where will ken shop now?

Ken Hoffman mourns the closing of his favorite store, 99 Cents Only

All locations of 99 Cents Only are closing.

Photo courtesy of 99 Cents Only

One of my favorite stores is going out of business. The 99 Cents Only chain is closing all 379 of its locations from California to Texas, including 16 in Houston. The shutdown already has started and will be complete by June 3.

I love the 99 Cents Only store, although in recent years it’s been difficult to find anything in there for 99 cents. They kept the name, though, because $1.49 Only doesn’t have the same ring. Contrary to the old saying, the buck long ago stopped there.

The 99 Cents Only chain started in 1982 selling “closeouts and branded and general merchandise.” Or as my mother used to call these places — “the junk store.”

The company cited several reasons for closing in its bankruptcy filing: the pandemic, inflation, and shoplifting. Business analysts gave another reason. The typical 99 Cents Only store was large, averaging 20,000 square feet, and expensive to operate while competing dollar stores like Family Dollar and Dollar Tree are half that size.

I will miss the 99 Only store. I would drop by there about once a month with my cheapskate shopping list: reading glasses, sunglasses, shampoo (for the guest bathroom), 2-liter soda, and iPhone charger cords. Dollar store reading glasses may not be what the optometrist prescribed or the height of fashion, but who sees me wearing them? Plus, I lose them or sit on them and it’s not a big deal.

Same with sunglasses. I wear them, I lose them, I’m okay. The soda sometimes tastes a little funky but I drink too much Diet Pepsi anyway. The iPhone cords stop working in a couple of months. Car air fresheners, 99 cents. The same new car smell is $4.98 at the supermarket. Whenever I need to buy a greeting or birthday card, it’s the 99 Cents store.

Here’s a terrific 99 Cents find: wood stakes that hold up tomato plants in your backyard. I grow tomatoes every spring and summer. Garden stores sell these stakes for $1 each. The 99 Cents store sells eight of them in a bunch for $1.

You can buy condoms and pregnancy tests at the cash register for a real good price. Although family planning at the dollar store might not be the most responsible plan.

The 99 Cents store also sells wine. I’m no sommelier but I don’t think the dollar store house brand will impress your date. “It’s a shy little Chablis … I hear 2024 will be a good year for this vineyard.”

The 99 Cents Only store also sold food cheap. Every so often I get on a kick to eat more healthfully, and the 99 Cents stores sold Dole salad bags for one dollar. That’s less than half the price at supermarkets. I once thought about doing a series of stories: the 99 Cents Diet Plan. I would eat only food from the dollar store for two months and see what happened. Nothing happened, because I didn’t make it past lunch the first day.

I have two 99 Cents and More stores in my shopping zone: on Stella Link by 610, the other on Bellaire Boulevard close to Chimney Rock. The Stella Link store already has been ravaged. The Bellaire Boulevard store is a feeding frenzy because many items are 30 percent off. I hit that store one last time last weekend, four pairs reading glasses, a pack of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, shampoo —for everybody else not me — and a bag of bananas.

Next week, I’ll be paying double.

shopping ken-hoffman

income analysis

Texas families need to make this much money for one parent to stay home

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

With costs to raise a child soaring over $20,000 a year in Texas, some households might decide to have one parent work while the other stays at home to raise their child.

As the cost of raising a child balloons in major cities like Houston, many families are weighing the choice between paying for child care or having one parent stay home full-time.

A recent analysis from SmartAsset determined the minimum income one parent needs to earn to support their partner staying at home to raise one child in all 50 states. In Texas — not just Houston — that amount is just under $75,000.

The study used the MIT Living Wage Calculator to compare the annual living wages needed for a household with two working adults and one child, and a household with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child. The study also calculated how much it would cost to raise a child with two working parents based on factors such as "food, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, incremental income taxes and other necessities."

A Texas household with one working parent would need to earn $74,734 a year to support a stay-at-home partner and a child, the report found. If two parents worked in the household, necessitating some additional costs like childcare and transportation, it would require an additional $10,504 in annual income to raise their child.

SmartAsset said the cost to raise a child in Texas in a two-working-parent household adds up to $23,587. Raising a child in Houston, however, is somewhat more affordable. A separate SmartAsset study from June 2025 determined it costs $21,868 to raise a child in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro.

In the report's ranking of states with the highest minimum income needed to support a family with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child, Texas ranked 32nd on the list.

In other states like Massachusetts, where raising a child can cost more than $40,000 a year, the report acknowledges ways families are working to reduce any financial burdens.

"This often includes considerations around who’s going to work in the household, and whether young children will require paid daycare services while parents are occupied," the report said. "With tradeoffs abound, many parents might seek to understand the minimum income needed to keep the family afloat while allowing the other parent to stay home to raise a young child."

The top 10 states with the lowest minimum income threshold to support a three-person family on one income are:

West Virginia – $68,099
Arkansas – $68,141
Mississippi – $70,242
Kentucky – $70,408
North Dakota – $70,949
Oklahoma – $71,718
Ohio – $72,114
South Dakota – $72,218
Alabama – $72,238
Nebraska – $72,966

texas income smartasset family