All about Penny Shopping & finding the Penny Lists

Dollar General Penny Shopping:

This post will help you learn how to penny shop at Dollar General.

Penny Puss is the leader in responsible penny shopping at Dollar General.  We do not condone hiding things, fraud, or disrespect for the stores and/or employees.  Our goal, when we started posting about penny shopping back in 2014, was to curb the misunderstandings and try to stop people from messing up stores.

We have the Penny Puss APP with DG Penny Finder that you can use to browse through lists and previously found pennies.  You must follow Dollar General’s policy when getting penny items.  The policy says if you go to the register to purchase an item that they must sell to you if it’s a penny.  They DO NOT, however, have to sell to you if you are fishing for pennies … in other words, asking for price checks.  Also, they do not have to let you go back for more.  Our app has no affiliation with Dollar General, we only use DG or Dollar General so that you know what store we are talking about.  Dollar General’s policy could change at any time.

Dollar General has their own app, and the Dollar General app has their own price checker so you can check the price in store.  Just be sure you have the app set to the correct store.  Go to the “list” tab at the bottom of the DG app and you will then see a barcode symbol in the upper right.  Tap the symbol and start scanning!  You still need to have an idea of what you are looking for as you can’t really scan every item in the store.

We post new penny lists in the ongoing Dollar General Penny Shopping List post by Monday night for Tuesday morning shopping.  There is NOT, however, a new Dollar General penny list every week.  But we will update either way so you know too if there are no scheduled pennies for that week.  Occasionally, we have a list on days other than Tuesdays.  Those will be updated as we get them too.

Although most lists are for pennies starting on Tuesday, you can penny shop any day of the week for previous pennies.  The best day is Tuesday, usually, because other shoppers will be out looking too if they are fresh pennies.  But as I said prior, we could see new pennies any day of the week.

Penny shopping is not illegal.  I have seen posts about stores calling the police on penny shoppers.  This is most likely due to the employees not understanding why items are ringing up a penny.  There are a lot of scammers out there and if the employee doesn’t know about penny items, they may think you are one of those scammers.  Always be nice.  I remember one time when I bought a bunch of penny items and the cashier said that something was wrong … I explained the “penny” process to her so she could understand why they were ringing that way.  I know people say not to talk about penny items, but in this case, I felt it was the right thing to do.

Penny Puss has an excellent history of getting things right, although sometimes Dollar General changes things up a bit and lists don’t penny when they are supposed to.  We strive to get you the BEST information possible and err on the side of caution.  We don’t spread rumors or create excitement over things we aren’t quite sure of.  If you get to the register and the price is not what you thought, just ask them to take it off and that you changed your mind.

And, one more thing, it is NOT a penny sale.  These are discontinued items that show as a penny so employees know they are the correct items to pull from the shelf.  Please do NOT go in the store and ask where their penny items are.  They will most likely say, “we don’t have any” because if they knew about the pennies, they would pull them.  That is their job.

As responsible penny shoppers, we do NOT go in backrooms, behind counters, or take stuff that is OBVIOUSLY being packed up.  While you may claim it is “on the sales floor” – it’s just completely disrespectful.

Disclaimer: We are NOT affiliated with Dollar General in any way!

So, before grabbing a new Dollar General penny list, please finish reading this … and watch the short video.

Penny Shopping takes a bit of work – especially for the older pennies. There are many items that look similar or are exactly the same as the penny items, you need to figure out which ones they are. This is accomplished by going through the lists, studying other people’s hauls, reading comments, taking screen shots, and then scanning with the DG app.  If an items does NOT ring up a penny, then it is NOT a penny.  Items reset to full price sometimes.

The items that are pennied, are supposed to be pulled from the shelves, but the employees sometimes miss them. If the item is on the shelf and you take it to the register, they are supposed to sell it to you. They DO NOT, however, have to let you go back to get more.  It’s their policy NOT to let you go back for more.  If the employee asks where you found the items, they are just asking so that they can go pull any that you may have left.

Please be polite and considerate to the store employees. Do not tear up a store looking for penny items. If you are just starting out, I ask that you watch this one video which is a bit of the basics to help you get started:

Basics Video – please note that this is older and many of these items have reset back to full price.  This video is still helpful as it gives you the basics of what to look for on the tags.

Please remember this is an older video and is not indicative of what is pennied or clearance right now, but showing you HOW to identify tags and learning the basics.  

Personally, I prefer the deep discount sales, because you get a better selection and the employees don’t seem to mind as much.  You may run into employees who don’t want to sell you penny stuff but most employees that I have dealt with are pretty awesome.  There are all sorts of people out there and while they should be nice to you, unfortunately, some may not be.  You never know if a person is just having a bad day or is going through a rough spot in their life.  So, don’t be nasty … be the better person!

Important Links:

Penny Puss Page on Facebook

Friendly DG Penny Shopping group on Facebook

Contact Information

Good luck and happy shopping!

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