sometimes the dollar store will get you better buys....the other thing is, Goodwill and garage sales and craigslist....if one can buy what one needs...like a tool, or a shelf, or canning jars, etc at Goodwill or the garage sales or off craigslist...at cheaper prices, why shouldn’t they?
Why bother...... just go to Walmart and buy.
I lived in Seattle before I moved to rural central KY in 2011. In seattle, pretty much every non-food item we purchased was purchased from Craigslist, garage sales or estate sales.
Then we moved to a definitely lower income part of the country. We noticed an odd thing, and another guy that moved here from an afluent metropolitan area actually mentioned the same thing:
People are almost giving stuff away in the city area because used is, well, used. A $25 item with minor wear can sometimes be had for a buck or two. But in more “poor” areas, EVERYBODY sees this as a main source of non-food merchandise. It means two things:
1. Because the area is lower income, there isn’t much useful stuff at the sales. People are not quick to dump stuff just because it has lost its luster to them.
2. Because they are less likely to part with it, they are less likely to put a “I’d rather sell it cheap than take it to the dump” attitude.
3. As I mentioned above, everybody is on to trying to get deals at these sales, making it a seller’s market.
The result? They are pretty much a waste of time for us. Not only is the quality usually poor, but the prices are so high that often you can get the stuff new at a lower price. And forget about getting cool stuff like vinyl LP’s at a bargain or mid-century hi-fi equipment for cheap. It rarely exists and when it does you would think the guy hid his gold coin stash in it.
But if you live in a city, the best way to go galt with your spending is through estate sales, followed by Craigslist and, finally, goodwill or garage sales.
Not only that, the Family Dollar does a real good job at stocking not everything, but the best reasonably priced items. They're more local, so you can go there for just a few items, and be in and out in a few minutes.
Maybe WalMart has become an over-the-hill concept and all of those funny "WalMartian" pictures online have turned it into a loser's shopping place.