Black Friday 2017 infogram is insightful

Black Friday and Cyber Monday steals and deals 2014

We'll have hardly eaten our turkey dinner when the Black Friday and Cyber Monday steals and deals hit the stores!  Some have even started already!

Here are some great places to help you get started on your Christmas shopping list!

1) Amazon - Amazon offers something for everyone. The leading online giants are offering great discounts on a wide variety of items from nearly all major departments, which includes; household items, electronics, clothing apparel, toys, jewelry, and books. The best deals are the Lionel Train sets and Kenneth Cole watches for men. 

The Deals:

Buy one Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Toys get one free 

Up to 40% off Lionel Train sets

Up to 40% off popular books 

Up to 30% off Dyson products 

60% off Kenneth Cole men's watches

50% off Hush Puppies for boys 

 

 

 

2) Old Navy - When it comes to clothing, very few places can top Old Navy. Old Navy is a perfect place to buy jackets, fleece, sweaters, jeans, and pajamas. Old Navy is offering 5 Day Deals for 50% off all sleepwear, and an Early Bird Special for 30% off the entire store. Enter the code EARLYBIRD to cash in on the incredible savings. They are even featuring a giveaway on Black Friday where one lucky store shopper will win a million dollars in their Overnight Millionaire sweepstakes contest. 

The Deals: 

30% off anything in the entire store

50% off all sleepwear

Deals starting from $4

 

 

 

3) Target - Target is quite diverse when it comes to selling products. They sell clothing, electronics, toys, back-to-school stuff, and outdoor patios. You can find a wide assortment of great deals for sweaters and artifical Christmas trees by shopping their online store. The deal on toys is perfect for surprising your nieces, nephews or grandchildren on Christmas Day!    

The Deals:  

Buy 1 toy get another from the same brand at 50% off 

40% off sweaters

50% off artifical trees

Handbags and wallets that are 50% for the second item

Boots that are 50% off for the second pair 

25% off Christmas stockings. 

 

 

4) K-Mart - The major retailer specializes in low prices for just about any item you can think of. K-Mart is offering up Black Friday deals for children's toys, Christmas products and Lego sets, and household appliances. The Lego sets make ideal Christmas presents for kids. 

The Deals: 

30% off on vacuums

40% off Lego sets

Board games for under $10

10% off Christmas related products. 

 

If you're already a K-Mart Member, you can enter the codeHOMETHX15 to receive 15% off a wide assortment of househould items. 

5) Best Buy - Best Buy specializes in electronics and all sorts of gadgets for the tech lovers. Best Buy is offering some fantastic Black Friday deals on tablets, Samsung products, and desktop monitors. If you're not that tech savvy, you can always contact their Geek Squad for more info on electronic items. 

The Deals:

Samsung Galaxy S 5 Cell Phone for $1

Tablets starting from for $49.99

Amazon Fire TV Stick for $24.99

 

 

 

6) Staples - Staples makes shopping easy, especially when all you need to do is click a mouse to complete a transaction! Staples offers a variety of office equipment, school supplies and electronics. The best deal, by far, is The Boxflex WR30M Pro Strapless Heart Rate Monitor. It was $129.99 before and is selling for only $9.99 during Black Friday. You can't go wrong there!

The Deals:

The Boxflex WR30M Pro Strapless Heart Rate Monitor for $9.99

Beats By Dre Executive Headphones for $159.99

Brother MFC-7360N Laser Multifunction Printer for $99.99

Circuit Expression 2 Cutting Machine for $159.99

 

 

7) eBay - eBay is the internet auction powerhouse, which offers a tremendous variety of online shopping departments. The major departments to pay attention to during Black Friday are electronics, clothing, fashion,  jewelry, and accessories for men. Samsung items are also on sale. The free shipping is the icing on the cake here! Start preparing your wishlist today. 

The Deals:

Invicta watches up to 90% off

60% off home and garden items 

Certified 1ct diamond stud earrings in 14K white gold with screw-backs for $695

Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 Tower Server System for $319 from $599

 

Other retailers offering up great deals, includes; Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Costco, Kohl's, RadioShack, Overstock, Game Stop, and through eBay.  

Black Friday Bonanza

Saving money is all about being organized and thinking ahead.  Black Friday is a perfect example.   Most of us are completely exhausted after all of the busy activities of Thanksgiving and still have dirty dishes in the sink the next day, but the organized shopper wakes up early the next morning, ready to hit the stores and grab the bargains.  Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, and it marks the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season in the United States.

The term dates back to at least 1966.  "Black Friday" originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day.  More recently, the media have used it instead to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers go from being in the red (posting a loss on the books) to being in the black (turning a profit). In many cities it is not uncommon to see shoppers lined up for hours before stores with big sales open. Once inside the stores, shoppers rush around and snatch up what they can, as many stores have only a few of the big-draw items in stock. On occasion, some shoppers are so overly enthusiastic about the savings that injuries and even fatalities have been reported.   No savings is worth that!

