I know some people who consider dollar stores to be beneath them. I have heard elitists mock those who shop as dollar stores as being white trash (WT).

I love dollar stores. So, yes, I guess you can call me WT. Really. Go ahead. It won’t bother me as I have been called worse. I can get lost in a dollar store killing time. I like the people who work there. I like their business model. I also love swap meets. I can take my two young daughters to a dollar store, let them spend an hour running around looking for things (I always frame it as our “own treasure hunt”), I buy them each the promised one item (and resist their screams and pleas for two or three items each), and I come out of the store with only a $2.14 bill — that’s the cheapest baby sitting venue you will ever find (aside from a public park).

Plus, it’s educational in that it teaches my kids to practice their letters, words and numbers by reading labels, boxes and packages, they have to make priority decisions in the midst of a mad scramble to decide what they want to select (as I tell them “girls, only eight minutes left until the bell to go home rings!”), it gives us a chance to talk about where the goods in the store come from, where China is and how far away it is, why pops goes there each year, they learn how to address an adult respectfully and with confidence when they take their item to the cashier, etc.

Here is a great Times Online article (”To China For the Holy Grail: A Price of 99p”) about a day-in-the-life of a British buyer in China buying product for dollar stores (yes, folks, most, if not all of what you buy in a dollar store comes from China). Amazing stuff. Talk about a cut-throat business where margins are tight and the line between profit and going broke is razor thin …

Dollar stores, golly gee. WT, I guess that be me.