Nothing wrong with shopping at a dollar store. I’m strictly Dollar Tree, where all but a few items are either $1.25 or $1.50. It’s a great place to buy snack foods, facial tissues, plastic food storage containers that you don’t need to last a long time, cleaning supplies, and all sorts of other odds and ends. I found these things called ‘Cover-Ups’ there that one can use instead of plastic wrap to cover up a plate or bowl. They look kinda like plastic hairnets, they’re circular with elastic around the edge, and they’re easier to just pop over some leftovers than to wrestle with the box of plastic wrap.
Between Aldi and Dollar Tree, if you have one of each nearby, I can’t imagine buying junk food in a regular grocery store.
On the subject of COVID and dollar stores, back in mid to late 2020 at the height of the pandemic, toilet paper was nearly impossible to find around here. Big box stores, regular grocery stores, there was a period of about a month or so where you just couldn’t find anything.
The one store that always had multiple shelves full of toilet paper for sale? The local Dollar Tree. Limit of four per customer per day. And they never ran out. The only explanation I could ever come up with for that was that people simply didn’t think of Dollar Tree as a place to buy that particular item. Now was it the best toilet paper ever made? LOL. No of course not. But when the options are “Toilet Paper” or “No Toilet Paper” your standards change very quickly. I will always be grateful to Dollar stores for that.
The local Dollar Tree still gets occasional business from me, once every couple of weeks. The “cover ups” for leftovers and what not mentioned above are a great convenience of course. Always have a box of those around. They’re by far the cheapest place around here to buy commonly used batteries as well. And they’re great for quick necessity items that you only need one or two of very quickly as you can usually be in and out of the store in a few minutes. I’ve bought small tubes of toothpaste there, cheap shaving razors and cans of shaving cream, tissue papers to keep in the car, Ziploc bags, and small bottles of OTC medicines like ibuprofen and allergy medicine.
No reason to hate on dollar stores. They can be wonderfully convenient as long as you keep your expectations in check.
Another Dollar Tree visitor (we also have Dollar General stores nearby). Last thing I bought there was a half-dozen 26.5oz glass beer mug, only $1.50 each which I still consider a sizeable steal.
Yes, but really just for a handful of items, and you pretty much know which ones they are without even looking, so it’s no big deal. I’d guesstimate that 98% of the stuff in the store is still either $1.25 or $1.50.
They have smallish bottles of off-brand Zzquil that put me right to sleep as well as the $7 bottle in other stores. The secret ingredient is dirt cheap Benadryl so of course it will be effective. I find the ibuprofen (30 tablets for $1.25) work as well as any other brand. (and cheap toothbrushes, sometimes in packs of five, for cleaning small things.)
I didn’t know bra repair workshops were a thing.
I think the only thing I’ve bought at a dollar store was thick poster board. Buy four of them, tape them together, and you have an excellent board to support really large jigsaw puzzles.
There are several things on there we get. I keep cheap sponges in a bucket in the garage for muddy dog feets. Big PKG. for one buck feeds my cheap soul.
There are these pods you drop in a toilet and they fizz up. Smells nice and keeps things cleanish. Between scrubs.
I was not looking for it, but while I was surfing the other night, I saw an article about stuff to buy at the dollar store. Since I was only paying half attention, I don’t have a link. Where am I going here? It said they’ve got leggings that are out of this world. They are extremely high quality and people love them. I need to get some of these!
I like these bags of coconut flour they sell at a local Dollar Tree. They taste nice in homemade cookies and are probably a good change to the factory-made ones I usually buy. I don’t know of any upside to coconut but find it worthwhile.
