I made my regular weekend trip to Target and was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few markdowns. Now I expected the patriotic decor to be on sale since the July 4th holiday is over. I found American Flag sets including the mounting brackets and poles for $5! Also found lots of the other 4th of July decor items such as the paper products, candles, and lighted stars. So if you need supplies for next year now is the time to get them while they are cheap!

What I was most surprised to find was that the toy department had a large amount on clearance, ranging from 30% to 50% off. It looks like the store is getting ready to reset a lot of the merchandise in anticipation of the Christmas shopping season. I found Cabbage Patch babies and dolls at 30% off as well as tons of the Polly Pocket, My Little Pony, and Littlest Pet Shop toys on clearance as well. I also checked out the Lego aisle and found a couple of the larger sets on clearance. Children’s clothes were marked down 50% to 75% off, with the racks just piled full. Red stickers were everywhere! Great time to be hunting those bargains.

I was visiting one of my local Target stores yesterday and was surprised to see that they were remodeling. This is a fairly new store so it doesn’t seem like they would need to redo the place already. Anyway, I noticed a large number of items on clearance. Lots of kids clothing (both babies and bigger kids) with big 50% off signs on the racks. Lots and lots of items on the end caps in all departments with huge clearance signs. The lesson here is that if your local Target is remodeling start looking for the clearance finds!

A reader recently wrote me with a great tip concerning Target clearance merchandise.

Pay attention to the “balloons” that are in aisles. Generally there are Sale, New Item, Special, and the most important for clearance shoppers: Price Cut.

I decided to check this out for myself and sure enough I found that most items which were marked with a Price Cut did eventually begin the clearance cycle. To find the price bubbles, just look down the aisles when you are at Target. You’ll see these little half circles by the items which stick out just a tiny bit so they call your attention to it. When you find ones that say “price cut” those items are on track for clearance if they do not sell.

Additionally, some price cut items are listed in the Sunday sale ads. More popular merchandise will be sold quickly at the price cut level but I know from past experience that you can find really great clearance deals. It pays to track an item you are interested in knowing there is a chance of getting it at a clearance price. Also, if you see that an item you want has gone to clearance and your store doesn’t have any more, check another local Target. In some stores merchandise will go really quickly but another Target 5 miles away may be stocked full with the same item.