Dollar General Penny Shopping is tons of fun and once you get started its pretty easy to figure out… but we get a lot of questions about it so I figured we would answer some of the Common Questions about Dollar General Penny Shopping!
NEW TO PENNY SHOPPING? CHECK OUT THESE RESOURCES:
Dollar General Penny List
How To Penny Shop at Dollar General
Dollar General Penny Shopping Videos
Dollar General Penny Shopping Newsletter
Dollar General Penny Shopping Policy
Dollar General Penny Shopping Facebook Group
Can I only Penny Shop on Tuesdays?
- No, you can penny shop any day of the week. Tuesdays are the best typically because when we do have a list it usually starts on Tuesday. As with all hot deals, the early bird gets the worm.
Where can I get the Dollar General Penny List?
- You can check out our Dollar General Penny Shopping List – Make sure to bookmark the page, we update the same page with the new items each time there is a list.
How do I know an item is a Penny?
- If it is the first week of an item you will know because it is on the penny list, we usually put together videos as well as visual graphics to show which items are a penny each week. For older items it is just about studying our Penny Shopping Facebook Group. If you see something that you may think is a penny, you can use the group search function and search the item name or brand and see discussions that have mentioned the item you are looking at.
Can I price check penny items?
- You can not ask employees to price check penny items BUT you can use the Dollar General app to price check. If an item is a penny item the app will show the price as $0.01 – note that sometimes the app is wrong. If that happens they will NOT override items to a penny. Just offer to put it back where you found it.
If it is a Penny, will it always be a Penny?
- No. It used to be that once a penny, a reset would be rare. However we are finding that stuff resets, and sometimes resets quickly. Coconut water is one example. That was a penny for less than a week. If a glitch happens, and something is a penny, corporate works even faster to get that glitch fixed and back to full price.
Does my store participate in Penny shopping?
- Yes. Corporate sets the registers, not individual stores.
Why did my store refuse to sell me my items?
- Some district managers have told their employees not to sell any penny items. If you are refused a sale, ask for the district managers number. If they refuse to give it to you, do the survey on the bottom of the receipt. Do not mention Penny items, but say that you had a bad experience, and would like a call from the district manager. The majority of the time, district managers will call the store and tell them to sell what was in your cart.
DO NOT CALL CORPORATE ABOUT PENNY ITEMS! If we want to keep this a thing (and we do) we want to make this as easy on DG as we can.
Where can I find the Penny items in the store?
- The items can literally be found anywhere. Clearance and last chance is a good place to start for items that have been on clearance for a long while. But they can also be found in the usual spot. Say the eyeshadow that pennied out. A lot was found in clearance, but some was found in the old spot with the other makeup. Look up on sky shelves for items. Look on the pegs hanging from shelves. Look under shelves, behind things, under things, in things. Sometimes other customers move items around, and the store does not get a chance to recover the items back to where they belong.
Do not go in the back, behind the registers, in carts that you can tell they are working on to pull the items. Do not go in the gray totes unless they are open for special events like the clearance event.
Will it be marked as a Penny?
- No. The Penny items are supposed to be pulled from the shelves and sent back to corporate, or however corporate says to dispose of them.
What is a surprise Penny?
- A surprise penny is something that was marked down in the registers, but corporate never sent on the penny list to the stores. This works to the penny shoppers advantage because you have a better chance of getting more items. A surprise penny is found by people buying a random item, and having it come up as a penny. You can do a search in the group for surprise pennies to see what people have found.
Why does my store not have any Penny items?
- Either you have other penny shoppers in your area, or the employees are doing what corporate says, and pulling the items. These pennies are not an advertised sale. They are not supposed to leave them out for people to buy.
My item looked exactly like the pictures posted. Why didn’t it ring up a Penny?
- Something was off. Either the ounces, year, symbol, or the UPC. Or it may have reset since you saw the original picture.
If I think something is a Penny, should I take it all?
- Yes, you are not allowed to go back and get anything once it rings up a penny. The employees are to go and pull them immediately.
If my item didn’t ring up at all, or I only put one of an item up, and they all didn’t match, can I still post to the wall?
- No. We try hard to screen all the photos submitted. Sometimes one will slip by before we notice it, but we will delete it once it is noticed. Your items must be the penny items, not the same one with a different UPC.
Why are people so greedy and take it all?
- Because if they don’t, employees will take it off the shelf and send it back. If you don’t need it all, you can always donate it. There is nothing as saving it in stores for other shoppers.
Where can I find the year on an item?
- It is usually around the UPC area, will have a letter F, S, etc. and last two digits of the year. For example, F18. It will have a box around it.
What does YMMV Mean?
- Your miles may vary. It means that what is a penny at one store, may not be a penny a mile down the road. White dot clothes was a good example of that.
What does * mean on a receipt?
- A * denotes a sale price. The original price will show no *, it could also mean that it is only at that store.
What is an override, and can I ask for one at my store?
- An override is something the manager does to make the price lower. If something is on clearance and does not ring up on sale, the manager may do an override. Example would be items excluded when Seasonal stuff goes on sale, like purple dot. One for that would be the pillow. You can ask for an override, but please respect them if they do not do it. Some will just to move the merchandise out of the store.
Can I use coupons on Penny items?
- Yes, if the coupon matches the item you can. You may have to buy something full price for the coupon to work though. You need to have overage, you cannot get cash back from a coupon for penny items.
Is there a cheat sheet?
- Yes! Michah Gordon made one up for our Penny Shopping Facebook Group and updates it as needed. This is located in the files, or you can do a search in the group for her name, cheat sheet. This is a very valuable tool, it has helped many people find old pennies.
Is there visuals for the latest penny list?
- This page does try to make a visual weekly. We cannot get a picture of every single item, as some stores just do not carry the same items. Plus, sometimes the penny list is massive, and it is impossible to get pictures of everything. You can find visuals weekly on The Freebie Guy Instagram Account
Why wasn’t my post approved in the Penny Shopping group?
- This could be for a couple different reasons. It had nothing to do with dollar general, or anything Kendall posted. (Lowe’s, Michael’s for example). It was a joke or meme that had already been posted. It contained curse words. It mentioned things this page does not support. It was bashing store, company, employees, etc. It had shown in the picture dead animals, or children not properly dressed. (top and bottom covered). It was just a selfie. As much as we love putting faces to names, unless you are showing your haul, please do not post selfies. It was a dumpster dive post, or a coupon post. We have separate groups for both of those.
I ask questions all the time in the Penny Shopping Group, and no one answers me…Why?
- There is an ask questions here post by Chris Naugle, ISN (in store now) by Kendall Motzny, and a clearance aisle post by Carli Lafferre. Use those for any questions you have. If you are asking on other people’s post, and it is not about the UPC of that item, they do not have to answer you. The admin said not to hijack posts with questions not pertaining to photo.