in writing myself, but last night I was watching TV and a commercial came on that made me think it's all gone too far.

The furniture store Raymour and Flanigan was having a Staycation Sale. "Gas prices put the brakes on your vacation plans? Take a staycation instead and create the ultimate getaway with Raymour & Flanigan!" their ad says.

Lots of retailers have tried to jump on the bandwagon of people saving money by staying at or near home for vacation this summer. USAToday reported in May that big box retailers were targeting homeowners with backyard equipment. I've seen ads just on Maine cabin rentals hawking their places as a staycation for other Maine residents.

If you're going to save thousands of dollars by not driving or flying out west this summer, sure, go splurge. Buy a new grill or Adirondack chair to make your backyard more fun. But spend hundreds or thousands on furniture instead? Raymour and Flanigan furniture may be nice and might well be a great improvement to your home. But I think it defeats the purpose of saving money by staying near home.

While researching the worst dollar store buys, it didn't surprise me to find that there were many more items that even Wal-mart and Costco couldn't compete with for price. And, as some readers pointed out, sometimes you don't have either the budget or the storage space for bulk buys. Anyway, here are a few of my picks for top dollar store buys and remember, I can only report on prices that I find in my neck of the woods, so please check prices in your area.

• Ivory hand soap At three bars for a buck, even the big box stores couldn't compete with 33 cents a bar. Our local Wal-mart sells Ivory bar soap in packages of 16 for $5.98, or 37 cents per bar.

• Tame Shampoo A similar brand, in the same size costs almost twice as much at Wal-mart. If you don't need or want a fancy shampoo, $1 is plenty to pay.

Even though gas prices are dipping a little in my area the local media and pretty much every personal finance blog online are still extolling the virtues of walking or biking to work. It seems simple enough; dust off your bike or sneakers, grab a backpack and hit the road. Right?

If you're encumbered by urban sprawl this may not help you out much but if you live in a city of one-way streets, which the walking directions ignore, this may be the best article you've read all week. Google just rolled out a new beta feature to Google Maps which allows you to use the service to get walking directions, no matter the distance. It also avoids areas typically restricted to foot traffic such as interstates and other highways.

Even though it is interesting to see how Google thinks I should walk the 20 miles to work, when I ask for realistic directions to my barber's shop I am shown a much different route than I would normally take in my car in order to avoid crossing a few bigger and heavily trafficked intersections. Another nice feature is that Google estimates the time to cover the distance, so you can even plan out your departure time. Google expects me to cover about a mile every 20 minutes.

One of my pet peeves when reading advice on how to save money is to get a bit of advice without being empowered to actually make use of it. These new feature should help you find a way to add walking into your busy life. Walking to your weekend barbecue or to pick up groceries this month is a great way to save money and get healthier. Make sure you head Google's warning and "use caution when walking in unfamiliar areas", since the service doesn't appear to alert you to areas with frequent muggings. To use this feature, just select "walking" from the drop down box that appears below your destination.

If you're stuck for a weird gift, check out StrangeDeals.com, a web site on BradDeals, and run by BradsDeals, which I've just posted about. How strange is the site?

Well, if you'd like to get a wedding cake topper for a gun enthusiast, you can find one here -- a miniature groom and bride, each holding a shotgun. Perfect for any couple who isn't just registered at Target, but with the National Rifle Association.

Seriously, this is one weird site. You can buy a "pick your nose party cup," which isn't what it sounds like, but would still be an amusing purchase.

You can buy hand soap. That doesn't sound strange, of course, but it's flesh-colored (non-ethnic flesh colored) soap that looks like little human hands. It's very creepy.

If you're not a fan of the current presidential administration, you can buy a Bush Countdown Clock for $19.99. I'm guessing as the months pass by, they'll be marking this one down. At any rate, definitely an interesting site to check out. If you are a fan, you might think that sounds tasteless, but it's nothing in terms of taste compared to the Psycho shower curtain -- a lovely white shower curtain with a silhouette picture of Norman Bates dressed as his mother, wielding a knife.

My anniversary is next month. I don't know what I'm getting my wife, but I do know that after I buy a gift, I'll come here -- and be reassured that whatever I bought, I could have done much worse.

Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

Browse any grocery aisle, endcap display, dairy case and frozen food section and you'll find them: Store brands and generics are more sought after than ever.

