Driving along Madison Street, I sometimes swing into Dollar Tree with just one objective in mind: potato chips. Dollar Tree has 2-ounce bags of Cape Cod, Zapp’s, Kettle and other brands for a buck and a quarter a pop, much less than I’ve paid elsewhere.
When I was a kid, I used to go to the Little Big Dollar Store in Portage Park, Chicago, because in those days, it was amazing how far a dollar could go (read: lots of candy). At the Dollar Tree in Oak Park, it’s no longer the case that everything is under a dollar — some of the frozen foods, like Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, are around $5 — but the prices are still very competitive.
Now admittedly, Dollar Tree and others of its ilk are rather, um, down-market. Who cares? My 2-ounce bags of chips, bought in bulk, are around half the price of what they’d be elsewhere and, just as importantly, small bags make portion control quite easy.
