Dollar General Penny List Online

We all love a fantastic shopping deal! While Dollar General already offers excellent prices and deals, nothing compares to paying as little as a penny for some clearance items. So what are penny lists, and how do you find these deals? Dollar General penny lists are exactly what they sound like items marked down to 1 penny!

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The Dollar General penny list is a weekly-updated list of clearance items that need to be taken off the shelf after not selling at the 90% clearance mark. However, if shoppers find the items, they can purchase them for 1 penny. Consider using the Dollar General App to help you find penny deals.

The penny list items from Dollar General are unexpected and tragically underrated bargains. Join in on the fun by trying our top hacks on finding these items sometimes even before setting foot inside the store.

Table of Contents

• What Is A Penny List?
• What Are Dollar General Penny Items?
• How Do You Penny Shop At Dollar General?
  • Understanding Dollar General Barcodes
  • Understanding Dollar General Symbols
• How To Find The Penny List For Dollar General? 
• How To Find Penny List Items In-Store?
  • Hot Tips On Finding Dollar General Penny Items
• Use The Dollar General App To Price Check Items
• FAQs

What Is A Penny List?

A penny list contains a list of items at significant discounts at specific retail stores, in this case, the Dollar General. Walmart is another store known for offering penny items but it isn’t as common to find such deals.

The list contains items marked down to as little as a penny. Technically speaking, these items aren’t supposed to be in the store, here’s why.

Products are only allowed to sit on the shelf for a limited time. After that, these items are marked down through a system several times. Once they reach the 90% clearance mark, they are supposed to be pulled off the shelves to be donated or destroyed. Instead, however, they are often marked down to a penny when they do not sell at the 90% clearance mark.

Once items register as penny items, they are supposed to take off the shelves. However, when the Dollar General employees do not take them down in time, we, the clients, get lucky!

While some stores refuse to sell these items to shoppers, the Dollar General App generally provides weekly updated (every Tuesday) penny items.

Dollar General Penny Shopping may be hard work. Still, with some studying and a fun scavenger hunt, you can find a haul of penny items.

What Are Dollar General Penny Items?

There aren’t specific items that showcase in the Dollar General penny list.

The Dollar General items are those hard-to-sell items that went past the maximum clearance mark. After passing 90% clearance and going out of season, these products are marked as penny items. So, the items change depending on seasons, holidays, and expiration dates.

Items can vary from food to clothing, cleaning supplies, toys, home décor, and beauty.

The penny items ring up as a penny to help the sales associates identify the products that need to be removed from the shelf for donation or destruction.

Most penny shopping partakers keep a close eye on the weekly updated list to know which items have cleared out. Almost every Tuesday, products throughout the Dollar General store are marked on the penny list and need to be thrown out.

However, when the employees do not remove the penny items from the shelves in time, you can scavenge and ring these items for a single penny.

Note that the mileage of penny items varies for different Dollar General stores. Therefore, items marked as penny items aren’t necessarily the same in all stores. In addition, not all pennied items are listed on the weekly penny list as the list would be infinitely long.

How Do You Penny Shop At Dollar General?

Unfortunately, Dollar General’s penny items do not have a red tag screaming at you to notice them. Most times, you’ll have to do some scavenging to find them. You’ll also have to learn to understand the system and decode the tags.

Knowing how to decode the barcodes and tags will give you a fair idea of how long the products have been on the shelves and whether they qualify as a penny deal or not.

The correct symbol and code combination increases the likelihood of a penny finds!

After items hit 90%, they will “penny out” within 2 weeks. This often occurs Tuesday mornings, but penny items are very much part of a lucky draw.

Understanding Dollar General Barcodes

Take a look at the product’s barcode. It will showcase a combination of codes that indicate when the products were initially set out for sale.

The code combinations include:

• SP – Spring
• SU – Summer
• FA – Fall
• WI – Winter
• 19 – 2019
• 20 – 2020
• 21 – 2021
• 22 – 2022

For example, if you see a product with a code that says WI22, it means winter 2022. So, a WI22 item won’t be at a significant discount in the spring or summer of 2022. However, a WI21 item will generally have some sort of discount.

