Blanca Torres writes about how people spend money, especially when they do it at stores. Her stories have included trend pieces on online shopping, upscale kitchen supply stores, television service for cell phones, the mainstreaming of organic food and the effects of immigration policies on East Bay labor. She covers companies including Safeway Inc., Longs Drugs, Ross Dress for Less and Cost Plus World Market. She also writes a monthly feature called “Price Check: What we pay and why we pay it.” Past topics include movie tickets, wine, life coaches, online dating services and barbecue grills. She is a 2006 East Bay Press Club award winner for business writing.

Torres has been writing for the Times and ContraCostaTimes.com since August 2005. Before that, she wrote for the Baltimore Sun, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Seattle Times. She even had a stint in 2003 as an intern for the Times.

She graduated in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English. She also dabbled in Latin American studies and creative writing. A native of Pasco, Wash., she loves apples, the Space Needle and Columbia Valley wines. She has two siblings who both work for a global company and make a lot more money than she does — one is an engineer and the other a financial analyst. Torres has traveled to more than 30 states as well as Mexico, Canada, Japan, Peru, France, Spain and Italy. Her philosophy on shopping is to avoid paying full price for anything and to always make sure to make your money count, no matter how little or how much you spend.