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If you live in a rural area, seeing all the posts about different grocery stores might not be all that helpful. For many people, their best options are Dollar General or Walmart. We know many people who live at least 20 minutes even from a Walmart, but live only a mile from a Dollar General. If you find yourself in that category, you might be interested in comparing prices at Dollar General vs. Walmart. I looked at 20 commonly purchased items—the kinds of things you need to run out to buy quickly if you’re out of them—to see how prices compared.
Comparing Prices at Dollar General vs. Walmart on Everyday Items
Of the 20 items I compared, the overall outcome is that Walmart was cheaper for more than half the items. Here’s the breakdown.
Walmart significantly cheaper
The biggest price difference between the stores was on freezer bags, if you can believe it! The cost per bag was more than twice as much at Dollar General for both stores’ generic brand.
Other items that were significantly cheaper (more than 20%) at Walmart were:
sugar, canned beans, liquid hand soap, and shredded cheese
Walmart somewhat cheaper
There were 7 items that were cheaper at Walmart, but only by 20% or less. These included:
peanut butter, rice, dry cereal, diapers, butter, pasta sauce, and flour
The fact that almost all of these were dry foods could help you consider if it’s worth it or not for you to go to Dollar General if it’s not an emergency.
Walmart and Dollar General about the same
Four items cost about the same at both stores:
toilet paper, pasta, microwave popcorn, and laundry detergent
I wasn’t too surprised to see that toilet paper was the same. Remember that to get the best price on toilet paper, you’re better off shopping the sales at some of the grocery stores!
Dollar General cheaper
Dollar General won out on 4 items, none of which were food. This made me feel a little better about the times I’ve had to run there to get some items at the last minute.
Here’s a chart showing the specific price differences between these items.
Takeaways
The truth is, life happens and sometimes you might just have to run down the road to Dollar General to grab something. But I think this comparison shows that it’s probably not great for your budget to do a significant amount of your grocery shopping at Dollar General, especially for food items. That said, they often come out with $5/25 coupons, so if you can pair that with some of the items that were cheaper at Dollar General, that might positively contribute to your budget.
Do you regularly shop at Dollar General? What do you buy? Let us know in the comments!
Curious about other price comparisons? Check out Costco vs. Aldi !
