It’s a funny thing to earn more money than anyone in your family, but to still be out of money all of the time. At 39, I’m still figuring out how to make my money stretch across multiple households in different states — and sometimes even into Mexico. There are times when it makes me feel proud that my paycheck goes so far. Mostly it just stresses me out.
I feel this worry most acutely during Christmastime, when my fiancé, Ben, and I fly from North Carolina to California to spend two weeks with my dad. Like many people, I’m always strapped for cash during the holidays. And as the person in my family with the most financial stability, the responsibility for making Christmas happen falls directly on my shoulders.
Inevitably, this means that at some point during the two-week period in December when I’m back in my childhood home, I find myself shopping for groceries at the very place I once promised myself I’d never return to if given the choice: The 99 Cents Only store.
Last year, when my reserves were running dangerously low but the need for groceries and other odds and ends was only growing, Ben and I drove to the 99 Cents Only store on Telegraph Road in the working-class Latino community of Santa Fe Springs, located in Southeast Los Angeles.
Hello, old friend.
I hit the deli case first, as usual. Almond milk, eggs, soyrizo, queso fresco. The refrigerated aisle led directly to the produce section, an embarrassment of riches. I threw fresh fruit and vegetables into the cart with abandon: poblanos, broccoli, mixed greens, bananas, jalapeños, cilantro, plantains, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, berries, kumquats. I restocked my dad’s spice cabinet and then moved straight into canned goods and pantry items for black beans and Tapatío hot sauce, grabbing whole wheat tortillas on the way.
It’s a wildly different experience shopping at the 99 Cents Only store when you have a regular paycheck, versus when you haven’t a clue as to when you’ll see your next dollar. But this December when I return home — and my checking account shrinks to a number I find distressing — there will be no 99 Cents Only store to serve as my saving grace — not the one on Telegraph nor any of the others that once dotted the Southeast LA landscape where I was born and raised. In April, the chain announced that all 371 of its locations across California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas were closing because of “significant and lasting challenges in the retail environment.” Shortly after, news broke that Dollar General was taking over the chain, obtaining its intellectual property in North America and the rights to 170 stores, including my old store in Santa Fe Springs.
As the Los Angeles Times’ Gustavo Arellano wrote, for generations, 99 Cents Only Stores gave “millions of us — immigrants, long-timers, working-class folks, or people who just want a good deal” — a “fair shake.”
And oh, boy, did my family need a fair shake.
I grew up poor and spent the first 30 years of my life living below the poverty line. As a child, I hated the 99 Cents Only store, especially each fall when it came time to buy new school supplies. I wanted the plentitude of my classmates’ lives: Lisa Frank folders, erasers that smelled like vanilla cake and real Crayola crayons — not the off-brand shit my parents bought from the 99 Cents Only store. It all felt so sad and poorly constructed, the crayons snapping in your sweaty little hand if you pressed down too hard.
I only really began to appreciate the 99 Cents Only store as an adult, when I moved back in with my family and became responsible for all of our groceries and meals. I was a 23-year-old freelance journalist who made about $16,000 a year. This was in 2008, when most things at the 99 Cents Only store actually cost 99 cents. I had so little money then, I often counted my items as they went down the checkout conveyor belt, pulling food aside as the bill crept uncomfortably close to the total amount I had in my checking account.
“99 Cents Only Stores gave ‘millions of us — immigrants, long-timers, working-class folks, or people who just want a good deal’ — a ‘fair shake.’”
None of this was fun, of course. But when I think back to that time in my life, it reminds me of something my dad often says about growing up in a very rural area of Michoacán, Mexico: “Everyone was poor, but everyone had everything.” The grandparents who helped raise him knew how to live off the land. When my dad came to the U.S. and eventually started a family, he carried those lessons with him. The skills didn’t translate exactly — we didn’t grow up eating chapulines as a source of protein, for example — but my dad knew how to make the most of what he had, often spinning delicious magic out of thin air.
California’s Mexican markets like Northgate González allowed families like mine to eat so well that I didn’t initially realize we were poor. As far as food was concerned, this was basically true across the board. I grew up in Downey, California, or “Mexican Beverly Hills.” It certainly never felt that way to us, but even now, you could never convince me that the $20 “family packs” from the local ’hood burger joints that my mom patronized on payday weren’t just as delicious as any of the overpriced fare you’d find near Rodeo Drive.
When I was a 20-something newly interested in cooking and responsible for every meal my family ate, the 99 Cents Only store didn’t exactly speak to the abundance I wanted to cultivate through food. I dreamt of going to farmers markets and buying seasonal produce. But over time, I learned to treat my shopping at the 99 Cents Only store as a kind of cooking challenge that forced me to be strategic and inventive. Instead of operating around the seasons, I learned to structure my meals around the supply chain.
Every time you walked into that store, it was a total crapshoot. There was no telling what you’d find. This is how I learned to cook. If I found yeast, I bought flour and olive oil and learned how to bake focaccia. If there was gelatin, I bought heavy cream and learned how to make panna cotta.
The most reliable part of the chain was the produce, likely because of California’s role as the nation’s most productive agricultural state. You never knew exactly what you’d find, but you knew it would be high-quality and cheap. Perusing the 99 Cents Only store’s produce aisle, I almost felt like I was getting away with something illicit. The chain’s giant boxes of mixed greens, which often included expensive varieties like escarole, taught me to love fussy salads. The fat asparagus spears I found for a while inspired me to learn how to make hollandaise.
But none of this exists anymore, and neither does the person who learned to cook with less. As I’ve gotten older and gradually made more money, I’ve become too comfortable with the idea that I’ll always have a paycheck — despite already surviving two layoffs in the journalism industry. It’s often at the grocery store when Ben and I fight. Growing up with nothing, I like nice things. He grew up with not much at all, and he likes practical things. I want the $8 heirloom tomatoes, the $10 bag of artisanal pasta, the local goat cheese, price be damned. I want it all — and I hate when he reminds me that what I have may not last forever.
Perhaps I’ve become so removed from the circumstances I grew up in — and so confident in my ability to hustle to take care of my family — that I no longer properly fear the poverty I spent a majority of my adult life fighting. When Ben issues his periodic reminder that nothing good lasts forever, I always respond in the same way: “I grew up poor and I can be poor again.” But can I? Can I really? It’s a very refined set of skills that allows you to navigate poverty, muscles I’ve not worked for almost a decade.
I often counted my items as they went down the conveyor belt, pulling food aside as the bill crept uncomfortably close to the amount I had in my checking account.
There is a significant difference between being broke and being poor — something I admittedly have to remind myself of when I feel like I’m just scraping by. The night before payday, I often can’t sleep. I’m running calculations in my head of how much of my paycheck will go out the door before I pay a single bill of my own. My dad’s $500 car insurance deductible, on top of the money I already send him each month so that he can eat after paying the mortgage. The $100 my niece needs for dance classes. It’s all possible because another paycheck will come. Unless one day it doesn’t.
In July, I returned to the site of the 99 Cents Only store on Telegraph Road. It’s located inside the Santa Fe Springs Promenade, which sounds far fancier than the strip mall actually is. I stood outside and watched as workers readied the storefront to become a Dollar General. I can’t say exactly why I felt compelled to say goodbye. I guess I just wanted to look at the store one last time and thank the scrappy chain for giving me everything when I had nothing.
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This article appeared in the September 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “The scrappy store that gave me everything when I had nothing.”
