99c stores. Review your purchases.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m a 99c store junkie. I frequent them all, everything from those small, seedy, independently owned holes-in-the-wall to that big chain 99c store that’s always painted a garish flamingo pink.

Something about these particular institutions causes me to lose what little buying sense I actually possess. Something about everything in my sight being a buck compels me to buy the most unheard-of things.

After that initial high of the 99c store purchase, one must face the often-devastating comedown that is taking your purchases home and looking over them / testing them for quality.

Today, for instance, I bought the following after sauntering about my local seedy 99c store:

  • 10 ct rainbow pens. Quite a disappointment. Very un-vivid ink colours, nothing at all like the vibrant happy cap colours. Not sure what I was expecting with these.
  • 15 ct blue pens. Surprisingly passable. They look embarassingly cheap, alright, but I gnaw my pens to high hell anyways.
  • 250 ct drinking straws. Neon pink, neon lime, neon yellow, neon orange. I use straws for ALL my drinks, and thanks to oral fixation and nervousness tend to chew them all up after each drink. These are thin-walled and a bit narrow, but they should suit fine.
    -Black scarf of unknown material. Yarn fringes at the ends, rather standard. Trying it on now, it’s a bit scratchy and uncomfortable, and thin besides, so it’s more for fashion or cool days. No matter, I live in Los Angeles. It was 83 fucking degrees when I bought this scarf. At least I look sassy in it.

Share with me your 99c store experiences! Rate the items you’ve squandered countless dollars on, from the mundane to the outrageous! Expound on your 99c store-bought food delicacies! Recall, with that special glint in your eye, your best and worst 99c purchases in history! Then send me a few Washingtons to fuel this disgusting habit. Come on, man, I’m just waiting for the big payoff.

2

I bought a plastic-handled screwdriver that was assembled backwards - that is, the driver end was molded inside the handle, and the crimped end (crimped to provide the plastic handle something to hold the shaft in place) was where the driver end should be. The others in the bin were fine.

Great fun to hand to an unsuspecting cow-orker.

-mdf

3

I love the dollar store.

Recently, I’ve bought baby blue stockings for christmas (they were fuzzy and soft), silver candy cane ornaments, drum ornaments, wooden spoons (three for a dollar), candles, picture frames, and wine glasses there. I love all of the stuff that I find there, the price is right, and if you look hard, you can find decent things in there.

4

I mentally kick myself every time I think of the opportunity I had to buy a melamine plate commemorating Pope John Paul II’s visit to Los Angeles in, what, '84?

5

Since I am broke, as of late, this has been my only means of entertainment even though I don’t like shopping. It’s like a game to find the best dollar store find.

Paper Towels!!! Not crappy couldn’t hold an ounce paper towel but the real “Sparkle” paper towels that hold up to Bounty and other big brands and last just as long.

EverReady AA Batteries - four pack. The “use by” dates are in the 2004-2005 range too! (EverReady also owns Duracell.)

Gift bags. You know those things that cost more than the present you give? A DOLLAR!!! Nice ones, not cheap-o crap that you can see in some discount stores, these are nice bags that can be used again and again.

Kitchen utensils. Low on dough? Need a wisk or a splatter screen, a set of bar towels, how about an extra measuring cup, or iff’n you need to store some leftovers there’s those Tupperware type of containers, each a friggin dollar. YEAH, I said a dollar!

Halloween candy. Every year I end up with more candy than children. This year, I spent $3.00 on three bags of candy. Still didn’t give it all away but I would have spent $9.00 I am sure, but I got a bargain.

Ah, the dusting of a home in Colorado. Well, the ceilings are high in my house. Got a set of three dusting things, um, they are static something-or-others so the dust doesn’t go everywhere but I did get one that telescopes to reach some very high places in my house! YES, no more cobwebs in hard to reach areas. All for a friggin dollar.

The Works toilet bowl cleaner. Dude, this stuff CLEANS, for a buck. My toilet bowl is so clean you could drink out of it…Okay, maybe you wouldn’t want to, it works better than any toilet bowl cleaner I have used.

