What was the man buying at the hardware store?

Answer: house number digits.  Each one costs 50 cents. (so any 3 digit number costs $1.50).

How to put 10 objects in 5 rows of 4 each?

Draw a 5 pointed star and put an object at the intersections of lines.  Now that wasn’t hard, was it?

A Bit Harder for this month: Find a 4 digit number that when multiplied by 4 is another 4 digit number with digits in reverse order of the first number.  (abcd x 4 = dcba) Now do it for a 5 digit number.  Only logic and time are required.