Home Depot: You had me at 30% off

As I've held out for a steeper discount on an Ariens 926LE snow blower, I have seen the Home Depot clearance sale discounts start at 10% off in mid-January, rise to 20% in late-January, and finally hit my sweet spot of 30% off last week.

I stopped by my local Home Depot on Tuesday and saw that a good selection of snow blowers were now available at 30% off. I decided it was time to buy and planned on returning two days later with a car large enough to bring this baby home. I guess several other people had the same idea though, since the Ariens model that I was interested in was sold out! After a few futile phone calls to clueless employees of other local Home Depot stores, I decided to head out to these stores myself to see what they had in stock.

I lucked out at my second Home Depot stop, where I found a large assortment of models in the garden center which were (according to an employee) strapped to pallets for shipping to upstate New York. I cut the straps off of the one I wanted with the teeth of my house key, and wheeled it to a register at the front of the store. It rang up at $699.30 (30% off original price of $999), and I used the 10% off coupon I bought on ebay to bring the final price down to $629.37 before tax.

I had to take part of the blower discharge chute off to get the thing to fit in the car, but I was relieved to finally make this purchase. I'm definitely looking forward to tackling our next large snowfall with this baby instead of my tired old lawn tractor and assortment of snow shovels!