Five Best & Five Worst Things to Buy at Home Depot

By on March 1, 2021

home-depot

Looking for the best deals before your next trip to the big orange hardware store? We’ve identified some of the best products that you can find on sale at Home Depot as well as some of the worst that you will want to avoid. These picks are based on average discounts as well as the potential for additional coupons used in the transaction.

Home Depot’s Five Best

1. Lights (LED bulbs and string lights)

At Ben’s, we see the most (and best!) deals on LED light bulbs coming from Home Depot than any other store. The best prices are on multi-packs. They also have great deals on holiday string lights, especially when you factor in their annual Christmas Light Trade-In promo.

string-lights

The store typically gives out coupons for new lights when you bring in your old string lights–usually starts the first week in November and lasts a week or two.

2. Tool combo kits

Home Depot doesn’t necessarily have the best prices on single tools, but they often have very good sales on multiple-piece power tool combo kits, specifically from brands like Ryobi and Milwaukee.

home-depot-power tools1

We see these deals throughout the year but they’re especially good during Home Depot’s “Spring Black Friday” sale in April, as well as around the holidays. They’re also often featured as the “Daily Deal” (a new one starts every morning and lasts for 24 hours).

3. Grills and other patio items

Home Depot has some great prices on grills, both on lower-end brands like Char-Broil and higher-end brands like Vision Grills. They usually offer a really special deal or two during or around their Spring Black Friday Sale in April–last year it was a Dyna-Glo 6-Burner Stainless Steel Gas Grill for $199.

gas-grills

Along with grills, Home Depot has nice deals on patio furniture, specifically their Hampton Bay brand. Look for aggressive sales in early spring and again at the end of the season.

4. Paint

Home Depot’s Behr brand of paint is generally very well-reviewed and a good value compared to other premium paint brands. Since it’s sold only at Home Depot they often have specials on it.

home-depot-paint

You can also get a good deal by looking at their “mis-tint” paint (only of course, if you don’t have a specific color you need to match). They also almost always have a $5 off $50 purchase text coupon available that stacks with sale prices.

5. Gardening supplies

Home Depot often runs sales on things like mulch, soil, garden beds, and other gardening supplies. To kick off the spring season they usually have bags of mulch for $2, as well as other aggressive deals on this type of stuff.

Home Depot’s Five Worst

1. Home decor / Wall Art

The decor items you’ll find at Home Depot are generally overpriced and you can find similar items for cheaper at places like IKEA, Target or even TJ Maxx Home Goods.

home-decor

In general, Home Depot is great for DIY project supplies but not so much for just picking up already put together items like home decor.

2. Appliances

Every now and then we see a nice refrigerator or oven deal pop up from Home Depot, but the better deals mostly come from retailers like Best Buy. That includes discounts for opening a store credit card as well.

3. Kitchen / Grilling accessories

The pots and pans Home Depot sells are generally not the best quality and they’re definitely not the best price. Look to stores like Kohl’s and Macy’s for deals on high quality sets, especially during November.

Home-Depot-Kitchen

Same goes for grilling accessories which are priced high for the convenience factor of being able to pick them up along with the new grill you just bought.

4. Batteries

Another product category that is priced quite high for the convenience factor of picking up batteries in bulk. You can find much better deals on batteries elsewhere, specifically dollar stores and other large retail chains.

 5. Cleaning Supplies

The volume of cleaning supplies offered by Home Depot is somewhat low and priced much higher than retailers like Target and Walmart. That goes for both conventional household cleaners as well as more aggressive cleaners like Goo Gone.

home-depot-cleaning

The same advice goes for Home Depot’s internal brand ‘HDX paper towels’. However that’s a comment on the quality, not the pricing. You are better off going with Bounty or another brand that’s more absorbent.

Check the latest deals from Home Depot on Ben’s

About Kristin Cook

I'm the Managing Editor for Bensbargains.com. When I'm not hunting for deals online, I enjoy good food, good beer, and Star Wars.

7 Comments

  1. Brandon

    March 12, 2021 at 4:34 pm

    I think you’ve forgotten that Costco has some of the best deals on LED bulbs and fixtures around. This may be State dependent, due to the energy efficiency programs that you pay for in your electric bill, but in MA you can regularly purchase 6 packs of LED bulbs for 1.99 after a utility instant rebate is applied, high quality LED ceiling fixtures range from 14.99-99.99 depending on selection. Outdoor carriage lights range from $19.99-49.99, etc. Incredible value always.

  2. Brandon

    March 12, 2021 at 4:30 pm

    All appliances sold at major retailers are fulfilled from the same stock, and warehoused by a company called GE Appliance, which is only loosely affiliated with Haier, the company who bought the GE appliance brand from its namesake in 2018.

    Regardless of where you buy from, they’ll be delivered by XPO logistics, a 3rd party contracted by the distributor. This is done to lower inventory carrying costs since appliances are among the largest ticket individual items carried by these retailers and are relatively slow to sell through. That’s why you can generally only buy end of life display units in store and can’t return them to the store once you’ve accepted the delivery. For this reason, it doesn’t matter where you buy your major appliances as long as you’ve found the best deal for you. Buying around holiday weekends is generally a good choice and if you’re buying Samsung, be sure to check Samsung directly and use ashopping portal such as Rakuten to get even larger savings. I was personally able to stack a rakuten offer for 15 Amex MR with 55% off a full kitchen of new appliances and a 65″tv from Samsung direct on black Friday 2019. Since Amex points are easily redeemed for 2 cents or more apiece I got nearly 70% off MSRP after all the savings.

  3. Dee Dee Klein

    January 1, 2021 at 10:22 pm

    I have always preferred Home Depot over Lowes. I also liked OSH for specialty plants & anything garden. 3 years ago price did not matter. Now I need to do a major remodeling job on our whole home due to my husband’s sudden death 2 months ago.

  4. Pingback: Budget Better: 6 items to avoid at Home Depot and Lowe’s | BrainCharm

  5. BlueOak

    May 17, 2016 at 5:16 pm

    ‘Sorry, but you’re all wet on HD being a bad place to buy appliances, As with any place you have to watch for the best sales.

    But very importantly, in our experience, HD offers some of the most fairy priced extended warranties (not as inexpensive as they used to be) – especially vs. the rip off pricing at your preferred Best (Worst) Buy.

    Also unlike Best Buy, the repairs are performed by well trained experts like GE rather than generic locals.

    • Mark

      October 21, 2016 at 4:02 pm

      Repairs are not always done by well trained experts. Here in Placerville, they use a company that has no office and had to lookup on their phone (web) to find repair information on the wine cooler. We had to call the warranty folks to get a replacement and not our money back since we bought it on sale. Later doing some research, found that the compressor was a common failure on the cooler and the part was readily available. The warranty folks said it could not be repaired. We will never buy another warranty from HD again.

      • BlueOak

        October 24, 2016 at 9:53 am

        That’s unfortunate and has not been our experience.

        1) We’d do the research up front to expose a ‘common failure’. And then not buy. You don’t mention brand but note – niche product/brand appliances are often less reliable and more importantly have poor after sales parts/repair support, regardless of who is doing it.

        2) If the appliance was still under warranty then the issue was not with the extended warranty since it hadn’t kicked in.

        3) You didn’t mention any attempt at redress with HD Customer Service.

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