The first time I heard about Five Below, it was in Minnesota, about ten years, and I just couldn’t believe how everything in the store was $5 or under. I probably spent so much money at that store, buying everything from iPhone cables to hardcover books to action figures. In the beginning, when everything was new (and cheap), it was pretty exciting.

Of course, like Dollar Tree, Five Below had to steadily raised their prices on selective items. They also introduced regular-priced items (electronics) that costs as much as $20, so it made the store ‘Mostly Five Below’. The problem is that sometime, especially if there are no price signage, it’s hard to tell how much the item is until you ring it up at the register.

So, I stopped going to Five Below regularly. Maybe once, in a blue moon, if it was near another store I was at, I will stop in and casually just go through their merchandises. Things have changed a lot since the first year, for example, I noticed their cables (USB-C, Apple Cables) have shrunk to a tiny area, and they’ve expanded their snacks and food area. Less toys and now more tiny trinkets and blind-boxes.

It’s cool to see Five Below-exclusive manga books and exclusive tiny figurines… but I would be a little embarrassed to show off my Five Below-branded books to be perfectly honest.

I found out that they have Five Below in Jacksonville, and a store opened up near me fairly recently. I don’t know when the grand opening was, but it’s recent, because Google Maps only had a disused building on their Street View. What is exciting is that a Dollar Tree store (not opened to the public yet) and a Burlington (operating now) is right next to Five Below, so it might be a new future favorite spot for me.

Anyway, so I went to that Five Below and was surprised to see they had some Fallout merchandises, courtesy of Trends International. I found a poster-book, which wasn’t that useful because it’s so small (only 12 inches). I still bought it for my collection…

They also had a 22 by 34-inch giant poster of the Nuka-Cola Girl, which was $5.50, not $5 as I thought. It’s still a good price for a large print, that I can’t really complain… I just wish they had printed the price instead of letting the customer just assume it was “$5 or below”. Just off topic, but I bought a plastic food bin that was $12. I thought it was $5, if I had known it was more than twice as much, I would have had second thoughts. Lessons learned.

I also bought a 24-inch poster clip (for the Fallout poster), which I thought worked pretty well. You clip the poster on the top and bottom and you can then hang it on your walls without damaging your poster. Alternatively, you can probably buy a frame for it, but these clips were only $5. I’m pretty happy with poster and poster clip purchase. The poster is now hanging on my walls, and it looks pretty good.

I’ll be on the lookout for more Fallout at Five Below in the future, especially because I know Trends also makes stickers and various other paper products… so I’ll take a closer look and fine-tooth comb it the next time I’m at Five Below. I think it’s very cool that they’re mostly $5, especially because you see the poster being sold on Amazon and other retailers for $10 or more.