Walmart vs Target: 2013 Price Comparison

Flour
When I found tiny 2 lbs. bags of flour at Target for $1.37, I was sure that price would win. Have you ever seen a two pound bag of flour? They are tiny! But, there they were at Walmart too, marked 94¢! Paradoxically, Target's $2.09 price on the 5 lbs. bag beat the $2.24 bag at Walmart.

Tomato Sauce
Target had 8 oz. cans of generic tomato sauce for 39¢, Walmart had its twin for less, 33¢. At Walmart the shelves of tomato sauce looked like a runaway train had slammed into them.

Frozen chicken breast fillets
Target had a 2 lbs. bag for $6.49. Walmart had quite a few options, in a freezer where it was impossible to determine which price belonged to which products. I finally had to walk halfway across the store to check the UPC code on a bag of breast fillets: $5.98 for 2½ lbs. That's $3.24/lb vs. $2.39/lb. This wasn't a fair comparison though, because I wanted small strips of breast fillet, not whole breasts. I couldn't find breast strips at Walmart at all.

Target had a bag of frozen corn for 92¢. Walmart's cheapest corn bag was 98¢. Score one for Target!

Honey Nut Cheerios
Target had a 12.25 ounce box for $2.69. Walmart had the same size box for $2.84. Score two for Target!

Pepper
Target had a very cheap option for buying pepper. They sold a twin pack of salt and pepper shakers for $1.27. The best Walmart could do was a 2 oz. can for $1.98.

Here's a second photo of the shelf below the pepper at Walmart. It is a disaster. Did raccoons break into the store? Was there an attack by the House Atreides? Maybe Walmart does sell a low-priced salt and pepper shaker combo, but I didn't see any, and I wasn't going to read 20 mangled labels to figure it out.

Baseball hat
Although my shopping list hadn't been specific, I was looking for a kid's baseball cap. Target only seemed to have baseball hats with licensed characters, such as Angry Birds or Lego Batman, with a $9.99 price. Walmart had generic ones for $5, but I could only find them in the girl's section. It wasn't a perfect comparison, but if you want a $5 hat, you should go to Walmart.

Pictured above: The frozen food section at Target.

Toy Gun
Target had a generic version of a nerf pistol for $4.99. This was the cheapest gun I could find. Walmart had the same gun for $5. The difference was that at Walmart, the gun was a real firearm.

22 watt fluorescent lightbulb
I wrote down 22 watt on my shopping list, but the industry standard seemed to be 20 watts, so I went with that instead. CFL bulb pricing is ridiculous. At both Target and Walmart, single bulbs were pricey, $7.49 at Target, $8.88 at Walmart. However, multi-bulb packs were almost the same price! Target sold a two-pack of bulbs for $8.79 and Walmart had a four-pack for $8.88. That's right. The Walmart four pack was the same price as the Walmart one-pack!