One-Percenters Keep Shopping at the Dollar Store

That Mercedes in the dollar-store parking lot isn’t an illusion.

High-earners joined the rest of the country in flooding discount retailers such as Dollar General, Aldi grocery store and Five Below as prices for food and staples rose. Now, with inflation at half its peak, they aren’t letting up.

InMarket, which tracks retailer foot traffic, measured a 4% average increase in the share of dollar-store visits this year among those making more than $100,000, compared with the second half of 2022. Households with six-figure incomes are 15% more likely to say they would shop at dollar stores than they were last June, going from 39% to 45%, according to daily surveys from Morning Consult of about 50,000 Americans.

Wealthy Americans long viewed discount stores as “not for them,” says Michael Liersch, who consults with high-net-worth individuals as head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo. Yet paying $8 for a carton of eggs struck even many affluent people as ridiculous.

Overspending on things was once fashionable for some, Liersch says. “These days, it’s about making the most of your money and not getting ripped off.”

No matter how much you make, consumers say, there is no longer a stigma in going after a good deal.

Cheap kombucha

Autry Liggett, who works in operations for a Santa Barbara, Calif., hedge fund, exclusively shopped at Whole Foods and other high-end chains for groceries and household goods until recently. Growing up, he says he looked down on what he saw as poor-quality products at discount retailers.

Then, one of his friends brought over a case of 99-cent-store kombucha and probiotic drinks a few months ago. “She makes good money, so I just assumed she also shopped at Whole Foods and the other places I shop,” he says. “I was shocked.”

He now pops into the 99 Cents Only store downtown at least once a week, making sure to visit on Tuesday or Thursday, when they restock, for the best selection. He recently bought vitamins that retail at Whole Foods for $25 for $1.99, and a pint of organic blueberries for 99 cents.

A Dollar General spokeswoman says the brand has attracted and retained higher-income customers lately. A recently updated fresh-produce section, now available in nearly 3,900 stores, might be bringing more customers in.

Plenty of wealthy people point out that they got that way partly by not overspending on the small stuff—especially when it is all the same stuff.

“A carrot is a carrot is a carrot,” says Morgan Pierce, who earns about $200,000 a year working at McDonald’s Chicago corporate office. She frequently hits up Aldi and her local dollar store for groceries and other staples. Her last birthday party featured a private chef—and $1 plates and decorations.

Pierce, who was quick to tell her guests where many of the party supplies came from, says people were impressed. It is a shift from how she felt as a child, when she questioned why her family always had to hunt for sales. Now, she says she realises her mom has always been a bargain hound.

“Not everything on the shelves is well-made, but there are things that are, and I am not ashamed to go into those places and get them, and I’m not afraid to tell people about it,” Pierce says.

Bob Gillman, an executive transition consultant, has shopped at Aldi and other discount chains for decades. He didn’t mention the habit to his friends until recently, when a branch popped up near his tony Palm Springs, Calif., community.

“We see lots of people driving Porsches, Mercedes and BMWs in the parking lot,” Gillman says. “No matter how much you make, you don’t want to spend $4 on an avocado when you can get one for 59 cents.”

Few seem to mind feeding a quarter to check out a shopping cart, or bagging their own groceries, Gillman says.

Gillman’s daughter, Rachel Gillman Rischall, often rolled her eyes at her dad’s zealous discount shopping. That is, until this past year, when her grocery bills soared, and birthday-party gifts for her kids’ friends topped $50 a pop near her Chicago home. Fed up, she checked out the toy selection at Five Below and hasn’t looked back. She also now buys journals, art supplies, stationery and snacks there.

“My dad is so proud,” she says.

Shopping at dollar stores is a choice for some, yet it is a necessity for many, and Americans increasingly get their groceries from these retailers.

Expanding into more-prosperous areas is part of Aldi’s strategy, analysts say. The retailer plans to add 120 new U.S. stores in 2023, after opening and remodelling 139 stores last year. The brand says it attracted 9.4 million new U.S. customers in 2022.

Budget influence

Social media is also helping make dollar and discount stores cool. Videos tagged #dollartree have a combined 7.6 billion views on TikTok. Many feature influencers trying out what are known as dupes of popular high-end beauty products and other goods.

Entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel says her discount and drugstore hauls have attracted more attention than anything she did when she was featured on the reality show “The Real Housewives of New York City.”

“I go in there with my Hermès bag,” says Frankel, whose YouTube and TikTok videos shopping at dollar stores and unboxing ultra cheap products regularly ring up millions of views. She says she isn’t paid by any of the discount chains for her videos.

While some viewers have accused her of pretending to like and use a $1 lip gloss or storage bin when she could easily afford its more expensive counterpart, Frankel says her enthusiasm is genuine.

“What’s the difference between a dollar-store and a $20 pair of flip flops? Is there such a thing as truffle-oil-infused rubber?” she says. Lip gloss, meanwhile, “stays on for five minutes no matter how much you spend.”

A sharp technology sell-off has exposed a new anxiety on global markets: whether the enormous borrowing behind the artificial-intelligence infrastructure boom can generate sufficient returns as interest rates rise and Chinese competition intensifies.

