What is still hard to find?

[ArielRae]

Off topic, but can y’all talking about Ollies tell me a little more about it?
The first one I’ve ever seen was built nearby. It had its grand opening during the pandemic (don’t even get me started on how that went). But I have no clue what it sells or what it’s about.

If you are a bargain shopper and like digging/hunting for a deal you‘ll like this store. For example when Disney stopped selling their bubble guns Ollies bought a bunch of the buzz lightyear bubble blasters and sold them cheap at their stores. We bought a few of them. Was hoping to see the Galaxy Edge coke bottles there cause I saw some grocery stores were selling them while WDW was closed. If any stores go out of business they buy big lots of items. We like buying our Keurig K cups there. Love hitting them for their after Christmas sale since their items are already cheap it gets even cheaper. I also get my outdoor furniture chair pads nice and cheap there. I will say I have been to quite a few in different states and they are not the cleanest place (think dirty warehouse) but for the deals you get it is worth the look.

What is Ollies?
https://www.ollies.us/what-is-ollies/

Here is their promotional video

 

[lynxstch]

Off topic, but can y’all talking about Ollies tell me a little more about it?
The first one I’ve ever seen was built nearby. It had its grand opening during the pandemic (don’t even get me started on how that went). But I have no clue what it sells or what it’s about.

Its an 'off price' store. They sell just about everything. Ours has a huge book dept, a good size housewares, linens, towels, rugs etc. They sell boxes of flooring, paint, stationary items. At holiday times, they always have bags of candy at great prices. At Christmas time they carry all kinds of wrapping paper, bows, card, etc. They have a food dept, everything is usually within expiration dates, but a lot cheaper than other places. If you join 'Ollies Army', you get coupons for 15% off, 10% off, once in awhile 20% off your entire order. All your purchases count towards coupons they will automatically send you in the mail / or by email. They sell air conditioners, fans etc. Most things like the ac's, vacuums, etc, are refurbished, but like new. They all come with a 30 day warranty. I just bought my $200 Shark vacuum cleaner there for like $89 using the coupon. It was packed so well that I doubt it was that well packed when it was brand new. I doubt if it was even used, as it's in mint condition and works great! I also bought our carpet cleaner there a couple of years ago. Check it out when the pandemic ends, you might like it!

 

[lynxstch]

I went to Weis this morning. First time I've been in it since it was a Food Lion, and probably the last. WOW, were a lot of the prices there higher than any other store in the area. The only empty rows in there were TP and Paper towels. They had a few pkgs of each of some generic brand. And there were no lysol, wipes, etc there either. The meat dept was very well stocked, (limit of 6 pkgs per customer , sign said excluding ground beef, which I took to mean there was no limit on that?), as was Dairy and Produce. The baking row, canned goods (limit 10 cans per customer), cereal, candy, rice, pasta, sauce etc, rows were all fully stocked. But if I had done all of my shopping there instead of Aldi and Walmart, it would have cost me $$$ more! Milk was $2.79 a gallon there , I paid $1.25 in Aldi's yesterday. Eggs were $1.99 a dozen for 'generic' brand, I paid $.94 yesterday. I walked up and down all the rows, and I didn't see anything in that store that cost less than any other store. I won't be back there anytime soon

 

[nene0182]

I ran to Wal Mart this morning. The only thing on my list I couldn’t get was pickles. My son only likes baby dill pickles and there wasn’t any. I didn’t check the cleaning supplies but everything else seemed in stock besides beef was low and no pork at all.

 

[spiders]

In other positive developments towards normalcy, I’ve noticed a lot of my Amazon non-essentials are at or inching closer towards 1-2 days. I had 2-3 recent items come within 2 days. I ordered Bob Iger’s book last night and got the ship notification today saying it will be here tomorrow.

 

[mom2rtk]

Our neighborhood market was nearly wiped out of meat. But honestly, I'm blaming the holiday weekend. Probably just the added demand of people grilling this weekend.

Most of the rest of what I needed was there. Even walked right by a few bottles of hand sanitizer.

 

[lifesavacation]

Yeast. The stores in my area have been out for a couple of months.

 

[cmrdgrs]

Still cannot find reasonable priced chicken. Oy vey!

 

[tasha99]

Still cannot find reasonable priced chicken. Oy vey!

I had no luck getting chicken thighs (regular, or boneless skinless) locally for weeks. Finally went to my local restaurant supply and they had both. If you do that, though, don't make my mistake: We went for the 40 lb box of boneless skinless thighs, thinking they would be flash frozen separate from each other and easy to put into ziplocks to fill our freezer and share with family members who have also been lamenting the lack of dark meat chicken. Nope, it was in 4 10 pound blocks. I'm just grateful for that, because if it had been a 40 lb block, we'd have had to donate it all to a homeless shelter or something--the 10 pound blocks were hard enough to handle in my little kitchen. We did manage to semi thaw and cut into smaller portions, but wow. Never again, lol.

Still, for foods that are hard to find, I've managed to find everything except yeast at restaurant supply. You just have to buy a lot of it. (Which can sometimes be sort of nice. My social life lately has been mostly dropping off groceries and/or cooked meals to people--we stand outside 10+ feet apart with our masks on and get a visit, plus I get some sense of purpose while I'm home unemployed by cooking for elder relatives/friends and getting groceries to them. I'll be so glad when this is over so that won't be considered a major social event for me anymore.)

