Don’t get me wrong, the dollar store can be great for many items, with prices significantly lower than other full-priced stores like Target. You can get reduced prices on gift bags, greeting cards, and holiday decorations. Hey, it’s even a good place to fill gift baskets for office Christmas presents. What stores like Target have going for them though, is the quality, and there’s no comparison when you go into a dollar store. There any plenty of items that are perfectly fine to buy at the dollar store to save money, but there are certain items to avoid
Food (for You and Your Pet)
While the dollar store is not somewhere to load up the shopping cart for the family, it can be cheap, but that doesn’t mean the quality of ingredients and freshness will be the best. Candy items I suppose are ok, since they will mostly be name brands, but I would avoid canned goods for sure, as you never know what brands or where they came from. There’s probably a reason why you hardly see the same brands in grocery stores and only find them in dollar stores.
Household Tools
Just remember, you get what you pay for. So, if you go in there trying to replace your tools with those in the dollar store, you will be disappointed when they don’t last more than a use or two. Whether they are kitchen, household, or tools, most will be made of some sort of plastic (I assume), although one can’t be sure. If you are looking for a new hammer and you think you can replace it at the dollar store, thinking what’s the difference, hopefully you can finish the job with the head falling off when you swing to drive the nail in.
It’s Not an Electronics Store
The dollar store does seem to carry everything, but keep in mind when you are looking down each aisle and come to the electronics section, that this is not Best Buy, so the quality will be sub-par at best. Again, going back to you get what you pay for, you cannot expect the quality of USB cables, ear buds, or even HDMI cables will be of any use. Not that you need top of the line headphones by any means, but good luck getting the volume up loud enough to hear even by cutting the grass with those, and will be distorted at that.
Food Containers
It would seem like the dollar store would be a perfect place to find discounted food storage containers, thinking that you don’t need to pay full price for those items. While that may be a waste of money to buy top of the line containers, there is a reason why the good ones are so much; they last, and you can put them in the dish washer. You may be able to put the dollar store containers in the dishwasher, and if it makes it out of a wash without melting, you probably don’t have many more left.