# Dollar-store food for the homeless - good or bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 27, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569 "2013-02-27T23:23:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/41 "2013-03-03T03:55:11Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > I think the difference here is that she is paying for her cokes and what she does with her money is her business. Food stamps are provided on the taxpayer dime and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that the taxpayer would like food stamps spent on necessities (You occasionally here those stories about about someone using food stamps to buy lobster). Not that I think food stamps are a bad program or that you shouldn’t be able to buy drink mix with them, but the attitude that “you shouldn’t use food stamps for drink mix” and “I can use my own money to buy coke” is both rational and consistent, even if somewhat heartless. Not too rational. If Annie gets $150/month food stamps, it costs the taxpayer $150/mo (plus administrative costs), whether Annie spends it on drink mix or gruel. If Ms. B. thinks that being able to afford drink mix proves $150/mo is a lavish food budget, that’s another (dumb) story. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/42 "2013-03-03T04:32:24Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I often buy food for myself at the dollar store. You see lots of regular brands there, plus some unusual European stuff like cookies and crackers. IOW I don’t think the groceries at the dollar store are any worse, poorer quality, or junkier than what you find at the regular supermarket. > [@astorian](#): > > What I’ve found is, it’s VERY rarely cheaper to buy these items from dollar stores. Now, your experience may be different from mine, but I’d advise you to check the prices of the items you buy against what you’d pay at a regular supermarket. That’s exactly what I do, and I’d say about 95% percent of the time it is in fact cheaper, but I’m referring specifically to 99¢ Only Stores, not “dollar stores” in general. What follows applies to this chain only. (And when the regular supermarket is cheaper, it’s always because the item is on sale.) 99¢ Only Stores has regularly stocked items, and then it has items which are the exact same products you buy at a “regular” supermarket. They get these particular items because of shipping diversions from regular distributors–not because the items are damaged, or inferior. So, while you can’t expect them to always be stocked, as long as it’s something that costs more than 99 cents at the “regular” stores then it’s obviously cheaper. That said, I’ll agree that some of the regular items at 99¢ Only Stores occasionally are in fact cheaper at other places, such as Walmart, when they go on sale there. **ThelmaLou** , I don’t know if you shop at just a generic “dollar store,” but at 99¢ Only Stores, it’s not just packaged food–they have good produce, too. Check out [what this gourmet blogger gets at 99¢ Only Stores](http://www.inerikaskitchen.com/2012/09/why-i-shop-at-99-cents-only-stores.html). ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/43 "2013-03-03T10:55:51Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > They are still far less disgusting than you, if you have that attitude. This is pushing the “being insulting” line, **Steophan**. Back off it. You’ve been here long enough, you should know where that line is. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/44 "2013-03-03T12:34:53Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > Not too rational. If Annie gets $150/month food stamps, it costs the taxpayer $150/mo (plus administrative costs), whether Annie spends it on drink mix or gruel. If Ms. B. thinks that being able to afford drink mix proves $150/mo is a lavish food budget, that’s another (dumb) story. Whenever people start proposing that what food stamp recipients spend their food stamps on should be more tightly regulated they almost always completely fail to consider that this would greatly inflate administrative costs. The current system is actually cheaper than their proposed “nanny state” regulation. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/45 "2013-03-03T16:12:55Z")
WIC benefits are limited to certain items; how exactly is that controlled at the register? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/46 "2013-03-03T16:24:44Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > WIC benefits are limited to certain items; how exactly is that controlled at the register? The store system has certain PLUs catagorized as WIC or SNAP items. It can be overridden by a manager. If you buy items that aren’t covered by WIC or SNAP, like toilet paper or prepared food, the receipt will generally print in two sections, or have little arrows or other markers to distinguish what went on your card and what you had to pay for in cash. It’s up to the store to be compliant and categorize their PLU’s correctly, with penalities if they don’t and are turned in. (Had a go-round with a store manager once when I wanted to buy a huge rosemary plant, stocked in a big “BBQ With Fresh Herbs!” display, obviously labeled as food, and it was much much cheaper than the rosemary in the spice aisle. Food plants, including edible herbs, are allowed by SNAP, at the grocery store or at gardening centers that accept SNAP. His store had put the PLU under Floral, which is not covered. Eventually, they overrode it and fixed it in the system, but it took three trips to the store and escalating managers to take care of it. It was the principal of the thing that made it worth my time, not to mention $8 for a 28" living plant that gave me rosemary for three years instead of $11 for a little tiny bottle of dried rosemary.) I don’t think it would be terribly burdensome for the PLU system to be used so that lobster is excluded but flour isn’t. That is essentially what WIC does. But what would be a nightmare is getting a committee to agree on what “necessities” are and what “junk food” and “luxuries” are, and providing enough security at stores so that managers don’t get punched in the face by angry customers who think orange juice should be covered, even if soda pop isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![JKilez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@JKilez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKilez)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569/47 "2013-03-03T19:51:52Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Fuck that. Nobody wants stank-ass bums hanging around in an otherwise clean-ish restaurant where people may bring families, and otherwise bathed, non-reeking people aren’t usually at. That is \*why \*you send them to McDonalds. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dollar-store-food-for-the-homeless-good-or-bad/651569.md?page=2)