It's Girl Scout cookie time. But should you shop around?

Mark Armstrong  |  07:43 PM, Friday, January 8, 2010

Girl Scout cookies are officially on sale today, and here's the thing: I could eat an entire box of Thin Mints for breakfast. Tagalongs are also delightful, though I grew up calling them Peanut Butter Patties. Trefoils. well, I don't know anyone who buys those. I'm sure they have their fans.

Before you hit up a coworker for her daughter's entire inventory of cookie awesomeness, take note: There are deals to be had. Prices actually fluctuate throughout the U.S., because the price tag is set by the local Girl Scout Council. (They also decide how much each troop earns per box, roughly 12-17 percent.) And you don't have to drive hundreds of miles to find a bargain: A Boston Globe expose a few years ago revealed up to a $0.50 price difference between neighboring Billerica and Bedford.

Expect no less this year. Thin Mints will be more expensive in parts of Reno, Nev., hitting $4 per box, while in Colorado and West Virginia they're a relative bargain at around $3.25 and $3.50, respectively. According to the Girl Scouts of the USA, the price can be as low as $2.50 in some areas.

So: should you shop around? It's not easy — this zip code locator will help you find a troop near you, but it won't tell you how much the cookies cost. And by the time a Girl Scout tells you the price, are you really going to walk away like some heartless thug? In this way, buying cookies remains a blissfully old-fashioned experience: There's no online store, because the Girl Scouts don't want to cannibalize in-person sales. (Many enterprising young scouts are, however, taking advantage of Facebook to accept orders. Next up: eBay arbitrage!)

And, price-wise, the cookies are competitive. I found a 10 oz. bag of Keebler's Thin Mint knockoffs, Grasshoppers, for roughly $3.44 a pack. GS cookie boxes did slim down in 2009 (by 1 oz., which the Scouts blamed on higher baking costs), but still, a 9 oz. box of Thin Mints is no ripoff.

They're also tax deductible — but to get that break, you have give them away rather than eat them. Either way, you're supporting a local scout. I don't know where the Keebler elves keep their magic tree factory, but I know it's not in Manhattan.

Comments (0)

Log in with Facebook to post a comment

Post with Facebook

Sign off

By clicking on the "Post" button and making this information available to Bundle and to third parties on the Bundle website and/or on Facebook you are agreeing to be bound by all of the Bundle Terms of Use as posted on the Bundle site and as updated from time to time by Bundle.