the only snack cake worth buying is a Zinger. Those come into my house once in a blue moon. My kids like them when I buy them, but they seldom ever ask for them.
I do so much baking of my own that buying more sugary stuff seems unnecessary.
Eddited To address the cost issue: Packaged snacks have always seemed like too much money to me. I could always buy a candy bar for less and since I adore chocolate and am not a huge fan preservative tasting cakes, which one got my money wasn’t much of a riddle. I would never consider buying the individually wrapped packages. That’s adding even more cost to an already expensive purchase.
It is funny how certain price points get stuck in our heads.
For my mom it’s produce. She’s very aware of the price of cantaloupe, apples, and grapes. She won’t buy them if they are too high. Me? If I’m craving a cantaloupe then it goes in my cart and I don’t even notice what it costs.
I’m not sure why I get fussy about pastry cost. I think it’s the drink/snack thing. $3 for both just stings. I have too many childhood memories of collecting soda bottles and getting the deposit just to get that $1 for a soda & snack. Those childhood memories never fade.
Last week I got it into my head that I wanted a Ho-Ho. I forgot about it until I went grocery shopping and ran into a Hostess display in the middle of the aisle.
I said “oh yeah, gonna buy some Ho-Hos!” and then I saw that all of the Hostess boxes were “Buy One Get One Free.”
How could I not get two??!!
The Ho-Hos were awesome. Thankfully, I missed the display the next time I went shopping. However, when I visited my mom the next day she was trying to push off some Twinkies on me because the display caught her.
The only time we had Hostess growing up was when we went to their bakery outlets. Could get the pies for very cheap, and we bought lots and froze them. Mmm, a lemon one sounds good right now! But otherwise, it was all just way too expensive for a bunch of sugar.
And of course then Little Debbies stepped in, and now even cheaper, generic brands…I think if Hostess had a, well…I don’t want to say QUALITY product, but just…something that was more than just sugary sweetness…the pricing might be worth it. But…it’s really not.
I voted other because I am just not going to buy one of those regardless of price. If I want cake (or my kids are deserving of one) I will get a real cake.
EEEWWW!
Other. The only way I ever obtained them as a child was by trading parts of my healthy, whole-grain, inevitably disappointing lunch. Unfortunately, I intend to do the same thing to my children.
They are never, ever that cheap at my Wonder/Hostess thrift store even when they’re past the expiry date. I just happened to stop in today and picked up 2 .49 loaves of bread but the box cakes were still 2 bucks for around six individually wrapped packages, and those are much smaller than the ones in the convenience store packs.
I did get 2 cherry pies for a dollar but they were awfully stale.
I never buy them because they aren’t my junk food of choice. If I’m going to spend money on something with zero nutritional value, I at least want it to be really tasty.
At Cub grocery store they have individual Little Debbies pies for 75 cents. I loved those as a kid, especially the kind filled with chocolate pudding. The price isn’t too bad, but grown-up me just remembers them fondly and walks past- there’s no way they’re as good as I remember. But I think similar snacks like moon pies and those chocolate/peanut butter wafer cookies were a quarter when I was a kid- I even remember them going up to 35 cents and being mildly outraged. That was like 1990.
Tangentially, the grocery store used to sell very small bags of chips for 3/$1. They were like .75 ounces and a perfect small amount of chips. Last week the price had gone up to 2/$1. So I get one less! For a dollar! It might seem silly but I’m not going to buy them anymore.
I was in a discount store (Big Lots) and I noticed that the boxes of snack cakes were selling for $3.50 (and the store was calling attention to this low price). I can remember not that long ago that you could buy a box of snack cakes at a store like this for $1.99.
Same thing with ice cream. Just a year ago I could buy a six-pack of Klondike bars at Walmart for $2.50. They’re now over three dollars. Same thing with pints of ice cream.
Candy bars have gone through a similar price rise.
There appears to have been a big jump in sugar prices in the last year or so.
I voted other because I don’t think I’ve ever bought a Hostess snack cake. I’m not sure that I’ve ever eaten a Twinkie or Ho Ho, for that matter. Once in a very blue moon, I might buy snack cakes, but it’s usually Little Debbies oatmeal pies or Swiss cake rolls. Maybe a box every two years. If my kids are jonesing for junk food, they can walk or bike to the c-store.