Developing Your Harbor Freight Shopper Philosophy

I did an article on woodworking with pallets. Salvaging pallet wood takes patience and diligence and yields small slats best suited for small projects. You have to have the “pallet mentality”. Shopping at Harbor Freight requires a certain mentality too. It definitely helps if you’re the type who enjoys fixing/tinkering with your tools. Also, familiarize yourself with The Harbor Freight Return Policy.
To best capture the spirit of shopping at Harbor Freight I thought I’d offer some quotes I found while scrounging around through over 1000 individual forum posts (not threads…). If you’ve never shopped at Harbor Freight these will prepare you with the proper philosophy. If you have, you’ll probably start nodding your head. As always, I’m quoting the collected opinions of others so your mileage may vary.
“‘if your life or income depends on it, don’t buy it ay harbor freight’.”
I read these sentiments over and over. That said, there are lots of pros who buy stuff at Harbor Freight, especially consumables like gloves and blades… and for cheap tools they can lend out at jobsites with no expectation of return.
“if I use the tool enough to wear it out or break it, I use it enough to buy a better brand as a replacement.”
Some people use HF purchases to help them decide whether it makes sense to invest more money in a higher quality tool. If they use it enough to break it, then go for it. If not, then they saved the cost of the more expensive name brand. This can be pricey, but… if you buy TOO MUCH tool then you’ve wasted money also.
“tools require the usual harbor freight break in”

You will find yourself having to repair/replace/rebuild Harbor Freight tools right out of the box. For regular HF customers this is standard operating procedure. HF has an excellent return policy though, with very few to no questions asked. Also they have a life time trade in policy on hand tools.
“Overall, I try and stick to things without moving parts”
For folks who concentrate on the consumables this was a common sentiment.
“If you need a CHEAP tool that you will only use once or twice then go to Harbor Freight.”
Why pay for more tool than you really need?
And for every guy who swears against buying anything from Harbor Freight with a battery there’s at least one of these: “I really like their 14 volt series of cordless tools. It seems like the best price/performance ratio. Anytime I buy one I buy at least one extra battery. They’re cheap enough that I keep one drill with a drill bit in a keyed chuck and another with a screwdriver bit in a keyless chuck. That really speeds up assembly.”