It depends on your local tax rate and how many items it takes to go to half a penny or more because it rounds up. Take .5 and divide by your local tax rate in decimals and round down for the maximum number of penny deals without tax. My local sales tax is 8.375% (it changes depending on metropolitan district around here), so .5/.08375 = 5.970149… So 5 is the most items I can buy before the calculated sales tax goes above half a penny and will round up to a penny.
Only a true BLF’er would go thru the self checkout twice to save the extra penny! 
Earlier in this thread I repeated an experience I had way back when I was too nieve to know how the penny deals worked. In one of the end caps I actually found 2 nice table lamps marked at a penny. I got a cart and grabbed them both, on the way up to the registers, not self checkout, I found a CFL bulb also marked at a penny. Ahhhh, the good old days!
Anyway, when I got to the register I coyly told the checkout lady that “I won’t be paying any sales tax on these purchases” She looked up at me and politely exclaimed that if I was tax exempt, I would have to show her the paperwork. To that I said “I won’t need any paper work”
Well she scanned each item again and again until she realized that they were each priced at a penny each. Then she looked up at me a sweetly said “that will be 3 cents, SIR. I reached into my front pocket and pulled out a nickel and 2 pennies. We stood there looking at the coins in my hand when I blurted out ”Blast it all, I’m going to have to break a nickel on this purchase” The customer behind me must have been taking this all in ’cause he offered me the extra penny!
All three of us laughed like crazy and I left with my very first penny deal. That was probably 5 or 6 years ago. Back then I had no idea how this stuff works.
My wife uses one of the 2 lamps in the bedroom, the second one I stuck in a corner of the basement. I just checked the date on the tag and there is none? But even back then they were doing the “3” price (75% off) just before they went to a penny.
Hey Garry, are you surprised I have a corner in the basement?
Plumbing stuff tends to be over-priced for some reason… sometimes ridiculously overpriced. (what happened to the face with squiggly mouth emoticon?)
Overall, electrical stuff is a lot cheaper than plumbing stuff. Look at PVC electric conduit and compare it to PVC plumbing pipe. (They are the same size but the conduit is cheaper, also it is sunlight resistant.) Electrical receptacles 50¢ each, switches 60¢ each, wall plates 20¢ each, wall boxes 25¢ each,
I used to do electrical stuff but then when I went into the plumbing stuff, I was shocked with the higher prices…
Yes, very surprised!
I was at Home Depot Wednesday and Thursday - nothing that great found, though I did pickup a pancake air compressor clearanced at $39.
Oh, and I bought the HF Battery brush years ago to use for plumbing work too!
-Garry
I just got back from traveling the 24 miles to the nearest HD over the State line to Massachusetts. I made the trip to see if they still had the Wink light bulbs and were they a penny or still at the “3” price.
They were still out, but they still scan at the 3 price. Here is a pic of what they had and also they had the “Better Light, Made Right bulbs. Up there they are $21.00.
I really lucked out, I found the very last twin tank compressor in the whole area. It was up in the over head.
I didn’t think to shoot the picture while it was still up there. The guys there were very surprised they had one left (like I believe that!) It was up there because some employee wanted it. 
Also up there, the Black and Decker Power to Go that went on clearance here for 20.03 is a NEW item. Price is $69.97
Cree bulbs are 97 cents
Across the street at Dollar Tree, they have LED blubs too, an even $1
And even stranger than that, right next door to Dollar Tree there is a GoodWill store. LED bulbs are $2! there
My excuse for taking the afternoon off and going up that way was because my accountant is up there and I had the papers proving my innocence with the IRS. He wasn’t in his office, but that was OK. The real reason I made the trip was to check out that HD
Wow dchomak used to have no idea… Can’t believe such a time existed.
Just think back to a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth . . .
With budget primary cells you have to stick with brand names when ordering as well as finding out the expiration date. Even then I see a 10% reject rate. I bought some no-name SR41’s for my Nano and they seemed like alki LR41’s. Bought Energizer SR41’s- lots better- which conformed my doubts. Sure glad I’m not feeding that little bugger anymore, button cells get expensive!
