The Best Times Of The Year For Deals & Discounts At Harbor Freight

Harbor Freight's mission to offer discounted tools began in 1977 when Eric Smidt and his father created the Harbor Freight Salvage company. They recognized that tools were expensive, so they began sourcing their products directly from the factories to pass those savings on to the customers. The move undoubtedly paid off, as Harbor Freight now has a long-standing reputation for being one of the cheapest home improvement retailers.

Today, they offer a practically endless supply of products. There are plenty of budget-friendly tools worth buying from Harbor Freight, and you can even find many affordable hobby tools there. The best part is that you don't have to worry about the cost because even cheap Harbor Freight tools still have great reviews. But, if you're a particularly savvy money saver, there are specific best times of the year for deals and discounts at Harbor Freight.

Like Home Depot, Lowe's, and other home improvement retailers, Harbor Freight offers plenty of year-round savings through price drops, clearances, promotions like Instant Savings, and their membership club Inside Track. However, there are other times of the year when you can find even better savings both in-store and online. These offers are usually limited either by stock or time. Here are a few that you may not know about.

Let's get the obvious one out of the way: holiday sales. Like any retail store, Harbor Freight offers plenty of savings during holidays. It's easy to find deals on popular brands and products during nationwide consumer-oriented days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Like other home improvement retailers, Harbor Freights boasts massive sales on Memorial Day and Labor Day. They even host a "12 Days of Deals" event leading up to Christmas and an After Christmas sale following the holiday, so everyone, even the handyman in your life, gets the gifts they asked for.

Harbor Freight also hosts multi-day savings events and offers exclusive coupons for the other less shopping-focused holidays. Whether it's Independence Day, New Year, Veterans Day, Columbus Day, or Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, chances are that Harbor Freight has some discounts in-store and online. Naturally, you only need to track which holidays are coming up to know when the retailer has an ongoing sale. However, you'll get exclusive coupons if you sign up for their newsletter and stay up-to-date on the following discounts.

Naturally, Harbor Freight offers plenty of ways to save money, including brand deals, clearances, and member savings. However, did you know the retailer does a big Spring Sale each year? It's likely more well-known than other savings-oriented times of the year, but it still somewhat flies under the radar, which is why it makes this list.

Harbor Freight's Spring Sale starts at the end of March and runs through early April. It perfectly coincides with the warmer weather, so you're more likely to start yard work and other outdoor projects. It also happens to fall right around the time when most people begin their Spring cleaning, with countless deals to help you get the tools to "clean up" your home and yard.

During the Spring Sale, Harbor Freight offers instant savings of up to 50% off on many items. Tool categories like automotive, hand, electrical, plumbing, painting, and many more all receive significant discounts on top of the store's already low prices. And if that's not enough savings, the seasonal coupons might do the trick. Harbor Freight offers spring coupons to all customers in many of the previously mentioned categories, including power tools, storage, and outdoor. Best of all, the coupons are available for anyone, whether in-store or online, offering even better deals and discounts than the seasonal markdowns.

Yes, you read that right. Harbor Freight not only has seasonal sales but also hosts parking lot sales throughout the year. As the name suggests, these are events held in-store and outside in the parking lot at Harbor Freight locations. Employees will set up tents, wheel out tools and equipment, slap considerable markdowns on them, and sell them outdoors. The sale works on a first-come-first-serve basis, so you'll have to get there or risk missing out on some of the deals. According to Harbor Freight, the Parking Lot Sales are some of the company's most popular promotions, with some of the best deals on their best-selling products.

However, according to this Reddit post, Harbor Freight has slowly stopped hosting Parking Lot Sales in the traditional sense. The events happen multiple times a year, but some locations keep the products in-store rather than requiring employees to set everything up in the parking lot. To make Parking Lot Sales more accessible, Harbor Freight also offers incredible deals online. So, if you're interested in stocking up during the next event, there's no real reason to miss out, as the deals are available in-store and online. To find out when the next Parking Lot Sale is, contact your local Harbor Freight store, sign up for the newsletter, or join the Inside Track Club for early access to the savings.

Traditionally, liquidation sales generally appear when a store closes and needs to offload the rest of its stock. Thankfully, Harbor Freight isn't closing its doors for good anytime soon. However, the home improvement retailer does host limited-time liquidation sales throughout the year.

Instead of closing locations, Harbor Freight's liquidation sales focus on getting rid of older products to make room for new ones. According to their website, manufacturers introduce over 700 new products every year, which, understandably, will take up a lot of shelf space. Rather than removing the older products, Harbor Freight marks down the prices to drive customers toward them. That means you can easily find savings (cash markdowns or percentages off) on things like power tools, storage cabinets, car jacks, and even gas engines.

Harbor Freight liquidation sales generally run for about a week whenever the company is set to receive an influx of new products. Unfortunately, the sales don't have concrete annual dates, so you'll have to contact your local store or sign up for Harbor Freight's newsletter to stay informed on the next liquidation sale.