by Jamie Maggio

Created on: November 22, 2009

A Guide to Scoring the Best Black Friday Deals

In our family Black Friday shopping is a tradition. It's one time of the year when all the women of our family get together, stand in long lines, battle mobs at stores, and warm up by drinking a nice cup of coffee together as we catch up on the last year together and talk about the upcoming Holiday season. In the past years we've come up with some foolproof ways to make our Black Friday experience better. The first year was pure torture and I came home almost empty handed, with blisters on my feet, and frustrated. This year I plan to score big on deals, be comfortable, and have a lot of fun!

* DRESS FOR COMFORT

Don't dress for style. Don't wear your nice dress, high heels, full makeup, and a nice hairdo. It will only get ruined and your feet will be a mass of blisters. On Black Friday people aren't so well behaved. They will step on you, over your, push you, and literally make known that they have no forethought or manners. Dressing in a nice comfortable pair of jeans and a T-shirt is always a good idea. Bring a jacket for the lines you have to stand in, but wearing layers lets you cool off in the store while running around and looking for the good deals.

* DO YOUR RESEARCH

Make sure to scour the holiday sales papers and make notes of store openings, specials, early bird hours, and items that you might want to purchase. Don't forget the net because you can find out a ton of information on blackfriday.net. This site will list all the stores that have their Black Friday ads already published (and some that don't), list the best deals, and give you an overview of what you might find when shopping. Make sure to write a list of all items you are looking for and then write down the prices at differing stores, order of importance of the items, and anything specific such as size or quantity.

* MAKE A PLAN

No good Black Friday shopping trip works without a plan. Make your plan of attack! Figure out which stores have the best deals on what you want and then map out your day. Start with the stores that have items the earliest (usually 4:00am). Make a list of each store and what order you will visit that certain location. Usually, we make a list of five or so stores and in the malls we catch the extra deals at the small specialty locations.

* GO EARLY!

I cannot stress this enough. Make sure to go as early as possible. Since you're going to dress for the weather you can stand in line and wait for those early morning deals.

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