Can You Really Find Penny Items At Home Depot? It's Not As Simple As It Seems

It's a great feeling when you go to the store and find exactly what you need, or even something you don't, on sale. Finding a good deal can be tough these days, so any opportunity to save money at pretty much any percentage is welcome. This is especially true at a store like Home Depot, where tossing only a few items into your cart can add up to a big price tag at the end of your shopping trip. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to save at the hardware giant, from sticking predominantly with Home Depot's budget-friendly yet toolbox-worthy finds to taking advantage of coupons. There's even one potential method that sounds too good to be true.

If you're lucky, you may be able to get, in the most literal sense, the biggest discounts possible on some Home Depot items. Looking around the store, you're likely to see yellow price tags alongside the regular white ones on shelves. These are reserved for clearance items, though they may ring up for significantly less than the discounted price shown on the tag. On some occasions, they may appear at checkout for as little as a single cent. Naturally, such a sight can make you feel as though you've hit the clearance jackpot.

In reality, you may not be able to walk away from your Home Depot store with such a deal to your credit. There are some details regarding Home Depot's penny "deals" you should be aware of, just in case you're hoping for some big wins.

While getting wild clearance deals isn't unheard of, at Home Depot or any other big chain store, the aforementioned penny deals aren't so straightforward. As it turns out, specific clearance items aren't marked down so low for the sake of giving customers a reason to jump for joy. Rather, it's an internal decision made to keep track of items that shouldn't be on shelves anymore for one reason or another. Marking them down so low keeps them in Home Depot's inventory system, with the low price acting as something of an alert to let employees know that they shouldn't be on the sales floor anymore.

So, with this in mind, what does this mean for you as a customer? One would think that if you were lucky enough to score a penny item, you should get to keep it upon ringing it up and paying for it. The fact is, though, Home Depot doesn't have any specific, publicly-posted guidance on what is supposed to happen if a customer rings one up. It varies from store to store, with some taking the item from the customer since it's not actually supposed to be for sale, while others will allow the customer to buy it while promptly removing any remaining stock from the floor. No matter which kind of store you're in, it's best to be kind and respectful to the employees when it comes to these unintentional sales. 

There are plenty of great Home Depot tools for under $10, though ones for less than $0.10 are few and far between. Unfortunately, should a penny deal come your way, there's no guarantee you'll be able to bring it home.