 

[Christine]

Its an 'off price' store. They sell just about everything. Ours has a huge book dept, a good size housewares, linens, towels, rugs etc. They sell boxes of flooring, paint, stationary items. At holiday times, they always have bags of candy at great prices. At Christmas time they carry all kinds of wrapping paper, bows, card, etc. They have a food dept, everything is usually within expiration dates, but a lot cheaper than other places. If you join 'Ollies Army', you get coupons for 15% off, 10% off, once in awhile 20% off your entire order. All your purchases count towards coupons they will automatically send you in the mail / or by email. They sell air conditioners, fans etc. Most things like the ac's, vacuums, etc, are refurbished, but like new. They all come with a 30 day warranty. I just bought my $200 Shark vacuum cleaner there for like $89 using the coupon. It was packed so well that I doubt it was that well packed when it was brand new. I doubt if it was even used, as it's in mint condition and works great! I also bought our carpet cleaner there a couple of years ago. Check it out when the pandemic ends, you might like it!

Until this thread, I had never heard of Ollie's. Did a search and saw there was one 15 miles from my home. Since I had nothing better to do, I drove over there. Picked up a few dog toys. They had an interesting supply of different things. Kind of junky in there. I ended up getting the $9.99 hand sanitizer. Put it in some spray bottles at home. Can't say I'm too thrilled with the scent which is not really a scent but kind of weird. But it'll do.

On the way home I stopped at a Super Target that never seems really crowded and I did manage to get a tub of Clorox wipes and some gel sanitizer. So at least my husband is set for a bit for when he goes into work.

 

[cmrdgrs]

I was able to find yeast online at King Arthur Flour (last week)

 

[tvguy]

I had no luck getting chicken thighs (regular, or boneless skinless) locally for weeks. Finally went to my local restaurant supply and they had both. If you do that, though, don't make my mistake: We went for the 40 lb box of boneless skinless thighs, thinking they would be flash frozen separate from each other and easy to put into ziplocks to fill our freezer and share with family members who have also been lamenting the lack of dark meat chicken. Nope, it was in 4 10 pound blocks. I'm just grateful for that, because if it had been a 40 lb block, we'd have had to donate it all to a homeless shelter or something--the 10 pound blocks were hard enough to handle in my little kitchen. We did manage to semi thaw and cut into smaller portions, but wow. Never again, lol.

Still, for foods that are hard to find, I've managed to find everything except yeast at restaurant supply. You just have to buy a lot of it. (Which can sometimes be sort of nice. My social life lately has been mostly dropping off groceries and/or cooked meals to people--we stand outside 10+ feet apart with our masks on and get a visit, plus I get some sense of purpose while I'm home unemployed by cooking for elder relatives/friends and getting groceries to them. I'll be so glad when this is over so that won't be considered a major social event for me anymore.)

Chicken hasn't been an issue here. Beef is limited, just don't go to the store expecting to find a specific cut. Clorox wipes are still hard to find.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Did a search and saw there was one 15 miles from my home.

Yeah, me too. Did a search, I don't think a trip to Texas from CA will save me any money.

 

[tasha99]

Chicken hasn't been an issue here. Beef is limited, just don't go to the store expecting to find a specific cut. Clorox wipes are still hard to find.

That's how chicken has been here--whole chickens are almost always there, with cut up chicken, chicken breasts or wings a little spottier. But thighs have just been out, both bone in and boneless for a few weeks at multiple stores. I haven't seen Clorox wipes, either.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I went to Kroger on Friday and Target today. Meat still seems to be plentiful here. I bought a couple steaks at Kroger.

Neither store had any sanitizing wipes. Target didn't have any hand sanitizer and Kroger had a few bottles of an independent brand.

I was super excited to find at Target some Spray Lysol (well actually it is Up & Up brand, but the same thing). I hadn't seen the aerosol Lysol since mid March.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Had ds go to a different store yesterday. Still no dawn dish detergent, bleach, clorox or Lysol wipes, hand sanitizer or liquid soap.
How is the Equate brand of liquid soap compared to Softsoap?

 

[NYCgrrl]

Had ds go to a different store yesterday. Still no dawn dish detergent, bleach, clorox or Lysol wipes, hand sanitizer or liquid soap.
How is the Equate brand of liquid soap compared to Softsoap?

Dawn is readily available here but just a heads up. There's a Dawn product called "Simply Clean" and it's not worth the money spent. It says it's a non concentrate on the label but it's unlike any unconcentrated soap I've used in the past- mostly water.
Never heard of Equate or Softsoap (hand washers? If so, I don't use them)) but if you read the labels and check what positions the ingredients are( first ingredient listed is the highest percentage) in you'll have a good idea how similar they are.

 

[PollyannaMom]

How is the Equate brand of liquid soap compared to Softsoap?

I like it fine.

The Ollie's video made me think of a store we used to have called Building 19. - I wonder if they're owned by the same group?

 

[sksjasams]

Had ds go to a different store yesterday. Still no dawn dish detergent, bleach, clorox or Lysol wipes, hand sanitizer or liquid soap.
How is the Equate brand of liquid soap compared to Softsoap?

Pre-Covid, Equate was our first choice of hand soap. The white aloe vera kind. It’s been out of stock since early March, so I haven’t been able to get it in a while.

 

[Meriweather]

How is the Equate brand of liquid soap compared to Softsoap?

It's fine for us. I buy it to travel with and then just toss it when we are ready to come home.
Always goes on cruises and Disney Parks with us.
I have a lot of bottles here. And will probably start using it