use string helper with currency

[eluser]Michael Nielsen[/eluser]
I'm building a site for my company and I want to be able to show my customers a preview of products with the specs and price ect.

I have built a basic mock up but when I add a new product to the store I want to be able to just add the price without the $ sign. Is there some way to do this in the controller before it's entered into the db? Kinda like removing the slashes only adding text.