And here I was thinking of the dollar store as an afterthought, not as a go-to haven for all of us who could use change back from our $5 bills.
Well, unlike me, Elizabeth Fisher never slept on a bargain. Growing up as one of five kids in Conshohocken, she'd scrounge Main Line thrift shops, where the well-to-dos' castoffs would become her treasures.
"My friends used to make fun of me all the time, but it was OK," Fisher says. "Those places were like my Neiman Marcus."
Whether it was clothes or items for the house, Fisher had a knack for making her things "frugally fly," as her friend Sheila Vance describes.
She uses the same concept when she cooks, turning inexpensive ingredients into gourmet meals. Which she's turned into a cookbook, Dining With the Dollar Diva: Divalicious Menus With Ingredients Costing $1 or Less. Its title is pretty much self-explanatory.
I don't have to tell you how hunger has reached epidemic proportions in Philadelphia. Healthy food is an essential but costly necessity, one that more and more people can't afford. Which is why Fisher's cookbook comes right on time.
After test-marketing her book, Dollar Tree stores, which she frequented long before writing a book, bought 54,000 copies to sell for - you guessed it - just $1. They're being stocked in stores now.
For a book that retails for $15.95, it's definitely a victory for the cost-conscious consumer and a promotional coup for Vance, her Paoli-based publisher.
For Fisher, 56, it's a dream come true. After all, what first-time author can boast of scoring an initial run of 54,000 books?
Living economically
Dining With the Dollar Diva came out of practicality. Like many women in her age group, Fisher takes care of her mother, 88.
"A lot of my mother's things, like toiletries, I could pick up at the Dollar Tree," says Fisher, a gregarious single woman with a 30-year-old son.
