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02 January 2010

Do you use a pound shop/dollar store? [More:]
I'm a huge fan of pound shops. There are two in Chingford, my nearest shopping area. One is actually a 99p shop, which moved into the space vacated by Woolworths a year ago. It's part of a big chain. The other is an independent, so it often has one-off runs of bankrupt stock, where you can get a great bargain.

Today I bought:

- washing-up liquid (dish soap)
- a huge bag of sponge/scourers
- body lotion (heavy duty winter stuff with Vaseline and Vitamin E)
- some of that stuff you spray in your shower to stop soap scum
- a little kit to repair glasses. It is not, in fact, to repair glasses. One of my, ahem, Cartier watches lost a little screw from its strap. My local jeweller wouldn't fix it because it's a fake but he suggested I try using a little screw that's meant to hold the arm on a pair of glasses. So I now have the kit and will attempt to fix this later.
- a new chuck key for my drill. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I can't imagine where my old chuck key is, and now I've bought a new one, no doubt the old one will turn up.
- next year's Christmas cards. With bunnies on. It's vital to buy these when you see them, as bunny cards are hard to find at Christmas, bunnies being Easter critters and all.

Not everything was £1. The cards, for example, were two for £1. Two boxes, that is. And the washing-up liquid and scourers were 50p each.

I've learned to be selective in pound shops. A lot of what they sell isn't great quality. But they're invaluable for stationery, party things like disposable plates, cups, cutlery etc., cleaning supplies, and my 99p store also has a food section where they sell great marinades in amongst the piles of cakes made from chemicals and bars of 'chocolate-flavoured confectionery'.

And in a Turkish deli, which isn't a pound shop, I bought a tub of Muhammara, but this, too, was only 99p, so I'm including it in my list of bargains.

Do you use a pound shop or dollar store? What do you buy there?
Decorations for holidays- yesterday we got 6 New Year's Eve poppers. They had quite a spread of NYE merchandise- hats, shakers, horns, glasses.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 January | 12:03
when my arms got too short to hold tiny print away from my eyes so that i could read it, i picked up some glasses for $1 and they worked so well i went back and got another pair for downstairs
posted by rollick 02 January | 12:08
Not much. But when we were gearing up for our DIY wedding, I did scrounge around the dollar stores for some things we couldn't find in locally owned businesses or at Goodwill: large plain serving platters, serving tongs and spoons, disposable tumblers, stuff like that.

I also made a last-minute trip to the dollar store the week before the wedding, to buy a few spare platters and bowls "just in case." Good thing, too --- we used every single one of them. And though they're intended to be disposable, I washed and kept them; they're quite pleasantly plain, so they fit in fine with my usual serving pieces. We use them for parties.

What I like even better than the dollar store is the locally owned salvage-and-surplus store, where they sell a constantly shifting variety of goods for well below retail. We hit that grubby shop two or three times a month and pick up surprisingly good deals on completely unexpected things: DVDs, kitchenware, books, and sometimes even cooking supplies. (Though most of the foodstuffs are a look pretty suspect, this Christmas I bought pounds of high-quality dark chocolate for just a few dollars, and it was perfectly lovely.)
posted by Elsa 02 January | 12:22
I don't find these shops much here in Athens, but in Thessaloniki there were several within close walking distance of where I lived. I've bought candles, drinking glasses, coffee mugs, cutting boards (one of the best I ever got -bamboo!- came from a euro shop, though it was more than a euro), wooden spoons, storage boxes, ashtrays, throw rugs, tea strainers, a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. I had the most fabulous zebra striped bathroom rug from a euro store (again, more than a euro)... it sounds tacky, but it was so incredibly perfectly perfect for the space. After it died (the rubber matting on the bottom began flaking off finally) I could never find anything else that looked so soigné in that particular bathroom! :)

I've had bad luck with the cheap dish sponges/scourers, though. In my experience, they begin smelling within a day or two, so once I made it through my batch of 10 or 20 or whatever it was, I went back to my favorite dish sponge.

I do love the dollar/euro/pound shops, though.
posted by taz 02 January | 12:29
when my arms got too short to hold tiny print away from my eyes so that i could read it, i picked up some glasses for $1 and they worked so well i went back and got another pair for downstairs


I buy these 10 at a time. I lose them and they break so I always need more.
posted by Obscure Reference 02 January | 12:30
Poundland! Because they're a big chain they have a lot of own brand stuff, and they're buyers seem happy to order stuff that can only be made for under a pound by making it no longer actually perform any useful function, so you get stuff like binoculars with plastic lenses so bad you see less detail using them; or a shower radio that isn't even slightly waterproof; or my favourite, a USB computer vacuum cleaner, which came with attachments and spare filters and such, but no discernable suck.

