CLEVELAND -- Everywhere you look on this early summer holiday weekend, retailers are offering prices on summer merchandise that only used to be seen toward the end of the season.

At Home Depot stores, gas grills are discounted and patio furniture sets are at sale prices.

Independent stores are joining the move to early-season sales as well.

At Embers Fireplaces in Mentor, their outdoor gas grills are in the higher-end range of prices, $1,000 and more, and they've been discounted since early spring.

"We saw what was happening with the economy," said Home Depoot Manager Ben Holt. "We felt consumers saw grills as not a necessity, but more of a luxury, so we discounted them."

Holt says the price cuts have boosted sales.

"We're pretty much out," he said. "We don't have a heckuva lot left."

Litehouse Pools and Spas, a 13-store chain based in Cleveland, has come up with a sale on summer merchandise that sounds too good to be true.

"Whatever you spend in our stores between now and the end of August, you will get back in rebate gift cards," said Mentor Litehouse manager Adam Davis. "You will get a rebate card each year for ten years good for 10 percent of what you spent."

That means $5,000 spent on a spa or any other summer merchandise will return a $500 gift card to you each year for ten years.

"The gift cards are good for that year, and good on anything in the store," Davis said. "If you buy a pool or spa, you'll need maintenance supplies. You can use the gift card for those supplies or anything else in the store."

Litehouse also sells pool tables and, at Christmas, is a winter wonderland of permanent Christmas trees and decorations.

Are the gift cards good for those holiday items?

"Absolutely, everything in our stores all year," Davis said.

Home Depot said another sign of the recession -- their weekend "How-To" clinics on home maintenance and repair have been crowded with customers looking to save money by "doing it themselves."