Even if there was no recession and gas prices hadn't gone north of $4/gallon, perhaps fans of store brands know something you don't --- foodstuffs taste just as good, if not better, and non-foodstuffs are also less expensive and their quality is on-par with name-brand items. A piece in USA Today notes that smart shoppers aggressively seek out store brands and grocery chains like Kroger, Supervalu and Safeway are experiencing a surge in sales of items ranging from canned goods to paper towels and toilet paper.

Price is one thing, but what about taste? As a discriminating, yet dedicated store brand shopper, I've been on the side of the store brand for some time now. What's good? Well, it's a matter of individual taste and preference, to be sure. For my part, I enjoy store brand plain, non-fat yogurt. You can add blueberries, peaces, granola and other stuff to it and it's a great breakfast, as well as a base for dressings. A 32-ounce container of Axelrod's Plain, Non-Fat, Easy Dieter yogurt is $2.89 at my local Fine Fair and Pathmark. Stonyfield Farm, Dannon and other name brands can be as high as $4.89. Ouch.

I did a double take when I saw this lead in Monday's 'Drilling Down' column in The New York Times:

Readers of Sunday newspapers are more likely than other Americans to use coupons, according to a survey released recently by Scarborough Research, which measures consumer shopping habits.

Do you think that could maybe, just maybe, be because the Sunday newspaper is where most manufacturers give away their coupons? You needed a survey to figure that out? What's next? A study showing that people who shop at Golfsmith are more likely to play golf?

The survey also found that 53 percent of coupon clippers clip from the Sunday newspaper, which makes the first statistic even less interesting.

So that this post has some personal financial merit -- rather than just being a rant against studies conducted by Dr. Duh -- here's a tip: if you find that you're just buying the Sunday paper for the coupons, consider using Coupons.com instead. It's totally free, easy to use, and has a very good selection.

How much does ground beef cost in your supermarket? In my local Safeway, it's $3.49 a pound, but at the specialty market where I shop to get beef that was raised by local farmers and grass-fed, it's $3.99 a pound; a fair price, I think, though my grocery budget is seriously straining my family's finances. In Little Rock, Arkansas, where a few of my blogging mama friends shop, ground beef is only $3.10 per pound, and the sample grocery basket of 20 items we created at WalletPop costs only $39.72; it's $63.85 in Portland, Oregon, where I live.

But what about my friends in Adelaide, Australia? London, England? Brussels, Belgium? In Adelaide, Jessica shopped at Coles and found that "4 Star Choice" (lean but not extra lean) was AUD6.54 per 500g -- or $5.75 per pound. In London, Catherine shopped at Waitrose and found ground beef priced at £4.99 per 500g -- a whopping $9.03 per pound, the second most expensive of all the cities where we shopped (the priciest was Paris, where ground beef is $11.03 per pound). In Brussels, Gaby reported ground beef to be €2.25 per pound ("carbonnade" cut at cheap butcher's shop) or €4.45 per pound ("steak tatare cut" at normal or quality butcher's shop) -- $3.54 per pound, nearly the same as here in Portland.

Seems so old fashioned, clipping coupons. Sitting at the kitchen table with your coffee and little pair of scissors. Something your Aunt Tish was famous for. If it seems musty, and not something people do so much anymore, you're in good company. Coupon redemption has been falling for the last decade. Until recently, that is. And with an online twist, of course.

According to this report in the New York Times, the number of visits to thrift-oriented websites that feature coupons are up by about a third in the last year. And sites like Coupons.com and Couponwinner.com are reporting spikes in traffic.

Why is this? Leaping food prices and $4 gasoline for starters. According to the article, the founder of Coupons.com, Steven Boal, says traffic has grown steadily in recent years, but spiked upward last fall as consumers got "more aggressive" in their finding and printing out coupons, especially for everyday products like milk and cereal.

Call me a miser, but a lot of the headlines about weak consumer spending bring a smile to my face. People have been overextending themselves for a long time and the hippie in me believes that a recession may be just what need to bring our focus back to what's really important.

The USA Today reports that "New back-to-school duds and supplies will be at the bottom of many family shopping lists this fall, with 71% saying they will spend less on back-to-school items this year than last year." According the Deloitte survey, 83% will cut back on clothing.

The USA Today coverage continues without a hint of irony: "More say they plan to do back-to-school shopping at dollar stores than at department stores, office supply stores (such as Staples) or off-price stores (such as TJ Maxx).