6 Genius Home Depot Shopping Hacks To Try in 2025

Regular Home Depot shoppers know all too well just how easy it is to walk inside the home improvement store and spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars during a shopping trip. Beyond exhausting the usual strategies, like taking advantage of the special buy of the day or exploring new lower pricing options, are these any other ways to save big money?

To find out, GOBankingRates referred to a popular video on the Dad Deals YouTube account sharing some of the top Home Depot shopping secrets. Will you try out any of these hacks during your next Home Depot visit?

Listen up if you want to cut costs on paint. Most shoppers are aware that the store’s staff will mix their paint for them when they buy it at Home Depot. Sometimes, however, mistakes are made and the batches of paint that don’t wind up getting purchased wind up going onto a shelf right behind the painting counter. 

According to Dad Deals, if you’re willing to work with some “oops” paint it’s possible to get upwards of 75% off the original price. The YouTuber recommends checking out this section regularly, especially if you just need to quickly cover a surface and aren’t too picky about the color.

Home Depot prides itself on their Tool and Equipment Rental offerings. Here, shoppers can find high-quality tools to rent instead of buy to help complete various projects. These tools come with competitive rental rates and flexible rental periods to get the job done.

It’s also possible to buy these tools for a discount. Dad Deals recommends checking this section after the season in which the tool has been heavily used is over for marked down prices. As a bonus, most of these tools are properly maintained during their rental periods as most renters try to avoid incurring damage fees while they’re in use.

The next time you’re in Home Depot’s clearance section, look for a price tag that ends in three cents. For example, $66.03. According to Dad Deals, price tags that end in three cents are the lowest the price will go. Often, shoppers can save 70% to 75% off the original price that way.

What if the price tag ends in zeros, like $20.00? Dad Deals said this indicates the clearance item is brand new to the rack. Let it linger there for a while, as it will become cheaper over time. These items will then phase into ending in six cents, such as $6.86, which indicates the item is 25% to 50% off the normal price. Eventually, the sale item will end in three cents, indicating the final clearance and best possible pricing.

How about price tags ending in 88 cents, like $14.88? These indicate special buys. Meanwhile, price tags that end in 97 or 98 cents are regular Home Depot prices.

No doubt you’ve seen this type of Home Depot shopper before: the one pushing a cart covered in bags of mulch around the store and dragging it back to their car afterward. 

Don’t risk potentially throwing your back out just to save a few bucks getting heavy bags into a vehicle. The better approach, Dad Deals said, is to take advantage of the Garden Center’s free drive-thru lane service. 

“You can go up to the garden desk, prepay for however many bags you want of mulch and then just drive through their drive thru and they’ll have their employees help you load it into your truck.”

You don’t need to be a professional doer to visit the Pro Desk. If you have a big project you need to get done or a bulk order to place, Dad Deals said making a trip here can mean receiving up to 10% off your project’s costs.

Parents should take advantage of Home Depot’s free workshops for kids. This is especially true if you find your kiddo’s weekend extracurricular activities are getting to be expensive. 

According to the Home Depot website, these are held at 9 a.m. on the first Saturday of the month. Spaces are limited, so sign up at your local Home Depot or inquire within if you have more questions. A few upcoming workshops for registration include DIYing a Valentine’s candy box on Feb. 1, 2025, basketball game on March 1, 2025, and globe planter on April 5, 2025.