Girl Scout Cookie Finder App: Probably Greatest Invention Of All Time

Hansen’s Team Pick:

We are nearing the most glorious time of year. No, not the dead of Winter. No, not Valentine’s Day. Girl Scout Cookie season. I was in Girl Scouts for many, many years, and although my troop was full of underachievers (we stayed Brownies for three years and I think we got about four badges the whole time), being a Girl Scout taught me one thing above all others: Girl Scout cookies are really, really delicious.

Why is that? Do you think they’re so good because they are only available for about a month out of the year, where we all overbuy and indulge to the point where we can’t look at another Tagalong cookie for twelve months? But in that twelve months we romanticize everything about their crisp cookie base, their creamy peanut buttery center and their smooth chocolate coating? Maybe. Or you know, they’re just really fucking good.

This cookie season, I’m coming prepared because I just downloaded the Cookie Finder app, available for iPhone and Android. The app uses your phone’s GPS to locate little packs of Girl Scouts willing to hand over cookies near you.

FIND THE COOKIES NOW.

FIND THE COOKIES NOW.

On the Cookie Finder app you can “meet the cookies” and find out why they have different names (They use two different bakers? Why can’t these bakers just compare notes?) and exactly what is in each and every cookie. You can vote for your favorite cookie and proudly proclaim how Thin Mints will rule them all on Facebook. You can watch some cheese-tastic but adorable videos about cookies on a mission.  My favorite part of the app so far is the countdown. For example, the Colorado Council starts selling cookies in 22 Days, 12 hours, and 40 minutes. That is very specific.

ON.

ON.

Pro tip: Turn on the Cookie Notifications. You’ll be so glad you did.

Now go find the cookies!

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Hansen

Hansen is the former DIY & Food Editor of Autostraddle.com and likes to spend most days making and cooking and writing. She teaches creative writing at Colorado State University and is pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in her free time.

Hansen has written 189 articles for us.

38 Comments

  1. This is really just an Open Thread to yell out our favorite Girl Scout Cookie, isn’t it?

    THIN MINTS!

  2. Okay guess what my screen name stands for? Hint: it ain’t g-string.

    Seriously though… by supporting cookie sales, you are also supporting one of the oldest and best organizations for young women. Most people know this, but it bears repeating, that Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are entirely separate organizations, and Girl Scouts is dedicated to full inclusion and does not discriminate on the basis of religious belief, gender identity or sexual orientation.

    Girl Scouts doesn’t have the same “alumni” network that BSA does, so a large percentage of operations are funded by product sales. So thank you again!

  4. p.s. After 13 years of troop leadership, I can hardly look at GS cookies anymore, which is probably a good thing, but I’m still a big pushover for Samoas too!

    • OMG, yes. one of the few to things I really really crave that Europe doesn’t have! Samoas and Thin Mints. But if I have to choose, Samoas all the way. Where are the enterprising Girl Scouts ready to start exporting?? They would make a killing!

  7. As a Girl Scout leader, this app makes me really uncomfortable. It’s like, an invitation for creeps to locate my little 5th grade babies.

    As a kid I was a super Girl Scout and had a half million badges, but I HATED selling Girl Scout cookies more than anything in the world. So much sorting and organizing and math…

    BUT I can eat tagalongs for dayssss

    • Does it actually lead to people’s houses? Because I know girl scouts often sell cookies at schools, churches and grocery stores, too.

      • I’m sure it just leads them to the mall or wherever the girls are selling that day. I just don’t like the idea of that. The GS council I work for does not even have the words “Girl Scouts” on the signs to their camps, and will not give directions to camp on the phone. The only directions to camp you get is a paper map inside of the registration packet. They do this to ensure that people who shouldn’t know exactly where kids are have a harder time figuring it out (like creepers, or parents in a custody battle, etc). So it seems out of place to me that this app even is a thing.

        I am, however, extremely over-protective of my little darlings in my troop :) and I should probably be excited about this because cookies=less of my money spent on them

        • Correct. In years past at least, the cookie finder mobile app and web app have just included information about booth sales.

          • Doesn’t that still make you uncomfortable though? Kidnappers can locate packs of little girls really easily with a really innocent app.

            Maybe I’m just a Debbie Downer?

          • Well, I think the keyword is “pack.” There’s safety in numbers.
            And GS policy is there be at least two adults present at any activity, so… it’s pretty safe. A kid’s most likely kidnapper is a family member, so I think non-custodial mom, dad, or creeper aunt/uncle would stage a kidnapping somewhere there’d be less drama.

  8. Tagalongs empty box housing my comic collection.

    Box is full… need more comics soon…

    Solution = buy cookies for perfect box…

    and deliciousness.

