3043: Why I Feel Like A Baller When I Shop At The Dollar Store by Lisa Harrison of Mad Money Monster

[00:00:00] Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep? That's the idea behind our new podcast, Good Sleep. Greg, our host from Optimal Relationships Daily, is here to help ease you into a peaceful night's rest with some positive affirmations. And these affirmations aren't just comforting. They can help ease anxiety and nurture positive thoughts, setting you up for true good sleep.

[00:00:25] So press play on Good Sleep Tonight, because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app, and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Finance Daily, Why I Feel Like A Baller When I Shop At The Dollar Store by Lisa Harrison of MadMoneyMonster.com.

[00:00:51] When I was a little girl, my mom used to tell me that pennies make dollars. Back then, I had a tall, skinny tin bank wrapped with the Tootsie Roll logo where I saved my little copper rounds. Every now and then, I would dump them onto the floor, count out $0.35, and walk down to the convenience store at the end of the trailer park to buy myself a Three Musketeers candy bar.

[00:01:13] Gone are the days that $0.35 buys you a full-size candy bar, but that doesn't mean you have to pay top dollar for your chocolate fix, or any other little indulgence, or necessary purchase either. Enter the Dollar Store. Are you ready to be a baller too? The Dollar Store is good enough for the president.

[00:01:33] There's been an article circulating around the interwebs in the past couple of years about how former President Jimmy Carter and his wife live in a home worth $167,000 and shop at the Dollar Store. I mean, if it's good enough for someone who used to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home, it's certainly good enough for you and me. My newish neighborhood has a dollar store.

[00:01:58] We moved to a new neighborhood in August 2019 and knew there was a shopping center close by, but rarely frequented it because everything is close by where we live now. If we needed to run out for some cold medicine or bug spray, we would go to the pharmacy across the street or one of three grocery stores within a stone's throw of the neighborhood. Lo and behold, a recent series of fortunate events led me to discover the Dollar Store right in our very neighborhood. As I said, it's always been there.

[00:02:27] It just wasn't on my radar until a few weeks ago when I had to make a pit stop to quickly source some rafts for a float night at our local pool and thought they might have them. Well, they did. And at a reasonable price too. While I was there, I also noticed they were selling the exact same sunblock I had purchased across the street at the pharmacy the week before for $2 less than what I had shelled out. That was it. I was hooked. Since that fateful trip, I've been back several times.

[00:02:56] My husband and I even took a walk there one night for some ice cream. We have a DQ within spitting distance, but we decided to give our greenbacks to the DG instead. It was a total touchdown too. We snagged two containers of Edie's for $3 each. Compare that expense to the number of servings and that's quite a savings over what we would have gotten at DQ for our money. I don't shop there. It's too cheap. I kid you not.

[00:03:24] Those words actually came out of someone's mouth during a discussion I had recently. This person was telling me about how they save money and shop for bargains at the big box stores. When I mentioned that I like picking things up at the local dollar store, they scoffed and said, Oh, I don't go there. Their stuff's too cheap. Really? Immediately I thought, is being too cheap even possible? I surmised that they were referring to the quality of the goods and not the actual price. It didn't really matter.

[00:03:53] The fact that the idea of shopping at a dollar store was somehow beneath their level of living sounded absurd to me. Here's the real kicker. That individual has asked my husband and me to borrow money in the past. We have happily given it and have always been paid back. But maybe if they embraced dollar store shopping the way that we do, they wouldn't be running out of money before the end of the month. Just a little frugal food for thought. Get over yourself and save a few bucks.

[00:04:20] Those are the words I had to stop from flowing out of my mouth during that conversation I mentioned. But alas, I held my tongue and just basked in the mental glory of knowing that I'm a baller when I save money at the dollar store. Interestingly enough, I've had more than one person turn their nose up at my dollar store adventures. Not only do some people look down their nose at dollar store spending, but they also think it's stupid to buy things on consignment or at thrift stores because they're used.

[00:04:47] In the past year, I've bought myself secondhand boots off of eBay for a fraction of what they would have cost me new. I even got compliments. More recently, my daughter found two cute pairs of shorts for the summer selling for $7 each. They were high-end brand names too. She used some of the money she'd earned from house sitting to buy them. When an adult in our circle said she loved her shorts and asked where she got them, my daughter proudly said a consignment shop.

[00:05:16] The person promptly responded with a crinkle of her nose. Ew. Seriously, people need to get over themselves and simply save a buck wherever and whenever they can. Those shorts could have easily cost my daughter $50 each had she purchased them new. She had the money to buy them new, but she chose not to. I could not have been more proud when she handed me the money she didn't spend and said, invest this for me.

[00:05:40] I have drilled financial responsibility and savviness into her since she was barely old enough to talk, and it's finally paying off. Just remember that shopping at your local dollar or thrift store is nothing to be ashamed of. And if it can save you money, why not? After all, you really shouldn't care where you buy your toilet paper or pool noodle. I certainly don't. You just listened to the post titled,

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[00:07:25] Lisa makes a compelling argument here for shopping at the dollar store. The whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking to myself, why don't I shop at the dollar store more? I don't have a good reason. It simply never crossed my mind. Until now, that is. I've always thought of dollar stores for specific things like party decorations where you're just going to use it once and don't really need anything super fancy. But now I'm curious what else the dollar store has to offer,

[00:07:52] especially when it comes to things I buy regularly at the grocery store. What strikes me most about this article is the encouragement to not be discouraged by others' opinions on where you shop. For a lot of our spending, no one is ever gonna know where we acquired something or how much we paid for it. For example, I went through a phase where I was making my own laundry detergent. It was super easy, it worked just fine, and I ended up spending $10 per year on laundry detergent.

[00:08:20] I told a friend about it when she was asking me about how I saved so much money. And her response was that she didn't want to make her own laundry detergent because she was afraid her kids would get made fun of at school. I found that so interesting. Like, how would anyone even know what laundry detergent you use? But it just goes to show that our fear around what others might think of us can sometimes stop us from experimenting with new ways of doing things. So that being said, maybe I'll see you at the dollar store sometime.

[00:08:50] And that will do it for today. Have a great day. Thank you for listening. And I'll be back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.