Phil
I got one! now, need to find the link hub. they were at 29 about a month back; i had thought who would want them at 29? i do! now that i can get the bulbs for a penny
is that philips 75w also at a penny??
by the way - i was around dchomak’s territory this weekend. visiting a friend in west hartford. when he asked what i wanted to do on saturday - i said ‘homedepot!’ to his utter bewilderment 
he took me to the bloomfield location next to university of hartford. walking down the hallowed aisles, i was dead set on asking any person browsing the clearance section - “dchomak?” no dchomak and nothing worth buying. probably dchomak cleared it already for the week.
a memento of my visit - and a pretty good deal if i already didn’t have one
dchomak do you pick up a penny from the ground if it has tails up?
i picked up 2 of those defiant $9.88 flashlights today. pretty good.
Have you been able to disassemble it? I can’t figure out how to get to the reflector and the LEDs…
Of course!
Tails up, tails down doesn’t matter to me. I would appreciate one on edge every once in awhile though. Easier to pick up.
Over the weekend we were in Rhode Island at my great nieces baptism. Got a chance to hit a few HD’s while there, but I see that while I’m off trekking in foreign lands, my hometown HD is being raided by an invaders.
I should tell you, you missed something…………
And in late July a friend from the Midwest is coming to visit. We have a whole day planned scouting HD’s in your area for deals. As a sign of respect I am asking you to PM me with a list of the ones you frequent so as not to infringe on you territory.
Actually respect has nothing to do with it. No sense wasting time trying to conquer barren lands. LOL
Where can these Defiants be found , which stores and in what part of the USA ?
go to homedepot.com, search for “defiant 850 lumen” and it should show stock near your area. click change store and it will show other stores with stock count. i think once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Hey there’s a new “Rude!” button next to “Mark as SPAM” 
Nah, your imagining it
A couple of days ago, Saturday, my wife and I went to a show at Mohegan Sun. On the way back home I asked if it was OK to take a little out of the way trip that would only add about 10 more miles to our trip so that I could visit a HD that I had not been to in a long time. We got there about 7:50PM and I took a quick tour, I rounded up a few items I knew would be a penny and another that was a good possibility. As I went up to the self checkout, THEY CLOSED IT DOWN FOR THE NIGHT.
aaaarrrrrgggggg!!!
All I could do was take this photo of my frustration. What I had found was another one of the NiMH charger and 2 cell combos, 2 more of the Mag 2D Xenon bulbs, and another package of Lithium Plus AAA cells. All things I have found before, many times. Nothing great, but I was being denied!
As we drove home, I was miserable, that is until we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts near closing time and they gave me a free donut! At least that was something. After I ate my donut and got over my dismay I remembered that Sunday we were going to Rhode Island for my great nieces baptism. I did a route check on the GPS and showed my wife that if I inserted that same HD that we just left as a via on Sunday, our trip would actually be 2 miles shorter. Happy again.
So Sunday morning we hit that HD once again at 8:30AM, I ran in and self scanned my 4 penny items, off loaded them to the car and ran back in to check the “maybe” penny item. Yep, that was a penny too.
As I left the second time the self check girl yelled out “Hey, where are you finding this stuff ?” She had noticed me both times.
The “maybe” item
As we drove on to Rhode Island, stress free, “it was time to stop and smell the roses”
It’s important to loosen up after the grind of deal hunting at HD, other wise one might loose their mind
We were now out in the country, yes much of Connecticut is rural, and we came across this little house and this tree………
How can a tree be formed so perfectly. It looks as though it was trimmed, as a bush.
Then I remembered I had come across that same tree last fall.
much later, after the Baptismal and the house party, on our way back home I dropped my wife at a Rhode Island casino and I checked out the 5 Home Depots that were within a 5 mile radius.
I scored BIG.