This post is by our regular contributor, Kristi.
Black Friday used to be the most exciting shopping day of the year. It was a day to buy the things you wanted or needed at prices that weren’t prohibitive.
It was an exciting time for retailers as well.
The day after Thanksgiving marked the unofficial start of holiday shopping and the point in which their account ledgers went from red entries for losses to black entries marking profits, thus marking the occasion as Black Friday.
Starting at 6:00 AM shoppers would eagerly line up outside store windows for a chance to score a great deal on toys, movies, and more. People weren’t trampling other people to get a $10 toaster oven.
The past decade has shown an irreversible trend in holiday shopping, though. Stores now offer many of the same deals online as they do in stores, and the deals extend throughout the week and even into the end of December.
There isn’t just one day to score great deals on things you want or need. While I don’t usually buy too much on Black Friday or other deal days, I do try to use the holiday deals to my advantage, using the steep price cuts to buy things like necessary appliances for hundreds of dollars less than they are usually listed.
With so many holiday deal days anymore, it’s hard to decide when to strike on a purchase or whether it’s even worth it to go shopping at all.
If you decide to go shopping this year, use these methods to navigate the many sale days and make the most of the holiday deals.
Scope out the deal ads
If you haven’t already, sign up now to receive the holiday deal ads from your favorite stores. Many of the deal day ads have already been released.
Scoping out the ads ahead of time will help you to decide where and when to use your time to get the best deals, or if any of the deals are even worth it at all.
If you need expert advice on where the best deals are, consider checking out The Penny Hoarder’s Black Friday site. They have an around the clock live blog for 48 hours (starting 3 PM on 11/25, ending 3 PM 11/27) where readers can ask us anything they want about the deals.
Download store apps
The best way to stay on top of holiday deals is to download the apps for the stores you shop in.
The Best Buy app, for example, is available on the App store, Google Play, and Windows Phone Store, and the Target App is available on the App store and Google Play. If you have access to the deals on your phone, you’ll have immediate access to all of that store’s coupon codes for the holiday deals.
If you are shopping at Target make sure you take advantage of Cartwheel and take advantage of other ways to save money shopping at Target.
Shop all the deal days
Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday have just as many deals as Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Keep an eye out for even better deals through your local business or you
You may also want to wait to do some of your shopping until the Saturday before Christmas. Super Saturday has deals that surpass even Thanksgiving Day sales.
Price track and compare
Never blindly buy a product on a holiday deal day. Always compare prices between the stores before you make a purchase. Websites like Price Grabber are an easy way to quickly check if you’re getting the best deal.
Also, if you’re using Amazon, always check camelcamelcamel’s price history page for the product you’re considering. Just because an item is listed as on sale doesn’t mean it actually a good deal. Track the price history of the item before the deal day to know if you’re actually getting the best deal.
If you enjoy browser add-ons, camelcamelcamel has an add-on option called Camelizer available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
If you don’t like add-ons, use Camelet instead. All you have to do is drag the three camel icon up to your bookmark bar in any browser. Once you start looking at products on Amazon, you can just click the three camel bookmark to go directly to that product’s camelcamelcamel page.
Shop from a scheduled list
All of the major stores strategically schedule their holiday deal openings to compete with the other stores. It makes it next to impossible to get deals at more than one or two stores before the door buster deals run out.
Look at the deal day ads and make a priority list of the stores you want to go to, the times they open, and what items you want to purchase so that you can strategically plan your shopping day.
Stay smart and stay safe
There’s a website called Black Friday Death Count, that keeps tally of every death or injury which has occurred as a direct result of Black Friday shopping craziness. Seven people have died. Seven! No television or video game console is worth your life or someone else’s life.
That being said, the holiday deals can be a great way to save money on big purchases. If you play the deals right, you can save yourself hundreds of dollars on gifts or necessities.
If you do decide to go shopping on the biggest deal days of the season, stay safe, be courteous, and do everything you can to make the most of the holiday deals.
Check out Amazon’s countdown to Black Friday Deals going on now!
Are you planning to go shopping on the biggest holiday deal days of the year?
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Great tips Kristi! We’re done with our shopping for the most part. We may pick up something on Amazon for the kids, but we do our shopping throughout the year. My wife and I aren’t exchanging this year so that makes things quite a bit easier. :)
It’s times like these where I am SO thankful that my holiday shopping list is minimal and I don’t have to freak out about whether I’m getting a deal or not. There is one gift on my son’s Santa list that we are actively tracking on various apps and sites, but other than that, I am tuning out all of the holiday shopping noise.
I’m not doing any Black Friday shopping as it’s never interested me. It also helps that I don’t have many gifts to buy anyways haha!
The Death Count website makes me not want to go either!
FrugalRules There is only one big thing that I am hoping to buy during the holiday sales this year (and hopefully save at least $150 or so) otherwise I’m done as well =]
blonde_finance What a great way to describe it! Especially if you don’t need/want anything in particular, It really can feel like excessive noise.
SenseofCents I used to have fun during my college years going shopping with my mom and sister on black Friday. Now with all the craziness, I just use the cyber Monday deals.
These are very helpful tips. I haven’t even begun holiday shopping. I’ve never really been into the whole Black Friday thing so hopefully I can catch a few good deals throughout the month of December. Your suggestion to use a priority list always helps me to remain on track and basically not go crazy :) Safe shopping everyone!