But it satiates the desire to buy useless crap, and you get good stuff there too, so I'm a fan.
posted by cillit bang 02 January | 13:04
There was an AskMe post about this about 6 months ago. The most common answers: Candy, plastic flatware, paper plates, stationary, and for some reason, pregnancy tests.
posted by argentcorvid 02 January | 15:09
Almost never. There's a couple of them nearby. They always seem disheveled and depressing to me.

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of second-hand stores, even though they are often disheveled or dirty and depressing.
posted by DarkForest 02 January | 15:38
Absolutely, DarkForest. We designate the local Goodwill stores: the good one, which is moderately good; the okay one; the sad one.

One a recent day trip, we ducked into the local Salvation Army store and looked around in confusion before realizing... hey, this place has no book section... in fact, no books at all. That was very sad-making.
posted by Elsa 02 January | 15:44
We have 100 yen stores here - and there's some pretty nifty stuff in them - very handy for wrapping supplies and for some cooking stuff. Also handy for kids books when your child likes to sink his teeth literally into a good read.
posted by gomichild 02 January | 18:12
Daiso, a 100 yen transplant from Japan, has my eternal love.
posted by jamaro 02 January | 18:47
Wow, Daiso looks amazing.
posted by essexjan 02 January | 18:57
Daiso has been immortalized in song by chixdiggit. Their song, "Welcome to the Daiso" is a wonderful ode to what they describe as being "almost a TWO dollar store".

Personally, I have a bit of a fiery hatred for these stores. My in-laws (ex-in-laws?) buy the girls CRAP from there often, and I ended up with a house full of broken crap that doesn't do what it's supposed to. It's not the stores' fault, though.
posted by richat 02 January | 19:04
I never use them. Only because I can't be bothered.
posted by LoriFLA 02 January | 19:05
According to my wife, if you don't mind peeing in a cup, the dollar store pregnancy tests are incredibly reliable. Especially if you're trying to get pregnant and/or are paranoid.

It's also great for cheap wrapping paper and some of the childrens books are a good deal.
posted by drezdn 02 January | 19:32
In L.A. I lived near one of the first "99 Cents Only Stores" when the whole thing started in the early '80s. As a LosAngelean, a trip to the 99 Store was a periodic ritual (not every week, more like every month) and their large stores (mostly converted supermarkets) had an incredible selection of stuff, from name brands acquired on wholesale discount (they brought in palettes of 2-liter Coke ONLY when the bottler did a price promotion) to off-brands and generics of varying quality (some good enough to become my regular brand) and some hilariously cheap merchandise (check out their toy aisle!). I once got a no-name-brand trackball PC mouse that worked well enough that I went back and got two more... they lasted over two years total. Good times. The biggest gap in San Luis Obispo retail is the lack of 99 Cents Only Stores within 30 miles. The Dollar Tree has several locations around here but the stores are smaller, less varied and much less fun, so I've gotten out of the habit. I also frequented the Pic N Save surplus & close-out stores before they were folded into the Big Lots chain and lost some of their character. The best bargains now are at the locally-owned supers and at Costco (but I still get sticker-shocked at some of the mega-packs until I do the math).
posted by oneswellfoop 02 January | 20:33
Our finances being what they are, I did a ton of holiday shopping at our local dollar store. Among my purchases:

-- Four Libby-glass Ice Cream Sundae dishes (like you'd see in a '50's diner) + ice cream scoop. Added Hot Fudge, Butterscotch, and sprinkles from the supermarket = instant Sundae kit (just add ice cream) for under $10.

-- A dozen folding umbrellas for a dollar each, along with a dozen great super-long handled ice/snow scrapers. Used as stocking stuffers.

-- Four Pooh-themed puzzles for my puzzle-obsessed son.

-- About five or six kids board books (also Pooh and Mickey themed).

-- Spic-and-span, toilet bowl cleaner, ziploc-brand bags (not for gifts).

-- Packs of 20 "treat" bags to put cookies and spiced nuts in (also for stockings).

-- Basically all of the stocking candy, including "movie theater" sized boxes of candy, Pixie Sticks, packages with six-packs of gum, and these great holiday boxes of King Leo peppermint candies.

-- Stickers that we use on my son's potty rewards chart - a buck for a book of 360 stickers.

-- Nice wire whisks, can openers, and other assorted small but useful items (also for stockings).

-- Six rolls of wrapping paper (mostly themed with Sesame St or Rankin-Bass characters) which is the exact same stuff sold last Christmas at Target for $4 a roll.