This year, in hopes of surviving the rough economy, some stores have started their Black Friday sales already!  Check out these helpful web sites to find some of the great deals out there:

www.blackfriday.info  

www.bfads.net  

www.black-friday.net  

www.theblackfriday.com   

www.blackfriday.gottadeal.com  

www.retailmenot.com/black-friday  

Now, having said all of that, the best gifts are those which come from the heart, and not the shopping mall.  In a tight economy, we should never go into debt just to purchase gifts.  There are plenty of inexpensive, yet meaningful gifts we can give to our loved ones without breaking the bank.  Remember, spending quality time with others is priceless!

Many retailers allow discount code web sites to "leak" their sales information several days before Black Friday.  If you love to shop at a particular store, do a Google search with the name of that store, plus the words "Black Friday" and you might get to find out what steals and deals they'll be featuring after Turkey Day!  Target and Wal-Mart have already released some sneak peek info about nice discounts on their flagship door-buster electronic items.  BJ's Wholesale Club, Harbor Freight, and Ace Hardware have already released their Black Friday catalogs as well.

While the best deals are usually found in the wee hours of the morning when the stores first open, most retailers this year are planning on extending their bargains through the Thanksgiving weekend to encourage more consumers to spend their dollars and kick-start the Christmas shopping season.  Do a web search with your city’s name, plus the words “Black Friday” and you’ll find some store listings with their special hours.

High Definition TV & foreclosures

Hi everyone!

HDTV
We had dinner at a friend's house recently who was thrilled to show us his cool high definition TV. Very impressive! Clark Howard is one of my favorite consumer gurus and this is what he had to say about HDTV:
This is going to be a great year for high definition on your TV set. According to new statistics from the electronics industry, 25 percent of households are now hi-def. Just 18 months ago, that number was probably seven or eight percent. There's more hi-def programming being churned out, too. The Discovery Channel made a big ratings comeback thanks to Discovery HD, which features incredible photography that renders beautifully in hi-def and has really captivated viewers. Now, Direct TV's goal is to have 100 HD channels before the end of the year. What's happening there is that they're scared of the triple-play packages from the cable companies -- where you get cable, Internet and phone -- so they're fighting back with this promise to offer more hi-def programming. Clark's approach to hi-def is to let the early adopters get in the game and drive the price down as the quality of programming up. That's already happening. Many of the major TV networks now put out hi-def transmissions in addition to regular broadcast signals. Meanwhile, a plasma TV today costs a quarter of what it did 36 months ago. And this Christmas, you can get a hi-def set for under $500 bucks. Still too expensive for your taste? The irony here is that you get a better picture from a hi-def transmission if you use conventional rabbit ears on your old TV set than if you actually pay for the hi-def programming and equipment. On the retail front, the way people purchase hi-def equipment is changing as well. Electronics retailers like Circuit City and Tweeter are in trouble because people buy their equipment at Wal-Mart, Costco and Sam's Club. In fact, the only electronics retailer doing well in hi-def sales is Best Buy.


FREE TIX!
My twin sister lives in Las Vegas and discovered this great web site: http://www.vegasseatfillers.com/ It's a company that gives away free show tickets to help theaters fill their seats so their show looks like a big hit. If you're planning a trip to Las Vegas, check it out!

FREE BOOKS!
The author of "Chicken in the Headlights" (Matthew Buckley) told me about this great web site: http://www.bookmooch.com/ that kind of works like a barter system for avid readers. You put books on your list that you're willing to give away for free. For every book you give away, you're eligible to request a book from somebody else. You pay shipping when you send a book, but not when you get one.

FORECLOSURES
The country has seen a surge in foreclosures lately due to the secondary loan market. Facing foreclosure can be a scary thing. It doesn't have to end as terribly as you think it might. Instead, try to arrange for a "short sale" with your lender to actively market your property. It can help pull you (and the lender) out of the hole. Never heard of a "short sale" before? In the case of a short sale, the lender agrees to accept less than the loan balance if you can get the place sold. Why would a lender want to do this? Well, it turns out that it costs a lender $70,000 on average to foreclose on one home, according to industry estimates!!! So a short sale is something of a win/win situation for lender and borrower alike. The neighborhood also wins in this situation because for every house foreclosed on, the average selling price of other homes in the immediate area drops 1.5 percent. Foreclosure is like a cancer that spreads in a neighborhood, but it can be healed with prevention by contacting your lender and setting up a short sale to actively market the property before the fact. An answer of "no" today may be "yes" tomorrow, as the lender may have to first get a waiver from someone they sold the loan to in order to permit that short sale.

Ok, on to happier subjects! I found this interesting article about saving tons of money on groceries. Check it out! http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/saving-90-percent-on-groceries.html

And now for some fun freebies:

1 year free subscription to DIET & NUTRITION MAGAZINE https://www.gvpub.com/subscribe/tdn_subscribe243.shtml

SUNSWEET DRIED FRUIT SAMPLES http://www.sunsweet.com/products/samples.asp

Free hearing aid batteries: http://offers.energizer.com/perfpack/default.aspx?flowerpower

Alrighty, that's it for now. Have a wonderful week!

CENTSerely,
Sister Thrifty