Are you looking for ways to save money on your weekly family budget? Look no further!
With discounts on food, to toys, to clothing, to household items, and more, Dollar General offers a lot of deals to help stretch your hard-earned dollars. I’ll dive into the particulars of how to find not only the clearance items but also the penny deals.
If you are new to penny shopping, I’ll explain the program, and at the bottom of this post, you can find the penny list and clearance items to help you save big and keep more money in your pocket!
Just want this week’s list? Click here to see the latest deals!
What is the Dollar General Penny list?
What are penny deals, you may ask? If you can catch the deal in time, you can buy all sorts of items from your local Dollar General store for just one penny!
Penny items are products that are being cleared out of the store. This can be from a product that is being discontinued or has gone past the 90% off clearance price. Penny items are generally supposed to be taken off the shelves already, but many stores don’t clear these in time. These discounted items ring up as a penny so the sales associates can easily identify them and know to pull the rest from the shelves.
How does Dollar General penny shopping work?
Penny shopping isn’t for the faint of heart. It will take determination and visiting the store in person – and that doesn’t guarantee success.
Every Tuesday, select items are discounted to one penny. Most weeks, there will be penny items, but some weeks won’t. To stay up-to-date, check out my list below to see what items are being discounted.
There are a few frustrating things to be aware of when shopping for penny items. For one, just because an item has been listed for a penny doesn’t mean your store will have them because the employees have pulled them. These items are usually donated locally or sent back to the manufacturer. Also, you will find that in some stores, the item may be listed as a penny, and the store 1 mile down the road doesn’t.
The other frustrating thing is that while the registers of most stores will have the updated prices once the store opens on Tuesday morning, some of the newer systems don’t update until later in the day and sometimes not until Wednesday.
Last, just because you scored a deal, some stores may not let you purchase penny items once they ring up as $0.01 at the register. Most stores aren’t going to fight this, but while I haven’t had an issue at my stores, I’ve heard stories of some stores not allowing the sale.
To use the app, don’t enter the UPC in the search bar. Instead, click on the scanner icon on the search bar and then click “enter barcode number”
Click on the scanner icon
Enter the barcode number
How to check for penny deals?
A powerful tool to help search for which stores have the deals is the Dollar General app (iOS / Android). While you can’t use te DG app to search for penny items exclusively, you can use the app to do a price check by scanning the UPC (Universal Product Code) of the items before headding to the register. Word of advice – the app is able to check prices in real-time, so make sure the app has been updated before checking prices so the new markdowns are loaded.
A UPC is a bar code on the packaging that is used to scan the item. Here is a picture of what you are looking for.
The Dollar General app is fairly accurate on pricing, but there have been exceptions. Generally, if the app shows either $0.00 or $0.01, the price for that item is usually a penny!
In addition to using the app to scan the item in the store to see if it shows the price of a penny, you can also use it to search all of the stores around you by typing in the UPC to see what they have in stock. To check, set your location and type in the UPC of that week’s discounted items. Then change the location of the stores that you shop to see what inventory is available to purchase.
Where can discounted items be found?
You can find Dollar General penny items anywhere within the store. I have the best luck finding them mixed in the clearance sections, by the register, and end caps. But don’t skip the normal-priced areas of the store. You never know what you may find.
There are sometimes clues about where the product is located when searching in the app. If the product name has “Fr End ck”, that means it’s up by the cashier.
In general, you should never ask employees about penny shopping. They know about it, but they are supposed to have pulled these items from the shelves. And most importantly, don’t complain about penny items or call corporate if your store won’t sell penny items to you. Complaining could cause corporate to end this practice, so in the long run, you are better off going to another store.
That said, I have a friend who, like clockwork, visits her Dollar General store right at 7 am every Tuesday, and when her local Dollar General store opens, the cashier pulls the items and puts them by the register for her. It took a little time, but it can be done!
Is penny shopping legal?
A lot of people ask whether penny shopping is legal, and yes, it is. As long as the item is on the sales floor, Dollar General’s policy is to sell penny items. It is worth noting that their policy isn’t to let you go back for more items, though.
What about clearance items?
In addition to penny times, it’s also worth checking for checking Dollar General’s clearance items as there are some great deals to be found that are on sale.
Dollar General is also a gold mine after major holidays and events, especially after Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, the end of summer, and the Super Bowl.
Clearance merchandise usually starts at 50% off of full price but can also go as high as 90% off. Usually, if those 90% off items don’t sell, they become penny items.
A great place to find deals is in the weekly ad and their website. Dollar General has BOGO deals and instant savings when you buy participating products. They also take manufacturer’s coupons, and Dollar General has a coupon for $5 off any $25 purchase, which is usually released on Saturday. And yes, you can pair the big weekly sales and clearance items with manufacturer coupons and the $5 off coupon to save big money!
Pro Shopping Tips
Prices are automatically updated, and most registers are updated before the stores open. So, being at the store when it first opens each Tuesday morning is usually the best way to get the deals. Each store operates differently, and they don’t update until later in the day or even on Wednesday. Once you learn how your local stores operate, it’s not common for the timing to change.
Stores that aren’t well organized and a bit run down seem to have dealt more consistently than the better run stores.
Some Dollar General stores have updated their registers, so you have to wait until the employee to complete ringing your order up before the price drops to a penny. It’s a little stressful watching that total climb, but a bit of a rush when it does.
Please be respectful of the Dollar General employees. They don’t set the policy, and getting mad at them makes their job much harder.
Getting deals is great, but I have known people who buy every item on sale, without thinking whether they will actually use it. I get the rush of a deal, and while this is none of my business, I hope you will consider that if you aren’t going to be able to use the item by the expiration date, to leave penny items behind for the next shopper or donate them. Getting a deal is great, but if it is thrown away, was it really a deal?
Dollar General Penny List & Markdowns
May 2023
May 30, 2023 – No Penny list
May 23, 2023
May 16, 2023
May 9, 2023
May 2, 2023
April 2023
April 18, 2023 – No Penny List | Markdown List
April 11, 2023
April 4, 2023 – No Penny List
March 2023
March 28, 2023 – No Penny List
March 21, 2023
March 14, 2023
March 7, 2023
Source: pennypinchinmom.com