I love our dollar store. Its clean, new, bright, well-stocked, and fun to shop at. Certain items - mostly cleaning supplies - are the exact same things I'd buy at a "regular" shop for four times the price.
posted by anastasiav 02 January | 20:44
Two varieties here: the 3/4/5-złotych-or-less store (today, $1 = about 3 zł, €1 = about 4zł), and Poland-only uber-discount Lidl/Aldi-esque market Biedronka - a sotre so popular that every day, 2 million Poles, which is FIVE PERCENT of the population, visit one of their outlets.

What we call, in English, "the zlot shop" is great for coat hangers, utensils, nail brushes, tissues, dress socks, and all the other brand-is-basically-unimportant stuff that in the US, I'd hit somewhere like Costco, Target or a white-goods store for. We don't have anywhere like Ross or TJ/K-Maxx here either, so quasi-housewares-y things like random cake platters or salt shakers or thermoses or whatever are often there as well.

Biedronka...is amazing. First off, it sells normal and quite needful things like salt and bread for well under normal prices, AND often has, for just a week at a time or something, microwaves, skis, toy helicopters, and all manner of other wonderful items. For a single 50-zł note last year, I was easily able to get a week's food as well as something fun like a new loofah sponge for the shower or a little basket of perfectly ripe, somehow insanely cheap avocados or something.

Best of all: "biedronka" means ladybug/ladybird.
posted by mdonley 02 January | 20:57
I had a tiki party last New Years Eve and the local dollar store supplied leis, fake coconut cups, grass skirts, and any number of bright, glitzy cocktail adornments from plastic monkeys to silver tinsel pompoms on sticks. Total cost for pimping out my bar: a tad over $10.

But usually I just use them for stuff I need and know will be thrown away like spatulas and spoons. Love them!
posted by ninazer0 03 January | 01:47
Wow, anastiv, those Dollar Tree sundae glasses are great.

My favourite store is the Sam 99p stores, again an independent chain, probably about 8 stores around east London and Essex, my nearest being in Walthamstow (they would never have a pound shop where I live, it's far too posh).

Sam's is owned by an American so he gets lots of things from the US that you can't buy here - Irish Spring soap, those Colgate whitening strips and, something I've never, ever seen on sale anywhere else, raspberry douche! (You know, it cleans itself and it doesn't need to smell of fruit.)

He sells those wonderful vegetarian Indian pouch meals for £1, and I stockpile those, they keep forever.

Sam's also sells the excellent foil dishes with the plastic lids that you get in the States - you know, the sort you would get in a take-out restaurant. Those things are SO useful.
posted by essexjan 03 January | 04:35
Reading glasses @ $1 -- Walgreens charges $15. It used to be annoying as hell, I often fall asleep reading, roll onto the glasses and break them. No big deal now. I buy them by the fistful now, got them all over the house, in the pickup also.
*Some* canned goods.
Some canvasses for painting on, a buck, I'd pay five times that at Blick or wherever.
Cheap screwdrivers that it doesn't hurt to lose.
USB cables a buck instead for ten or twelve bucks.
Kitchen cleaners, laundry products ie bleach etc and etc
Nice, large coffee cups -- I'm forever leaving them places; now, less painful

The stock always changes, never know what you might find.

It used to bother me to buy there, as I know it was knocking some American out of a job by buying from China. But now no matter where I buy almost anything there's a very, very good chance it's from some poor country; this Dell laptop was NOT made in Round Rock Texas, as they were for years; what does I matter now? It's past the point of return, seems to me.
posted by dancestoblue 03 January | 10:04
OK, you talked me into it! Just got some stuff at the 99p store. I think the unknown-brand washing-up gloves (3 per pack), handwash (2) and solid air freshener (3) were good deals.

Also got some branded stuff: toothpaste and deodorant. Not sure if that's actually cheaper than a normal supermarket: I'm not very price-conscious with stuff like that and don't really notice how much it costs.
posted by TheophileEscargot 03 January | 10:35
I like to pop into them every now and then just because you never know what you may find.

I've deliberately gone to them to buy: pill containers (the weekly kind) and kitchen utensils (and usually come out with more).

There's also one here that's called 5 Bucks. I've picked up some stuff there too, usually $2 or so.
posted by deborah 03 January | 15:07
Yes, I shop in them quite often, actually. You can find great deals on cards, some name-brand items, cheap kitchen floor mats, etc. You never know what you will find. At one I found a beautiful round glass paperweight with dozens of tiny bubbles inside.
posted by redvixen 03 January | 16:12
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