Penny List for This Week: Dollar General, Home Depot, Dollar Tree [August 2026]

What a penny list is, and who actually writes it

When a clearance item reaches the end of its markdown life without selling, the store's inventory system drops it to one cent as an internal signal to pull it from the floor. Shoppers who catch an item at that moment scan it, buy it, and post the SKU or UPC. A penny list is the aggregation of those finds. The compilers are community sites and paid groups, never the retailers themselves, and the good ones stamp every entry with a date because penny items disappear fast. If penny mechanics are new to you, start with what penny shopping is and come back.

The lists run on different clocks per chain. Dollar General's penny changes land on Tuesday mornings, which is why every DG list refreshes early in the week. Home Depot pennies out items continuously, seven days a week, so its lists run as live feeds instead of weekly posts. Dollar Tree sits in between, with a smaller list that moves in waves.

What is on the lists right now (August 2026)

Real entries from the current lists, with the source and date attached. Treat these as a snapshot: a penny item posted a week ago is usually gone.

• Dollar General, from The Krazy Coupon Lady's list updated August 18, 2026: Beech-Nut baby food pouches (UPCs 52200010310, 52200011126, 52200011058), Dr. Brown's Good Start formula 12.3 oz (UPC 810131500108), and Super Poligrip two-packs (UPC 310158062097).
• Home Depot, from Penny Pinchin' Mom's August 1, 2026 list: a Milwaukee MX4 SDS MAX rotary hammer bit (SKU 1002-314-606), a Dyson V8 cordless stick vacuum (SKU 1007-846-436), a DeWalt 20V cordless belt sander (SKU 1009-529-565), a Coast WLR1 LED work light, and a Mission cooling wide-brim hat.
• Home Depot, from PennyCentral's live feed as of August 20, 2026: a battery-operated LED puck light (SKU 1006031174, confirmed in Pennsylvania), a Milwaukee Packout cabinet (SKU 1007712596), and a RYOBI cordless wet/dry vacuum (SKU 1008625777).
• Dollar Tree, from The Krazy Coupon Lady's May 2026 list: Power Stick roll-on deodorant, Brain Freeze freeze-dried candy, and Cooking Concepts basting brushes.

The scale of what slips through these lists is real. One Home Depot penny hunter documented on TikTok bought a $1,100 bathroom vanity, an $800 water heater, and a $450 ceiling fan for one cent each, and 101 smoke detectors worth over $4,000 retail for $1.01 total, finds later covered by the Sangamon Reporter.

Every penny list, free and paid

Prices and cadences above come from each publisher's own site, checked August 20, 2026. Notice the pattern in the pricing. The lists themselves are free everywhere. What the paid products sell is speed and locality: an alert minutes after an item pennies instead of days, and a read on your store instead of the whole country. Deal Soldier charges $44 a month for that edge and holds a 4.9-star rating across 1,437 reviews, which says plenty about how much the timing is worth. Our full breakdown is in the Deal Soldier review.

How an item ends up on the list

At Dollar General, items step through the clearance cycle to 90 percent off, and the leftovers flip to $0.01 in Tuesday's system update as a signal for staff to remove them. The size, flavor, and count on the list entry must match your item exactly, and the DG app set to your store is the fastest check before you drive.

At Home Depot, the folklore says the cents ending tells the story: .06 for 25 percent off, .04 for 50, .03 for 75, .02 for 90, then a penny roughly 14 weeks after the clearance date. The people who track it at scale say the endings are breaking down. PennyCentral's guide documents markdown chains that ignore the pattern entirely and calls the clearance date, typically 7 to 13 weeks to a penny, the real signal. Both agree on the method: scan the item's UPC at a self-checkout. A penny on the register screen is the only confirmation that counts, because the price exists in-store only. Online the same item shows full price or out of stock.

Will the store actually sell it for a penny?

Depends on the chain, and this is where the lists diverge from reality at the register. Dollar General's employee handbook instructs stores to sell penny items at the marked price, per The Krazy Coupon Lady's reporting, though individual stores still refuse. Dollar Tree flipped in January 2026: a leaked company memo says employees have to sell a penny item brought to the register, reversing the old refusal policy. Home Depot has never published an official stance. One TikTok creator was blocked mid-sale by an associate, pushed the transaction through, and had a manager confirm it as legitimate afterward, a story The Mary Sue documented in October 2025. PennyCentral reads Home Depot's May 2026 policy as sell-it-at-the-register, while The Krazy Coupon Lady maintains employees can refuse and confiscate. Expect either outcome.

One rule is universal across every guide and group: do not ask an associate to check a penny item. Once staff spot a penny, their job is to pull it from the floor. Find it, scan it yourself, and check out.

The part the list can never tell you

A penny list tells you an item pennied out somewhere in America. It cannot tell you whether the Home Depot four miles from you still has one in the overhead. That gap is why the paid groups sell alerts, why the Facebook groups run on "what store are you in" replies, and why hunters burn tanks of gas checking shelves. Scavenger closes it differently: it reads local inventory signals for Home Depot penny items and clearance around your ZIP code, so you check five stores from your phone instead of your car. The receipts on our deals page came from exactly that loop. And if you are weighing the paid trackers against each other first, the field is mapped in BrickSeek alternatives.