black-friday-lines‘Tis the season to be crazy… not really but the sales are about to get INSANE. Soon we will all be receiving our catalogs from all of our favorite retailers detailing the sales that are coming on Black Friday and for those of us who procrastinate we will be making our lists for Christmas shopping. Heck, it seems like every weekend that we get closer to the Holy Grail of shopping days the sales become more and more outrageous. And the savings are not limited to in store deals but the online stores are rolling out their free shipping and insane percentage off.

Truthfully it is refreshing to see that with the state of the economy today that it is still possible to get a good deal on our shopping in the days leading up to Christmas. One thing I have noticed is that navigating Black Friday can be a huge challenge, especially if the things you want are at several different stores. So how do you handle this challenge? Well, after years of dealing with this challenge I think that I have figured out a plan that, if executed properly, can make shopping a lot easier.

  • Make a list: This is made a lot easier since most of the retailers send out their catalogs as early as Halloween. If you don’t get the catalogs from them there are many websites that compile all of the major sales together to make it easier on the customer. Some of my favorites that I use almost every year are: TheBlackFriday.com, and BlackFriday.info
  • Get a Team: Ultimately you are going to find a few friends or family members that are hitting the craziest of Black Friday for deals so, divide and conquer. Take all of your lists and split them between each other. For instance if you have 3  friends and each of you have things on your lists from 4 different stores each of you take a store, your friends lists for that store and their cash and shop away. You all will be able to get the things you want and the majority of the door buster deals, if you get up that early, and you won’t have to travel to 4 different stores.
  • Don’t go crazy: You have to be realistic. Even if you have a top notch shopping team you may not be able to get all of the outrageous door buster deals, so don’t base you lists solely on those deals. Many of the sales stretch out into the weekend and even the following week so do be so anxious to get it all done in one day, pace yourself.
  • Don’t forget after Christmas Sales: Yeah, I know you should rest and enjoy the time with your family but if you are addicted to deals you can get a few gifts for the following year in that week following Christmas. No they may not last till the next Christmas but you could get things for birthdays and anniversaries out of the way.

Finally the best advice I can give regarding the crazy shopping season is to do your shopping early. If you start buying in July or even earlier you can be done before Thanksgiving or even Halloween. Another thing to remember to is you can probably save yourself a lot of stress by doing your shopping online. Yes, you may not get the deals that are reserved for the insane but you will save yourself plenty of stress and keep yourself from trying to run that sweet old lady, who took the last pink Nintendo DSi, over with your shopping cart. She will thank you in the end.