    Perhaps thin mints.

    Minty, minty Batwoman.

  9. Sweet Samoa Heaven I am so excited!!!! Thin Mints and Tagalongs are also delicious, and I know they’re plan, but I love the Shortbread ones, too. I’m a fatty and so proud of it.

  10. I have to say I think it’s a tie between Samoas and Tagalongs for me. Honestly I don’t even know why they make any other cookies besides Samoas, Tagalongs, and Thin Mints. Those seem to be the favorite three. Although I do remember trying a couple of the lemon ones last year and those were pretty delicious, too.

    • Also, I think I enjoyed girl scout cookies more when I was little and I didn’t realize that eating two boxes of cookies in one sitting was like 1000x your suggest daily intake of saturated fat…although I still eat a ton of them at once. I can’t help it. :)

  11. Also, everyone should know that the kids selling the cookies only get about 50 cents per box they sell for their troop. They never see the other 3.00 because it goes back into the council to pay adult salaries, rent on offices, etc. Those cute little badges and pins they earn cost anywhere between 1-6 dollars a piece or more. If a troop of 10 girls earns 10 badges, that equals a lot of cookies. It is also really expensive to go camping, do crafts, buy badge books, etc. So buy more than one box!

    Love,
    A really broke Girl Scout leader

    • This is why I always just let the Girl Scouts I bought cookies from keep the change, back when I bought cookies.

      AND THEN MY ROOMMATE WORKED AT A GIRL SCOUT CAMP AND STOLE US AN ENTIRE CRATE OF LEFTOVER COOKIES AT THE END OF THE SUMMER. That’s right bitches, there’s still Do-Si-Dos from last year directly in my line of sight right now.

    • One thing you can do about not having enough troop money is ask parents for a one-time contribution when their daughter joins the troop. We always asked for $25 when a girl joined and that set us up with a pretty nice sized treasury.

      Obviously this doesn’t work if you’re in an incredibly destitute or impoverished area, but, frankly, $25 is de minimis when you compare it to what most parents are willing to pay for most activities. Many sports programs cost multiple hundreds of dollars, for instance, same with music or dance lessons, and I can’t really wrap my head around the idea that Girl Scouts has to be entirely self-funded or free.

      Another idea is to ask the girls if they want to set a minimum number of boxes per girl to sell in a given cookie season, or ask them if they’re comfortable contributing a certain dollar amount if they don’t. We’ve done that in the past – if a girl just straight up refuses to sell, or work at any booth sales, I’ve sent a gentle reminder that the troop activities aren’t free, and asked the parent to contribute what they think is fair. I almost always get a check in return, and often for more than even I would have thought “fair.”

      You can wind up going out of pocket by hundreds if not thousands of dollars if you don’t get assertive about troop money eventually. I know I did this for years, but eventually you’ll get resentful (and poor)!

      • I agree. We ask for 30 dollars a semester, and most parents can’t pay much more than that, but they do offer to do things like drive the kids on field trips or host meetings at their house. We have really good kids, but it’s easy to spend a lot of money on kids who would rather do charity projects than things for themselves. They work really hard to sell cookies so they can do the things they like, but they have absolutely no concept of how much things cost (a camping weekend runs close to 450 dollars to rent the site and buy food and supplies). Even though I think this app is a little creepy, I guess it does help the leaders out a little.

  12. Thank you to everyone who is supporting the Girl Scouts by buying our cookies!

    Some of the cookie money goes towards “summer camp scholarships” to gives girls who cannot afford to go to camp the opportunity to attend camp. As a camp counselor, I really do see the benefit of camp. It gives girls courage, helps build character, and increases self-confidence and self-esteem.

  14. I used to be a Scout! My mom was the leader of my troop for a while, and, come cookie season, our entire front hall and den-area would be filled with cases upon cases of the goods, man.

    My ffffffffffavorite cookie memory is stashing a box of Thin Mints in the freezer, at the bottle of the vegetable drawer. The finishing touch was the layering of a bag of frozen brussel sprouts we had had for years. Come August, my poor memory paid off, and I had an entire box of ice-cold Thin Mints no one else knew existed. Frozen Thin Mints in the dead, still heat of a Kentucky August are a pleasure incomparable, my friends.

  15. I still can’t decide between thin mints and samoas. I grew up on thin mints, and I wasn’t introduced to samoas until middle school when Timmy’s mom, who was chaperoning the school field trip to the Museum of Natural History, brought them as a snack on the bus.

    I CAN’T DECIDE!

    Fun Girl Scout story: When my sister was a Brownie, my mom was the troupe leader, and I would tag along to the meetings and events, and my mom called me a cookie because I was a) too young and b) unofficial.

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