What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Dollar General (DG) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q2 2026, Dollar General generated $4.51B of operating cash flow and $2.89B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 64.2% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Dollar General (DG) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Dollar General's shareholder returns for TTM through Q2 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Dollar General (DG) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$4.51B

Capex

-$1.62B

Free Cash Flow

$2.89B

FCF Margin

+64.2%

Cash flow waterfall for Dollar General (DG) — TTM through Q2 2026

Free cash flow: $2.89B

Cash flow breakdown for Dollar General (DG) — TTM through Q2 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$4.51B	$4.51B
Capital Expenditure	-$1.62B	$2.89B
Free Cash Flow	$2.89B	$2.89B
Other Investing	$8.04M	$2.9B
Dividends Paid	-$520M	$2.38B
Net Debt Change	-$1.18B	$1.2B
Other Financing & FX	-$745M	$459M
Net Cash Increase	$459M	$459M

Operating Cash Flow$4.51B
Capital Expenditure-$1.62B
Free Cash Flow$2.89B
Other Investing$8.04M
Dividends Paid-$520M
Net Debt Change-$1.18B
Other Financing & FX-$745M
Net Cash Increase$459M

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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