The artificial-intelligence investment boom has powered technology shares, semiconductor manufacturers and data-centre operators to extraordinary heights. Last week, investors were given a reminder that much of this expansion is being built with borrowed money.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 4.5 per cent over the week ended October 16, its weakest performance since late June. Semiconductor shares suffered an even deeper correction, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index losing about 11.4 per cent.

The selling spread quickly through global markets. Micron Technology fell 14.6 per cent over the week, while South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped approximately 18 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.

This was more than a routine bout of profit-taking. Investors were reassessing three interconnected risks: higher interest rates, the rapidly expanding debt burden attached to AI infrastructure and the prospect of stronger competition from Chinese memory-chip manufacturers.

The debt behind the AI build-out

Artificial intelligence requires a physical infrastructure network of enormous scale. Data centres must be built, advanced processors purchased, power supplies secured and cooling systems installed before customers begin generating meaningful revenue from them.

Technology companies are increasingly supplementing their own cash with corporate bonds, syndicated loans, equipment leases, private credit and project-level financing.

JPMorgan describes the emerging funding model as a combination of conventional corporate borrowing and project finance tied to individual data-centre assets. In Australia, the Reserve Bank estimates that syndicated loans accounted for approximately three-quarters of data-centre financing during 2025 and 2026 to date.

The numbers are becoming large enough to affect broader credit markets. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has cited Wall Street estimates suggesting AI-related investment-grade bond issuance could approach US$300 billion in 2026 alone.

That borrowing is not automatically problematic. Debt can be an efficient way to finance long-lived infrastructure when future revenue is sufficiently predictable. The concern is that AI technology, customer demand and computing economics are changing much faster than the repayment schedules attached to the assets.

A data centre financed today may carry debt for years. Investors must therefore make assumptions about future utilisation rates, electricity prices, chip performance, customer concentration and the amount businesses will ultimately pay for AI computing.

When interest rates rise, those assumptions become less forgiving.

Inflation changes the calculation

September’s US inflation data intensified the pressure. Consumer prices increased 3.7 per cent over the year, ahead of market expectations and up from 3.4 per cent in August.

The hotter reading reduced confidence that interest rates would fall quickly and pushed bond yields higher. That matters particularly for companies whose valuations depend on profits expected well into the future, as well as highly leveraged infrastructure operators that may need to refinance.

CoreWeave has emerged as a closely watched test case. The specialist cloud-computing company has accumulated substantial debt and lease obligations to build AI capacity, while relying on a concentrated group of large technology customers.

Its shares fell sharply during the sell-off, while the cost of insuring its debt against default climbed. CoreWeave has argued that its contracted backlog more than covers its obligations and that financial markets do not always understand its business model. Nevertheless, its securities have become a proxy for investor confidence in debt-funded AI infrastructure.

Oracle, another major investor in AI computing capacity, fell 8.8 per cent in Friday trading, while CoreWeave dropped 15.5 per cent.

The question is shifting from how much AI infrastructure can be built to how profitably it can be operated.

China adds another source of pressure

Interest rates were not the only catalyst. Reports of advances by Chinese memory-chip producer ChangXin Memory Technologies raised concerns that lower-cost Chinese products could increase competition across the global semiconductor industry.

Memory chips are essential to AI systems, but the industry is historically cyclical. Periods of tight supply and high pricing can encourage rapid investment, eventually producing oversupply and falling margins.

The prospect of a well-funded Chinese competitor expanding its technological capabilities unsettled investors in Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. It also demonstrated that AI-related demand does not insulate chipmakers from conventional competitive pressures.

That combination—slower rate cuts, more expensive financing and potentially cheaper supply—challenged the assumption that every company exposed to AI would enjoy continually expanding margins.

A reset rather than the end of the boom

The sell-off does not establish that the AI boom is ending. Demand for computing power remains strong, the largest technology companies continue to generate formidable cash flows and many infrastructure projects are backed by long-term customer contracts.

What has changed is the market’s willingness to overlook the price and financing structure of that growth.

The most resilient companies are likely to be those able to fund investment from operating cash flow, secure long-duration customers and demonstrate that new capacity will earn returns comfortably above its financing costs.

More speculative operators may face greater scrutiny, particularly where debt is expensive, customers are concentrated or expected revenue depends on demand that has not yet materialised.

For Australian investors, the lesson extends beyond US technology shares. Local data-centre operators, infrastructure funds, electricity suppliers and property groups are increasingly exposed to the same investment cycle.

Artificial intelligence may remain one of the defining growth themes of the decade. But last week’s correction showed that enthusiasm for the technology does not eliminate financial discipline.

The next stage of the AI boom will be judged not only by computing power, model performance or demand for chips, but by something more traditional: whether the assets being financed can generate enough cash to repay the money borrowed to build them.

Fact box

Nasdaq Composite: Down 4.5 per cent for the week ended October 16, 2026

Philadelphia Semiconductor Index: Down approximately 11.4 per cent

Micron Technology: Down approximately 14.6 per cent

Samsung Electronics: Down approximately 18 per cent

SK Hynix: Down approximately 24 per cent

US September inflation: 3.7 per cent annually

Estimated 2026 AI-related investment-grade issuance: Approximately US$300 billion