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Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

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Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#311

Post by tehwebguy »

jodrellblank wrote: post #151
gkoberger wrote: post #126

I don't think that people in this thread appreciate how prevalent grocery shopping in dollar stores is. In the US, half of shoppers buy groceries from a dollar store. They do it because it's literally all they can afford anything else. There are more dollar stores than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. "Kyle Dishman can’t afford to shop at the local grocery store anymore. Instead he goes to Dollar General,…

His Chrysler 300? This thing Wikipedia describes as a V8 powered “full-size luxury car”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_300

My city’s Craigslist has several listed for sale:

- 06, $500

- 06, $4k

- 06, $12k

- 07, $5.9k

- 08, $2k

- 08, $6.2k

- 11, $17k

- 12, $12k

- 13, $7.5k

- 13, $7.9k

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#312

Post by tehwebguy »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #249
kevinob11 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience it is incredibly common for people without much money to have cars that seem impractical, because they are easy to buy but hard to maintain. I think this is pretty common with cars that were very popular when they were first released (the 300 was) so the market is saturated with old ones in rough condition that are cheap to purchase but terrible to maintain. Sample size of 1, but my roommate in colle…

Well cared for FCA products (and several other makes) are rare because they offer permissive financing and tons of incentives and intentionally design to keep low MSRPs. This results in lots of of people of more modest means owning them initially. That is a recipe for hard miles and minimal maintenance. Your average Chrysler 300 is likely to have far more wear on the bump stops and in the back seats and trunk and far…

It probably has way more to do with quality & reliability. You could treat a 4Runner like absolute shit for a decade and it would probably have more quality miles & years left in it than most other makes (much less American vehicles, sadly).

If you really want to take a gamble though, buy a Porsche Cayenne from 2002-2009, there’s like 3 or more for sale in every medium sized city for $8k max. If you drive it for 2 years and the transmission explodes, hey $333 / month Porsche SUV minus scrap! If it dies in 6 months, not such a great deal.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#313

Post by dragonwriter »

wahern wrote: post #284
goostavos wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic analysis by someone who seemingly has never been dirt poor. It may be tough to believe, but y'know what'd surprise literally none of the poors if you told them? That they pay more money for less product at the dollar store than elsewhere. Despite their limited ability, they ARE able to look at price tags in different stores and go "hey, wait a minute!" If you're dollar store level poor, it's expensive and str…

Dollar stores are a relatively recent phenomenon, a consequence of the destruction of local retail by various chains--first chain groceries, then Wal-Mart, etc. Dollar stores have slowly filled in the gaps left by the closure of local retailers and low-end chains like A&P. At first chains drove down prices, such as precipitous price declines brought by chain groceries, and then those Wal-Mart brought to everything el…

> Dollar stores are a relatively recent phenomenon

Kind of, but only because of the brief interregnum of the ~1970s-1990s height of suburban shopping malls. Dollar stores are a revival of the general variety discount stores — “five-and-dime” or “dime stores” — that largely either fell to suburbanization and shopping malls or morphed out of the model into mega-retailers (Walton’s Five-and-Dime, for instance, is now known as WalMart) or did the latter but still ended up doing the fomer (e..g, Kmart); the new dollar stores were rising just as many of the earlier giants of the same model were taking their last breaths in the late 1990s and 2000s; at least one of the early dollar store chains (Dollar Zone) was a rebranding of a classic general variety discount store chain that had started as a literal dime store chain (McCrory’s).

The rise of dollar stores tracks pretty well with the decline of the malls that had marginalized the original variety discount stores. They weren’t so much a new phenomenon as something that went through about a generation of marginalization.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#314

Post by cat_plus_plus »

Digory wrote: post #199
dragonwriter wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do it because it’s literally all they can afford anything else. Dollar stores very often aren’t cheaper than other sources for similar products especially for grocery items (which they tend to have very limited selections of.) People that shop for groceries at dollar stores do it because: 1. They shop for other things at dollar stores (either for price, or for reason #2, or because its the only place close by…

> People that shop for groceries at dollar stores do it because: 4. They only have a dollar. Yes, it's cheaper by the fluid ounce to buy a barrel of Pine-sol at Costco. But if you have $100 for groceries and household expenses this week, you'll pay more per ounce to minimize the cash-flow problem. Their cash-flow constraints and cost of credit both prevent them from economizing. That is how most Americans shop.

