Shirley Mitchell, 55, picked up a few groceries this week to bake Christmas cookies as gifts. But rather than go to a traditional supermarket, she picked up some of the ingredients at Dollar General, a discount store with more “consumables” on its shelves.
“It’s horrible,” Mitchell said of the economy as she placed a $1.85 package of a dozen eggs into her cart. “I think it’s going to cause everyone to pull tight.”
Economic uncertainty has persuaded more consumers like Mitchell to leave behind traditional grocery stores in search of bargains on …

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With so many processed foods on the shelf now, it’s hard to keep track of what ingredients are in what products. For example, both soy sauce and red licorice often contain wheat.
That’s can be a real problem for someone like Kathleen Reale. She has celiac disease and can’t eat anything with gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains.
“It’s very confusing. I mean when I first found out that I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I walked around the supermarket kind of in a fog, saying I can’t eat …

“As consumers are looking for ways to stretch their dollar, restaurant operators are responding to their economic concerns with enticing value offers and deals,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst at NPD.
NPD reported that in the quarter ending in August 2008, 23 percent of all visits to restaurants were prompted by consumer-perceived deals, which included value menus, coupons, discounted prices and buy-one-get-one-free promotions. That’s an increase of 9 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. Non-deal restaurant traffic was down by 1 percent.
According to NPD, the quick-service restaurant …

To save money, many women (68 percent) are willing to switch brands of over-the-counter medications, and 67 percent are willing to switch brands of milk or eggs, according to a recent poll conducted by ShopSmart, the shopping magazine published by Consumer Reports.
But only 29 percent say they would change their brand of pet food. Women are also reluctant to switch cosmetics (30 percent say they’d switch), personal care items (48 percent) and toilet paper (49 percent).
The poll also found that when it comes to shopping for new appliances, 27 percent …