For appliances, do you have a sears outlet near you? You can find great deals on scratch and dents or even just a refurbished unit that has no visible damage. CL is great also. If you have access to a truck, try looking in the nearest big city. My smaller town sometimes doesn't have a lot of appliances listed, but when I look 60 miles north the flood gates open.

For big box stores, just keep visiting. Or try asking a manager to keep you in mind for anything that comes up with cosmetic damage or as a floor model clearance. Ditto with any local appliance stores. Given the economy, some local appliance stores are even closing their doors and clearing out stock.

Of course you can make your own pendant! Need the bits and pieces though. Keep an eye out at the big box stores for clearance pendants. I see fixtures regularly on clearance in the lighting area.

Bottom line is that you'll need to be patient and check your sources regularly. Deals don't always float around when you need them. If you're diligent, you'll find your deal somewhere, sometime! Good luck!

When I buy anything online, be it kitchen related or anything else, I try www.shopathome.com first and see if I can get extra cash back. You can still use discount or promo codes with shopathome, and they even offer some for most sites, so the cash back is on top of the other deals.

I love shopping ebay but I always research prices elsewhere first so I know what is a good deal and what isn't. I am amazed at the variety one can get from ebay.... Many of the items are things that many people would not expect to find there.

I also try google searches and use the shopping feature if I know the product I want.
Amazon often has good deals too.

Home Depot usually gets all of the info on their discounts on Thursdays. If you do some discount hunting there, do it on Thursday and be sure your sales person has checked out the current discounts.

I will second Sears Outlet. I got an Electrolux range for $800 last month that was MSRP for about $2300.

A lot of appliance stores have 'scratch and dent' areas in the store, or keep a list of such items they may have in storage somewhere. That's how I got my Wolf oven I would never have been able to afford otherwise.

Also, Ebay. You can get fully warrantied appliances for good prices from brick and mortar stores in other areas. I did that with the first oven I had and it was a very good experience. Even though I'm on the West coast and they're in the SE, they gave me good customer service whenever I needed it, above and beyond what they 'had' to.

Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores

find your local, state or county Building Materials Exchange

etsy has some cool 'handmade' pendants. Takes forever to look through them all, but they are there.

Overstock can be good too.

Thanks so much for the ideas! Just got back from a tile store and found out they throw out their extras. I might be able to get something to use for the backsplash. I will def. check out Sears and the other ideas presented. Guess I've been concerned about using ebay for appliances-would warranties transfer? Pick up? Craigs list is local so I could always rent a u-haul or van. This is new to me. Really lucked out with a prior bathroom remodel found tile, toilet, tub, vanity from clearance sales at local dealers and a going out of business at a plumbing supply store.

The scratch and dent stores. For lighting-Lightinguniverse.com has a HUGE selection of reasonably(IMO) priced lighting.

I've also had very good luck with Sears. Probably it depends a bit on your local store's manager, volume of the store, etc.

I was thinking today of taking a picture of the very slight dark circular line around the handle of my DW that caused it to come to me at, dunno, something like 75% off its retail. My local Sears is so small and so happening (while somehow managing to be the sleepiest store you've ever set foot into. It's just when they are selling it's something else again) that when they decide something has to move I swear you could get them to pay you to remove it. They are big enough to seemingly not even care about whether and how much money they happen to take off you personally. It's really a bit weird in some sense. I'm not complaining, mind you. My point is mostly: YMMV.

I agree on the appliance outlets for overstock, scratch and dent and floor models. We got a floor model Samsung induction for an incredible price.

Some stores (brick & mortar and online) have great Black Friday sales on appliances.

A lot of people have good luck at Home Goods. I bought a few things from there.

Overstock
Ebay
CL
Local consignment and antique stores

Wow-always learn so much on this site! Never thought of a building-Material exchange before. I'm trying to be a bit "green"- using cork flooring and partially recycled tiles. Thank you circuspeanut. Going to local appliance stores and sears this weekend and see if there are scratch and dent possibilities. I'd never heard of shopathome before-already printed up some coupons for holiday shopping. What is CL? Wish I had found this site before I started revamping the kitchen. I would have gotten drawers! Thanks again everyone

craigslist

ebates.com - sign up for free and go through their site to make online purchase and qualify for certain percentages cash back! you can also see different promotions sites are offering as well. get money back quarterly i think.

faucetdirect.com & galaxytoolsupply.com have been great to work with so far!

ditto on the scratch and dent sales. i too scored a WOLF range that i would not have been able to afford otherwise. Small ding on door, barely noticible. know what you are looking for in terms of dimensions and featues and go to every scratch and dent sale you can find until you score what you need.