Except it's not just a cash flow problem, it's first and foremost a community collapse problem. Poor immigrants buy in bulk and share all the time. Eventually the only way to avoid poverty is effectively cooperating with other people - at work to accomplish tasks worth paying for, social networking to get a job, staying married to provide for children. I am not patronizing anyone here, just acknowledging that their troubles have many more dimensions than just unit prices of small portions of various goods.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#315

Post by ricardobayes »

gkoberger wrote: post #126

I don't think that people in this thread appreciate how prevalent grocery shopping in dollar stores is. In the US, half of shoppers buy groceries from a dollar store. They do it because it's literally all they can afford anything else. There are more dollar stores than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. "Kyle Dishman can’t afford to shop at the local grocery store anymore. Instead he goes to Dollar General,…

Are they selling the same goods as walmart/target etc. or have their own branded goods?

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#316

Post by GreenWatermelon »

nostrademons wrote: post #254
melony wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are they doing with the extra US dollars now?

Belt and Road Initiative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative Basically, they're using it to buy American heavy equipment and build infrastructure in developing nations, principally in Africa and Central Asia. They lease the infrastructure back to the host country for cash (i.e. favorable terms of trade), and if the host country defaults, there's a clause that China can take over the infrastructure…

This also contributes to increasing China's global influence, which means reducing the US's. Proxy economic war, rather than colonialism, imo.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#317

Post by imtringued »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #217
goostavos wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic analysis by someone who seemingly has never been dirt poor. It may be tough to believe, but y'know what'd surprise literally none of the poors if you told them? That they pay more money for less product at the dollar store than elsewhere. Despite their limited ability, they ARE able to look at price tags in different stores and go "hey, wait a minute!" If you're dollar store level poor, it's expensive and str…

Your first sentence sums up the majority of this site on any socioeconomic issue. At this point the term “financial literacy” is exclusively used by armchair poverty quarterbacks.

I'm very bad with money. I never look at my account balance when I spend money. Heck, often months pass without me looking at my account at all. When I end up seeing the balance it is always much higher than I expected.

What am I missing? Oh right, I earn more than the average person in my country and I'm so busy I don't even have time to spend the money.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#318

Post by imtringued »

tksb wrote: post #279
ingenieros wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But it's also boring and soulcrushing to have everyday" It's also rich in vegetable protein and a great source of fiber. Geez, when I think of "boring and soulcrushing" meals I think of SOYLENT not a nutritious meal enjoyed by tens of millions across LATAM on a daily basis.

If you believe that anyone counting cents is aware or concerned with it being "rich in protein" by your standards then count yourself among the disconnected. Survival is first. "Geez"

I don't know why we blame the poor for this but a bad diet is quite literally bad macro economics and good micro economics for the companies making the profits.

It's especially bad with all the fake/bullshit nutritional science that has to be debunked which created a whole weight loss industry.

Shitty refined carbs and sugar/corn syrup might save you money over the short term but over the long term you're going to pay the price with massive health issues. Considering most poor people's greatest asset is their own body that's false economics.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#319

Post by imtringued »

vore wrote: post #293
ingenieros wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why I avoided using adjectives such as savory or delicious. Taste is entirely subjective and varies widely from individual to individual. Nutrition on the other is based on scientific fact, hence why I chose to use terms such as: nutrients, fiber, protein. Btw, I find the term "souldcrushing" to be an insult to the millions of individuals who rely on such food staples for their daily nutritional int…

You seem to have a very utilitarian view of food that most people do not have: the average person does not quantify food purely in terms of their nutritional value, and enjoying the taste of it is a pretty big factor for if they want to eat it every day or not! And again, comparing subsisting on "$30 of rice and beans" is a completely different proposition to "nations which rely on plant based diets": people in these…

>and enjoying the taste of it is a pretty big factor for if they want to eat it every day or not!

Yeah and people only enjoy the loudest music because they have to turn the volume down which makes everything else sound worse...

Sugar is like that, as you get used to the sugar rush, everything else tastes worse but only relatively worse, not absolutely worse.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#320

Post by lenkite »

detaro wrote: post #310
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have a pressure cooker, cooking time for rice is nowhere close to 3 minutes, it's about 30 minutes.

You misread their comment: prep time 3 mins (i.e. the time you are actively doing anything), the rest is it cooking away on its own.

For folks who are keeping 2 jobs just to stay afloat that cooking time is carved from sleep time.
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