A month without Walmart continues, overcomes biggest challenge yet

My month without Walmart has extended into two-thirds of January and survived its toughest test yet: an iPhone charger.

I'm on at least my fifth iPhone charger since I made the switch to the iPhone less than two years ago. I go through them pretty fast because I watch a lot of Netflix on my phone while it's charging and the cord gets bent up in the process.

My old one started fraying out about a week ago, but I've been able to make it work by wrapping the cord around the phone and setting it a certain way on the counter at night to charge. Last night I wasn't sure even that was going to work and thought that I would wake up to a dead iPhone.

I looked at a couple of places in town the last few days to get a new one but hadn't been able to find one and was pretty sure that I'd have to break down and go to Walmart to get one.

I had already decided that if the one I had stopped working all together that I was going to end my self-imposed Walmart to buy a new one. The fact I'm refusing to shop at Wal-Mart but own an iPhone probably says a lot about me in and of itself, but the fact I can literally look up any fact at any point in time while being connected to the world via email and text messaging from a device the size of a deck of cards has become too addicting to even consider giving up at this point.

But I got lucky today. I got a new charger, visited a new store and avoided Walmart for at least the eight week in a row.

After checking a few different stores, I tried to find a certain cellphone company's store and ended up at a different one instead that was at the same place I thought the other one was located.

There, I found a charger and had decided I was going to buy it regardless of the price. That was a great plan all the way up until I asked what the price was and was told $19.99. I was like, "Wow, I can get one for $8 somewhere else."

I was then informed that the one in front of me was an "approved" charger while the other one wasn't. I had no idea a charger could be "approved," nor did I care.

I stood there for a moment trying to justify spending $20 on something I knew I could get at Walmart for a lot less just for the sole purpose of avoiding shopping there when the employee informed me that if I wasn't going to buy the one she was selling me, that Tabaco Connection sold cheap ones.

So I left the store and went to Tabaco Connection and picked up a cheap one for $5 that has successfully charged my phone to full strength despite not being "approved."

I'm not really sure why I haven't shopped at Walmart yet. I've more than met my goal of going a month without purchasing anything from there, but I think at this point it's the realization I don't really miss the store or need anything they sell extremely cheap at the expense of its employees.

I've made it a point to shop somewhere else locally first and enjoy shopping at the other stores in Mountain Home. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep avoiding Walmart, but if I can survive replacing my phone charger without a trip there, it's going to have to be something big.