My little brother is a huge fan of dollar stores. My baby brother is a big fan of Walmart. I've been trying them out, more, recently. But I'm a little skeptical, and I think you've got to be careful.
For one thing, you've got to know what you can, and can't, get in those stores. Dollar stores are big on getting a large range of cheap stuff, but they aren't always great at inventory control, so you never know whether stuff you've got there once, can be got there again. And stuff in one store in a chain may not be available in another. Or any other. Walmart often has cheaper prices than you can get the same or similar stuff elsewhere, but it's prices aren't always cheaper, so you really have to know the price of what you are shopping for.
I don't know the price of clothing very well, so, even though Walmart does sell a lot of clothes, I didn't go there when I wanted a housecoat. (Over the years, Gloria had made me two housecoats, or "bos" (beaus?) as they are known in her family, for reasons I never understood. But she hadn't been able to make one in a while, and the girls, when they moved us [and then me], very rightly threw out the one I had.) I went to a thrift store. (I had a great experience with a thrift store when I did my Dublin/Cleveland/NASA teaching trip, which I'll tell you all about, some other time.) I got a housecoat for nine bucks. (And another for six, for when the weather is warmer in the summer.) Of course, I washed it (twice) before I wore it.
I like big drinking glasses. I don't want to have to refill them too often. And, when I have a can of pop, I want lots of ice, and maybe lime, and maybe cutting it a bit with soda water. So I need a big glass. And I haven't got many. And, with my small hands (no Trump jokes, please), it's handy to have either a handle or a stem to hold on to. And those aren't exactly common in either dollar stores or Walmart, so I tried out the thrift store for that, too. I got one really big wine-type glass with a big bowl and a big stem. And I got a heavy duty pint glass. Well, no sooner had a got them home, and put them in a sink to soak (I'm not going to drink out of an unwashed thrift store glass any more than I'm going to wear and unwashed piece of clothing from a thrift store), than I put something else in the sink, and the wine glass shattered like a cheap piece of stemware. (Oh ... wait ...) The pint glass wasn't going to shatter like a cheap piece of stemware, but, after I had put it in the diskwasher once, I noticed a chip on the rim, and a crack near the base, and a couple of days ago I noticed that the crack near the base is growing longer. (I'm drinking out if it right now, but I don't think I'm going to trust it much longer.) (And, as I'm drinking from it, I've just noticed a big "MADE IN CHINA" embossing on the bottom.)
I did go back to the thrift store for replacements. I got a large drinking glass, and another pint-type mug. But I also went across the street to the dollar store, to see what they had. I got both of the glasses from the thrift store for less than the cost of a (somewhat smaller) pint-type mug at the dollar store, but we'll see how long they last.
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