Taking a look at when the item was initially set out for sale will indicate whether the product may be a penny item or not.

Understanding Dollar General Symbols

The following things to look at are the symbols.

Each symbol indicates a different discount type and percentage. Knowing what each color and shape sticker means on the price tags will help you identify which items are marked down to a penny.

Dollar General’s symbols include:

• Purple Dot
• Brown Dot
• Red Dot
• Pink Dot
• Pink Star
• Blue Dot
• Brown Diamond
• + others

Discounts start from 10% and move upwards to 15%, 25%, 40%, 50%, 70% and 90% (varying from stores). The different colors and symbols indicate the items on sale or clearance.

For example, a product with a Pink Dot generally qualifies for penny deals. However, the codes and symbols do not always indicate a penny item. Your mileage may vary from store and region.

Note that each store has a unique price tag and sticker color system. So, you’ll want to take note of which trends your specific Dollar General store uses.

You can develop your penny-shopping strategy once you spot which color sticker symbolizes the 90% discount. The 90% discount items will typically last on the shelves for about two weeks. After that, they are marked as penny items.

So, take the risk and load your trolley with possible penny deals after the two weeks. You can always put the products back on the shelf if you make a mistake.

How To Find The Penny List For Dollar General?

You can also find dedicated, up-to-date lists on pennylist.com. In addition, there are usually new items added every Tuesday.

We also recommend joining a Facebook Community Page to learn more about using the penny list. You can join the Dollar General Penny Shopping group.

Many community members or readers post updated penny list visuals and information about where to find them.

Note that it’s vital to use an updated penny list. Most of the penny items will remain a penny. However, resets do occur. Therefore, use a current list and work your way backward to scan if some older penny items are available on the shelves.

How To Find Penny List Items In-Store?

First, it’s crucial not to ask any of the employees about their available penny items.

Penny items are supposed to be removed from the shelves. So, an employee will never show you where to find the items. And let’s be frank, they probably do not know; otherwise, they would have removed them from the shelf in time.

Avoid asking Dollar General’s employees to check the price of possible penny items. If they scan the product as a penny item before selling it to you, they may deny the sale altogether. In addition, they’ll have to clear the shelves.

Finding these treasures may be time-consuming. So, we recommend having fun and thinking of your shopping trip more like a scavenger hunt.

You always join community groups to see what others are finding and always use the updated version of the Dollar General penny list.

Hot Tips On Finding Dollar General Penny Items

Follow our hot tips to help you find those hidden gems!

• Plan ahead, it helps to know what you’re looking for before going to the store. We recommend prepping with a list or screenshots as the internet almost always seems faulty in Dollar General.
• Shop on Tuesday. Dollar General marks their products down on Tuesday mornings. So, Tuesday shopping will increase your likelihood of finding penny items before removing them from the shelf.
• Always avoid asking employees about penny items.
• Avoid getting the price checked. You can always ask the employee to remove the item from your checkout if it rings up as more.
• Be polite to the Dollar General staff members. Don’t demand that an item should be a penny because the list indicates that it is – the list is constantly changing, and not every store offers the same discounts at the same time.
• Load your cart! If you suspect a product is a penny item, you can take as many as you want. The employees are supposed to pull the penny items off the shelf once they realize they are there. Also, you won’t be permitted to go back to get more.
• Be neat please. Many overly excited shoppers completely trash the Dollar General store looking for penny items this makes the staff less inclined to be nice about it, put stuff back when you are done. Stocking is a full time job in stores like this.

Use The Dollar General App To Price Check Items

Download the Dollar General App to help you spot penny items.

The Dollar General app is a free and invaluable tool! It allows users to check prices while finding matching coupons will help you price check penny items – they display as $0.01.

We recommend scanning everything! What’s even better is that you do not even have to be in the store to check the price of products.

In stores, simply scan the barcode. At home, manually enter the item’s UPC code to find the cost (and matching digital coupon).

TIP: The scanner works better once you log into your account. In addition, most Dollar General stores have free guest wifi that you can use.

FAQs

Here are some additional common questions to help new penny shoppers score deals at Dollar General.