I have other things I have purchased there, including a few additions to my snowman collection (which is on display year round) but over all, pretty much love that damn dollar store. Lots O’ bargains…just beware, some of it is pure crap, some of it is pretty good stuff.

6

Straw Update: Things drunk through these tend to acquire an uncouth sort of taste. Scablet fears for her life; is too young to die.
Gift bags are generally a good idea. So are things like plastic measuring cups and kitchen sundries. You basically know what you’re getting with all that dross.

Makeup is one thing I would never suggest buying at a dollar store, unless you run into RuPaul in one of the aisles and he specifically recommends it.
Other than that, hooray for items costing small amounts of money.

7

A laundry basket that I bought when I was like, 14. I just threw it out last year, so that’s 6 years of laundry toting for a buck. And I only bought it in the first place to carry the other things I’d bought that time.

I found my favourite shampoo at the dollar store, but later I saw it at the grocery for 98 cents. I guess I have cheap taste in shampoo. :wink:

A six pack of juice drinks, some big name stuff that I can’t recall. Kids liked it.

Two plastic kid-sized lawn chairs for our porch. They’re great, and fairly sturdy.

I’ve bought LOTS of great stuff from the dollar store over the years. When I was a little kids I used to do my Christmas shopping there. You’d be surprised how proudly a grandma will display a cheesey little trinket that was given with love. :slight_smile:

8

Around the corner from me in Park Slope is a 97 cent store! They undercut those money-hungry 99 cent thieves. Anyway, the only observation I have made there is that plenty of stuff costs more than 97 cents, even though the place says everything 97 cents. And if you know that, sometimes you ask when you pay for something how much it is, and they still look at you like you’re crazy and recite, “97 cents.”

Farther down in Park Slope, there’s a bizarre “Gray-Shel” 99 cent store. I have bought two things there, both of which I have no need for but I love stupid misspellings.

  1. An egg timer, with packaging labeled “Eg Timer”
  2. A CD-Rom (there was a bin full of them) entitled “The Legend of Daniel Boon”
9

I went into a dollar store on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and found some CD’s of the original broadcast of “War of the Worlds”. I snapped up about 10 of them. I put one up for auction on eBay each week and ended up making slightly over 100 bucks. Not bad for a 10 dollar investment. I wish I’d bought the entire bin of them.

I often go to my local “Dollar Tree” when I’m bored. It’s best to visit often, or else you’ll miss the good stuff. Another good store is “Dollar General”. They are not a dollar store per se, but their stuff is very inexpensive.

10

I love dollar stores. I bought my little brother several small toys for Christmas there – he rather liked them. However, I’m rather suspicious of the food items. An acquaintance of mine works at one of the local dollar stores – has for at least 6 months. She says that some of that food has been there since before she started working. Untouched. The candy has a high rate of turnover, but more obscure items rarely, if ever, gets purchased. Ew.

11

Just ask anyone who was at NYC MegaDope about my fabulous tiara.

$1.15 Canadian (after tax).

:slight_smile:

12

Just the other day, after visiting our local Middle Eastern food market and cleaning up on cheap bulk spices, my boyfriend and I made the pilgrimage to the local dollar store, intent on making some sense out of our chaotic cupboards.

I think we got:

2 big Tupperware pitchers, to be used for storing flour and sugar.
2 nice glass spice jars
1 pizza cutter, as we’ve never owned a pizza cutter, either of us, and we make a lot of frozen pizza
1 vegetable peeler, our previous one having lost a bravely-fought battle with an intimidating potato (that thing has eyes! Aaaaa!)
1 small floppy stuffed horse, because boyfriend’s stuffed sheep gets lonely up on his monitor
Some pens. We like pens.

And now, our cupboards are all tidy.

This particular dollar store was also the origin point of our bright purple shag toilet seat cover.

All hail the dollar store!

