I went to Dollar General to find $1 groceries. Here's what I'd buy and what I'd skip.

I visited this Dollar General store in Hyattsville, Maryland.

The front of the Dollar General was filled with products that cost more than $1 each.

Others were part of an entire aisle dedicated to $1 items.

Dubbed “Value Valley” by Dollar General, this aisle included everything from rubber cleaning gloves to potato chips.

There was a lot of signage advertising the $1 price point.

I saw lots of useful items here, especially cleaning supplies. There were air fresheners, scrubbing brushes, rubber gloves, sponges, and lots of other cleaning tools — each costing $1.

The selection varied from Epsom salts…

Some $1 items weren’t store-branded, such as these Yardley Epsom salts.

… to bags of flavored popcorn.

Snacks were one of the product areas with a variety of $1 options.

In general, though, there wasn’t as wide a selection of food as I expected. Maybe Dollar General’s expanded frozen food selection hasn’t arrived at this store yet.

Dollar General did not respond to a request for comment.

In other aisles, I saw full-priced versions of many $1 items.

These Glad trash bags were almost $6 a pack at Dollar General and were in a separate aisle from the $1 trash bag alternatives.

There was a wide selection of sweet snacks for $1 a bag.

If you’re a fan of sweet treats, such as Sour Patch Kids or coconut macaroons, there was quite a selection at this Dollar General.

Overall, I didn’t see enough $1 stuff to fulfill my weekly grocery haul.

Overall, there was a reasonable selection of store-brand household goods, frozen foods, and dry groceries available for $1 each. That might make Dollar General a decent place to shop for consumers on a budget.

I could see stopping by regularly for a few pantry staples and some cleaning supplies. As long as there were other grocery options nearby, though, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to make it a stop on my weekly grocery run.

This store didn’t quite have everything most people would need on a weekly basis — at least, not without buying a lot of items above $1 each.

And, of course, there was no fresh food, though I didn’t expect it at this store.

The $1 price point seems to function as a loss leader for Dollar General.

From the frozen pot pies to trash bags, many of the $1 items at this Dollar General were located toward the back of the store, meaning that you had to walk past full-priced equivalents to get there.

That made me think that $1 items act as a loss leader for the chain. Supermarkets have done this for years by putting essentials like milk toward the rear of their stores and pricing them competitively. The theory is that you’ll stop by for cheap milk — then pick up other, full-price items as you walk there and back.

The same could be true at Dollar General. The $1 items seem to be a draw for many shoppers, but they’re not the only items most shoppers buy.