5 Tips & Tricks For Black Friday Success

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Are you a Black Friday Shopper?  How about a Thanksgiving Day shopper?  As the holidays are getting closer, the stores are gearing up for their best shopping day of the year, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).

After Black Friday shopping for many years I have 5 tips and tricks for you as you prepare for your own Black Friday shopping!

1. Have a Budget and No Matter What, Stick To That Budget!

There is no deal that is too good, if you can’t afford it.  Before you go shopping on Black Friday and are surrounded by hoards of people, fantastic deals, and the frantic frenzy of grabbing and stuffing all of the deals into your carts or your arms, you have to have a budget!  If you can’t afford what you are buying, IT IS NOT A GOOD DEAL!

2. Have a Plan

Alan Lakein said it best, “Failing to plan is planning to fail!”

The key trick to Black Friday success is to have a plan.  By having a plan you avoid frustration of seeing good deals and not knowing what to buy, buying too much for one person, and being upset later because you missed out on a great deal.  I think there is nothing more frustrating than trying to shop without a plan when there are so many people around you that you can barely move from one aisle to the next.  No thank you!  Without a plan, I’d rather stay home and not deal with the crowds at all.

First of all, make a list of everyone you need to buy for.  You can either divide up your budget now, or start with items you know you want to buy and work backward through the list.  (For example, if you have $1000 budget and the items you want to buy for the kids are $300, you have $700 left to divide up among the rest of your list.)

The Black Friday ads are already being leaked and now is the time to go through them and figure out exactly what you want to purchase, which stores have it, and what time the sales are for those particular items.

After you have your Black Friday list of where you are going and what you are buying, you need to go back to your list and come up with a schedule.  Some of the sales are for the entire day, some are for 4 hours, some are for 6 hours, etc.  My advice in order to be successful in getting what you want is to go to the stores that have the best deals on what you want the most first.  Go after the sales that run all day AFTER the stores that have a time limit on the items you want on sale.  The stores with time limits usually have better deals than the ones that go all day.

If you are shopping in a group, get together and plan your attack!  My family has always met on Thanksgiving and we go through our lists together to make our plan for Black Friday.  We know where we are going, what we are getting, and if someone doesn’t need anything at that particular store, that person helps the others shop for what is on their shopping lists.

3. Do some online investigating

If your kids have made their holiday lists like mine have, it’s time to get online and see what Amazon and the other stores have it for a price.  Then when you look at the Black Friday ads you will know if it’s a good deal or not.  Nora really is into Lil Woodzeez at Target.  Our store is always picked through so I’ve already ordered some for her online.

4. Conquer & Divide

My family’s Black Friday tradition is that we divide and conquer.  We always bring out ads with us, just in case someone misses something or to use for price matching.  If you are going to Target, check out the Cartwheel App and Target coupons on your phone and online to possibly save a little more.  In the past, we have had my mom, my aunt, my grandma, and myself all shopping at the same store but we all divide up and go for particular items, not shopping as a pack until we are ready to check out.  This way we have more of a chance to get what we are after and it’s very hard to move around a crammed store in a big group.

5. Try Shopping Online

For those of you who think Black Friday shopping is ridiculous or you hate crowds, you can still score some great deals!  Many stores offer their sale prices online!  This year Target and many other stores are offering free shipping on any purchase.  If you can get a good deal online and avoid going out, why not?

I’ve had some great luck online shopping on Black Friday.  Last year I did all of my Christmas Cards on Black Friday using Cardstore.com and had them made AND mailed for $.49.  You can’t do any better than that when the stamp is included!  Oh wait, I did!  I earned 7.5% cash back with Ebates!

One year, I scored Clorox Wipes at Office Max (which I use a lot of!) for $.99 a container.  I made sure I shopped through Ebates and also saved an extra 3%.  I used most of these at home but did include some in Teacher’s baskets for the kids.  Not exactly traditional Christmas shopping but it was a great deal, and I use them all the time!  Other stores have Black Friday online sales as well and don’t forget about Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) for online shopping!

Are you a Black Friday or Thanksgiving Day shopper?  If so, what are your tips and tricks?

Have you enjoyed what you read here today?  Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource?  If so, please do me a favor!  I have included the links below to share with other intentional women!  They’ll be glad you did!