13

I stopped off at our local dollar store the other day. They once again didn’t have any of the men’s dress socks I had picked up on a previous visit but haven’t seen since, and for the first time since I started shopping there they didn’t have the Planter’s Cheeze Curls which had become a regular purchase. On the other hand, they did have a large stock of 46oz Juicy Juice and Betty Crocker “Bowl Appetit!” pasta, both of which are usually a lot more expensive at the regular grocery stores, so I stocked up on those. I may go back later this week with the shopping cart to load up on the Juicy Juice; since it’s 100% juice not tainted by “high fructose corn syrup” it’s on the list of things my wife can drink, and at a dollar a bottle I can’t pass it up.

14

Count me in as another dollar store shopper.

I got my great-nephew a little kid t.v tray shaped like a bib for a buck, and a little plastic bowl with a spoon shaped like an airplane.

I will buy some food items there, but I always check the experiation date on it.

Last year 2001 I got several sets (2 per set) of glass candy dishes and made candy for my family for Christmas .

I used to buy my best friend’s granddaughters all kinds of hair bows scrunchies, brushes, kid books and nick nacks for christmas at the dollar store. They each got a bag of about 10 items each and they loved it, even knowing where it all came from.

One year I lucked out and found a lot of decorated burlap bags, everyone who got their gifts in those stuffed them with newspaper and used them as decorations the next year.

Yea, I pretty much love dollar stores.

15

That’s where Santa shops around here :slight_smile:

I like to buy cheap but pretty plates at the dollar store, load them with homemade goodies, and give them as gifts for x-mas or to some of the elderly folk from church.

They carry fuzzy bootie socks! You can’t fond them many places anymore- you know the ghastly pink or blue super fuzzy anklets? Love them! (and you can get a MUCH better speed on floor sliding with them versus “regular” socks)

Lipgloss. LilMiss is always losing lipgloss/lipbalm, but needs it. Why spend $4.00 for two LipSmackers at Target when I can buy four tubes of Carmex for $4?

Candles. I smoke, but hate the smell of smoke. Make sense? lol. So I buy 3"x5" little pillar candles to help diffuse the smoke. If you look enough you can even find some that smell decent.

Were I to list everything I bought last time I hit the buck store, this post would go on and on and on… so i’ll stop here.

16

Does anybody need any wrapping paper?

I walked into my local Dollar Tree before Christmas this year (and intelligently, before I actually bought any presents) and was completely entranced by their selection of wrapping paper. I ended up with about 4 rolls of Spider-Man, 2 rolls of a cute roly-poly snowman design, and a couple rolls of random red/green blob-like print. After all the presents are wrapped and delivered, what’s the total dent in my cache of wrapping paper? A whopping roll and 1/4. Bah.

17

Scott, if I knew you had a 99cent store bent, I would have had you come along with us to Jack’s 99 Cent Store. :slight_smile:

It’s actually one of my favorite places to go shopping when I’m in NYC (especially since I’m broke!) It’s across the street from my last job. I’ve bought the usual stuff… pantyhose, candles, hair ties… but I’ve also found some pretty neat stuff too. One, I got a back massager that I gave as a Christmas gift, and soon had the whole office buying them out. I’ve bought lunch there (since they have a frozen food section). And upstairs, they have a “more than 99 cents, but still pretty darn cheap” section. I bought my Christmas tree there last year, I’ve bought books, kitchen ware, games for my computer… pretty much anything I could think I’d want, I find in this place.

I love Jack’s.

18

Best/Oddest dollar store finds:

A box of graham cracker animals called “Huggy Bears.” (No, they didn’t have wide lapels and platform shoes.)

Drink mixes called “Austin Powers Shagadelic Shakers.” They were essentially mixers in plastic martini shakers that you just added booze and ice too. I bought a couple and they weren’t bad. When I went back a couple days later they’d all been snapped up.

I’ve gotten a few good books and some decent software there. (A “scrabble” type game and a “breakout” type game.) Dollar store is the absolute best deal for baseball game peanuts. The dollar store sized bag would cost you $2.50 at the grocery and a whopping $5-$6 at the ballpark itself.

19

I once bought a box of Fruit Rollups labeled in Arabic (I think) from a dollar store. I have no idea why they had that there.