Black Friday Advice

Hello All,

First things first.

1. Check this site to plan out your shopping.  They have almost all of the ads and they are searchable.  Reading every ad on Thanksgiving is not an efficient use of your time.
   
   
2. Black Friday is a gimmick.  There may be other good deals at a store on a certain day, but be prepared and know before you stray from the reason you went in.  When the Garmin for $90 is sold out at 7:01 do not just throw down $300 for the other one they have left in stock.  Go back home, check Amazon or whatever and order it online.  Remember it is worse to be suckered into an overpriced item than it is to go home empty handed.
   
   
3. Check online.  I am going to put that again, for emphasis.
   
   
4. Check online.  Amazon, Buy.com, and many online versions of brick and mortar stores have Black Friday deals as well.  You can shop in your robe and never deal with the insanity that is Black Friday in person.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Free shipping and your own house is better than waiting hours in line for disappointment.
   
   
5. If you must have the gift today or the item you want is not one of the door busters, ie several hundred dollars off, just wait until 10 am or so.  You can often get a late start and not deal with the 5 am insanity.  The people that get there for the store opens are up at 3 am and in line at 4 am.  By 10 am they are exhausted and back home, sleeping.  Most of the rest of people are scared to venture out at all, leaving the $10 copy of Grand Theft Auto IV for you at 10 am.  I have nabbed some sweet deals using this strategy and not waiting in line or gotten up way too early.

Hopefully everyone finds what they want and saves a bundle of cash.  Good luck.

Later,

John