- These are 10 shopping secrets
Dollar General does not want you to know.
Welcome back to the channel.
I want you to know these secrets.
I'm the YouTube Deal Guy, Matt Granite.
This video is not sponsored in any way.
I'm gonna bring you inside my local Dollar Generals
to show you how to find items priced for zero dollars,
I'll explain how to penny shop,
and I'll expose the truth about in-store pricing errors,
plus where to find the best bargains
once you step foot inside the store.
Prepare for an epic treasure hunt.
Feel free to give this video a thumbs up,
it helps with the YouTube algorithm
and my not quite developed self esteem.
The first secret Dollar General does not want you to know
is that you should beware of their big savings events,
and more importantly, the events that advertise
the buy three, save three
or buy five products and save $5 sales.
These sales,
combined with a coupon that you might try to use,
could actually cause your total to increase
when you go to pay at the cash register.
I'll explain more about couponing in a few moments,
but coupons for this type of event
will actually cancel out the savings in some cases,
so you might be better leaving the coupon aside
or buying an odd number of items and using the coupon.
It's very annoying to think that using a coupon
could increase your total, but the instant savings events
don't always work in your favor with a coupon in hand.
The second secret Dollar General does not want you to know
is that if you use the correct coupon,
it could technically pay you to shop.
Dollar General is one of the only major retailers
that will allow you to benefit from coupon overages.
That means you can use a coupon
that exceeds the price of the item.
If you have a coupon for $3 off a toothbrush,
and the toothbrush sells for $2,
Dollar General, based on its current policy,
is supposed to allow you to use that extra leftover dollar
toward the purchase of another product
or a credit on your bill.
Any Dollar General shopper should get acquainted
with their coupon policy.
Even consider printing this out to have on hand
if you do run into a debate in the store.
But if you read the coupon overage section,
it says that, "Dollar General accepts coupons
"that have a face value that exceeds the price of the item
"to which the coupon applies."
Dollar General does indicate they are updating this policy
to some type of point system that could potentially
work in your favor.
But at least at the time I'm uploading this video,
if you do have a coupon
with a value higher than the item you're buying,
you could get a few dollars back in your pocket.
The third secret is tied to the Top Data Shop.
Now, any seasoned Dollar General shopper may know this,
and I'll get to some insider store secrets in a moment,
but shop Saturdays if you want to get an additional $5 off
any purchase that's $25 or more.
All you need to do is download the Dollar General app,
and then Dollar General will give you
that $5 coupon every Saturday,
as well as some other highly attractive rebates,
depending on the week and the season,
and I will explain seasons and savings
and where to look in the store
for those better seasonal products in a few moments.
Shopping secret number four.
Now that you have the app,
did you know that you can stack the app coupons,
in most cases, with text coupons?
Text the word JOIN to DGTXT, as in Dollar General text,
and I do have this information available.
If you expand the video description box,
you'll sign up for mobile alerts on the spot
and you'll also gain access to additional coupons
that you can then stack with the app coupons.
If this is your first time even hearing of this concept,
also text the word DEALS to that same number.
Dollar General will likely send you a $2 off coupon
to start your shopping spree.
Dollar General shopping secret number five,
know your dots and symbols.
If you are not yet aware, Dollar General uses a whole
not quite understandable color scheme of dots
and additional symbols to indicate which items
are significantly reduced.
If you see a colored dot or a symbol on a price tag,
generally that's just a note that you will be saving big.
The dots and symbols, including squares,
are often just tied to shopping categories and seasons.
They don't necessarily all reflect
the same percentage off per product.
I will explain how the symbols come into play
for penny shopping in a few moments,
but if you see colored dots or symbols on a price tag,
that is your first indication that this item
is reduced or possibly heavily discounted.
Shopping secret number six
that Dollar General does not want you to know,
you can take coupons, not through the Dollar General app
or through the texting service,
and still use them inside the store
on your next Dollar General shopping spree.
Dollar General accepts manufacturer's coupons.
A lot of people don't realize this,
and I wanna make sure that you know that you can combine
two different types of coupons with a sale.
So if you find a manufacturer's coupon online
or you clip it from elsewhere, these are accepted in store.
Coupon stacking is allowed at Dollar General
in most situations,
you just need to understand the fine print.
So, a reminder that,
"One manufacturer coupon and one Dollar General coupon
"can be used per item in a transaction."
So at worst, if you have multiple coupons,
you could break up your shopping spree
into several transactions.
But just know that this does exist as an option.
The seventh shopping secret
Dollar General does not want you to know,
your ability to use coupons is often dependent
upon the order in which you present them.
I know, that sounds absurd,
but to make coupons work for you to the full advantage,
and then I'm gonna wrap up with coupons in a moment,
know this order: store coupons or mobile text store coupons
need to be presented first.
After that, you can use your dollar off coupons
like the ones that you get on Saturdays through the app,
followed by manufacturer's coupons.
If you deviate from this order,
one coupon could cancel the other coupons out.
And if you are tired of hearing about coupons,
or if you just want the best offers presented to you,
the Dollar General Facebook page
has all sorts of advertising leaks of sorts,
I did use air quotes there,
just because this is the black Friday ad leaks.
