Wal-Mart just started up a new blog called Make Your Dollar Stretch, which is dedicated to teaching you how to save money (the answer, of course, is to spend lots at Wal-Mart, not things like curbing consumption, buying second hand, or comparing prices). MSN's moneyblog SmartSpending wrote a review on the new project and they think it's pretty lame.

Their first reaction was to scoff at the idea of a company that sells more than $300 billion worth of goods a year offering cost cutting tips. We'd like to give credit where credit is due, however. Wal-Mart has been good at finding ways to buy their good super cheap. They do it by pitting manufacturers against one another, or forcing them to move their operations overseas, or simply by relying on sweatshops where they don't have to pay much for the 11 year old girl sewing shirts. They are also super good at cutting costs here in the U.S. They pay their employees as little as possible, force them to take unpaid breaks, cut hours, offer poor benefits, and fire folks who have been around too long.

That aside, MSN thinks the new blog is just an advertisement for Wal-Mart. We totally agree, but then again, what has Wal-Mart done recently that wasn't an advertisement?

Here's the review:

A review: New Wal-Mart blog is lame

Pardon us if we're a bit cynical, but the retail behemoth that's made billions and billions by convincing people to spend in its stores now has a blog telling people how to save money?

We decided to give Wal-Mart's new personal-finance blog, Make Your Dollar Stretch, a look.

This weblog is a thinly disguised advertisement for Wal-Mart. Are you really surprised? At least it's not pretending to be something else, like Wal-Mart's notorious and now-defunct Wal-marting Across America and Working Families for Wal-Mart blogs.

But it's not kind of fun like Check Out, another company-sponsored blog where, according to The New York Times, Wal-Mart buyers can comment about products and their personal lives without corporate review. (Check Out's subtitle is "Where the lanes are all open." At least there's one Wal-Mart location where that's true.)

The content at Make Your Dollar Stretch so far includes two bland posts by author and "Savings Queen" Ellie Kay. Midway through one called "Talking Turkey," we found this gem: "Stores like Wal-Mart honor competitors' ads on the same advertised product! Their efforts to be the low price leader has helped me and my family save literally thousands of dollars over the years." (Lose the exclamation points, El.)

Another page offers a laundry list of money-saving tips from Ellie, including advice to buy generic when you're getting prescription drugs. "Wal-Mart currently charges $4 for a 30-day supply of more than 360 generics," she reminds us.

Wal-Mart executives also get to blog at this site. The first post, by Wal-Mart's president of financial services, tells us that we can cash our economic-stimulus checks at Wal-Mart for free, and how easy it is to put some or all of that money on a Wal-Mart MoneyCard. This company has ingenious ways of getting people to walk through its doors.

Another page is an advertisement for Wal-Mart's "money services" like money orders and check cashing.

The final page is a lame spending quiz. We answered the 20 questions and found out we're a "nifty, thrifty spender." Gee. We were also told that we're saving the environment by shopping responsibly and that we "probably already know that ... services like Wal-Mart's Site to Store through Walmart.com also helps the environment by reducing fuel costs and packaging." If we didn't know, we guess we do now.