Forget Keeping Up With the Joneses — “Dollar Store Dinners” Go Viral on GMA

Maybe the real flex is refusing to perform wealth for strangers

Forget keeping up with the Joneses. Seriously. Let them keep whatever they are trying to keep up with.

There is something deeply exhausting about spending money just to look like you have money — especially when the whole performance is being staged for people who are probably too busy staging their own version of it to notice yours.

And no, choosing the cheaper dinner, the older car, the sale rack or the dollar-store ingredient is not some grand personal failure. Sometimes it is simply what happens when personal contentment beats public performance. Wild concept, apparently.

That is what makes the latest wave of “Dollar Store Dinners” coverage on Good Morning America more interesting than another cute internet food trend. ABC News consumer correspondent Becky Worley puts the idea to the test: can a family dinner built from dollar-store groceries actually lower the cost of getting food on the table?

Dollar Store Dinners are not really about pretending everything costs a dollar

The smarter point is whether a shopper can assemble a workable meal for less money by changing where and how they buy certain ingredients.

GMA describes the current viral trend as people obtaining dinner ingredients from dollar stores in an effort to lower the cost of family meals, with Worley testing the idea for the segment.

That distinction matters. Dollar stores are not automatically the cheapest option for every single grocery item, and a lower sticker price can sometimes come with a smaller package. The useful version of this trend is not “everything at a dollar store is a bargain.” It is: look at the actual meal, the actual quantity and the actual total.

This viral budget-food movement has already proven it can reach people

The idea did not suddenly materialize this week. Rebecca Chobat, the creator behind @dollartreedinners, has built a following around inexpensive meals assembled from Dollar Tree ingredients.

In 2024, one of Chobat’s affordable Thanksgiving casserole ideas exploded across social media. GMA reported that the recipe used 10 ingredients and cost about $12, while a related video discussing the practical impact of her meals reached millions of viewers.

What made that story land was not “look how little this person spent.” It was the realization that somebody watching might genuinely need the information to feed a family.

There is a difference between being frugal and being performatively broke

INYIM is not here to romanticize struggling. Nobody needs a motivational speech about how charming it is to have less money than they need.

But there is also no prize for spending beyond your comfort zone just to maintain somebody else’s idea of what your life should look like. The expensive version is not automatically the better version. The branded version is not automatically the smarter version. And the meal somebody would photograph for social media is not automatically the meal that makes the most sense on a Tuesday night.

So if the mac and cheese works, the casserole feeds everybody and there is still money left in the account afterward? We would call that winning.

Good Morning America’s Dollar Store Dinners Trend in Photos

See more imagery supplied with the GMA coverage of low-cost dollar-store meal ideas, including ingredients and finished dishes tied to the viral budget-dinner trend.

Images: Good Morning America / ABC News.

The whole thing is refreshingly unglamorous in the best possible way: food, price, practicality, done. No need to finance a personality around it.

Watch Good Morning America Test the Viral Dollar Store Dinners Trend

ABC News consumer correspondent Becky Worley tests the viral idea of buying dinner ingredients from dollar stores as families look for ways to lower meal costs.

Sources: Good Morning America; ABC News.