They want you to see this.
But you will find many of the best digital coupons
just right out there for you to see,
and then you can determine
whether or not it is worth going on to the app
to redeem the additional savings and shop in stores.
So perhaps use the Facebook feed to help incentivize you
on what you could pick up
on your next Dollar General shopping trip.
Shopping secret number eight,
Dollar General is one of the only major retailers
that will offer clearance items
from two shopping seasons simultaneously.
That's actually a thing.
And just for those of you that might have noticed,
I recorded this video at two separate Dollar Generals,
and I'm not sure if it was restocking season,
but you'll see that these aren't necessarily
the most tidy stores or the most clean shopping experience
that I've ever had.
But I did find good products,
and two season discounted simultaneously is the reality
if you shop regularly at Dollar General.
Right now I'm seeing Fourth of July remnants
and fall deals.
You'll see a mix of fall and winter deals
if you shop around Christmas,
and it also pays huge to shop right before and after
any major holidays, not just Christmas.
Easter, Valentine's Day, Labor Day.
You'll hopefully find what you're looking for
if you do a bit of deal digging.
And speaking of digging, shopping secret number nine,
before I get to the penny shopping,
the end caps at any Dollar General are the best place
for most of the top decor offerings in the store.
Many other stores use end caps for clearance
or things that they just wanna get rid of.
Dollar General often uses end caps to celebrate
the top seasonal offerings.
So look to the end caps for what are often
the most timely seasonal decor finds.
Shopping secret number 10
that Dollar General does not want you to know,
before I get to the bonus items,
is you can shop for just one penny
if you play your cards correctly.
Before I explain how to penny shop,
your question might be, "Why do penny items exist?"
The Dollar General pricing system
automatically reduces items to a penny
as a signifier for store employees
to remove the items from store shelves,
but they sometimes miss items,
and not all store employees can keep up
with the entire mark down schedule on a regular basis.
After a product is discounted by 90%,
usually within two to three weeks following that,
the item will penny out.
Tuesday mornings are typically when this occurs.
Before I show you what I purchased for a penny,
let me show you how to read the price tag.
The price tag will have a barcode on it
and underneath the barcode, there'll be a combination
of one of the following codes:
SP for spring, SU for summer, FA for fall, WI for winter
or a combination of two seasons and a year.
If you see a 19, it's 2019, 20 for 2020 and 21 for 2021.
Before filming this video,
I went online to see what the penny items were.
For my current day, it was two Hostess cupcakes.
And when I arrived at the store,
some other savvy shopper had beat me to the cupcakes.
So with this being me, I was determined to use my own intel
and show all of you guys another penny purchase,
and I went through the store
looking at different price tags.
I found one tag with a gray dot,
which I don't typically see too often at my Dollar General,
and you'll see the price tag has an FW,
which means fall and winter, followed by 20, so for 2020.
I knew that this pair of socks,
which I wanted to get for my three year old daughter,
specifically if they were a penny from a year ago,
would be a great grab.
I opened the Dollar General app on my phone,
I scanned the product barcode
and it showed up as zero dollars,
which was my immediate indication
the store would likely sell this to me for a penny.
It took me only a few minutes
to locate one item for a penny
inside my local Dollar General,
and while I wish there was sort type of mathematical formula
to guarantee a penny product every time,
your best bet, if you expand the video description box,
there are internal leaked memos
from Dollar General employees that show all of the items
that are supposed to be removed that will penny out.
And the stores are supposed
to sell you the item for a penny,
you do need to read the fine print.
They could refuse it in some cases,
but before the items end up in a dumpster,
they might as well end up in your hands for a penny
and you can do what you want with them.
Now, bonus shopping secret number one,
Dollar General pricing errors.
As you've likely seen through this video or on your own,
the Dollar General app is your friend,
but not only to get the information
the store wants you to see.
If you see an item in store that has a questionable price,
or if you've held off on a product purchase
and a lower price might make it more attractive to you,
take a look at this straw summer hat as an example.
Knowing that this is almost the end of August,
I thought that for $5,
this straw summer hat was too high of a price.
So I scanned it with the app and I immediately noticed
that this should, in fact, be sold for $2.50.
At 2.50, I'll buy it.
At $5, I would've passed.
So having the app
and being able to seek out hidden clearance deals
is definitely one of the benefits to using the app.
Shopping secret bonus number two.
Pay special attention to the furniture
and lamps at Dollar General.
These items are often overlooked,
but unlike other dollar stores
where most consumer experts will tell you
to shop only paper products,
Dollar General is truly in its own category.
Specialty items including lamps, furniture, shelves,
throw pillows and blankets are all fantastic buys
on a regular basis.
And if you have any other products
or secrets that you wanna share,
things that you think I might've missed
or I should know about, please leave me a comment.
I love reading through them.
If you guys like this content,
please feel free to give it a thumbs up,
share it with any other fellow Dollar General shoppers.
And if you are subscribed with your notifications turned on,
I reveal store secrets on a regular basis
for Dollar Tree, Five Below, any other stores
that you might wanna know more about,
including warehouse shopping.
So thanks for being here, bye bye.