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The Friday after Thanksgiving has served as the unofficial beginning of the traditional Christmas season since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924. But the term "Black Friday" has been traced back only to the 1960s, having originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day. More recently, merchants and the media have used it instead to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black or turning a profit. The news media frequently refer to Black Friday as the busiest shopping day of the year in the US.
While Black Friday is not an official holiday, many employees take the day off, which increases the number of potential shoppers. Weeks beforehand, most stores decorate for the Christmas season and stock up on merchandise. Many retailers open very early (typically 5am or even earlier) and offer blockbuster deals to attract people to their stores. In many cities, shoppers line up hours before stores with big promotions open.
Once inside the stores, shopping hysteria attacks as shoppers rush and grab the few on-sale items, such as electronics and popular toys, often offered at huge discounts.
The shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, long lines and parking lots filled to the brim are only some of the challenges that face shoppers this coming Black Friday. I asked some of my friends to share their shopping tips and strategies to make the chore pleasant and effective. Together with other information from the Internet, I've come up with a collection of helpful shopping advice, good not only for Black Friday, but also for the rest of the holiday season.
1. Santa's advice: make a list. The old Christmas jingle about Santa Claus making a list and checking it twice is still the best perennial piece of advice for shoppers. Write down the people you have to buy gifts for, their sizes and preferences, and possible ideas on what to give them. Based on the list, write which stores you'll visit and which gifts you plan to buy in each store. This will help focus your shopping excursion and help you save money as you avoid rushing from one store to another, buying "bargains" that usually turn out inappropriate for any of the people in your life.
2. Our finance manager's advice: pay cash. You tend to overspend and max out your credit cards when you shop with plastic. One radio talk show host once shared her holiday shopping plan of attack: "I always pays in cash, preferably $100 bills. It makes you think twice when you go to buy something. You really don't want to break a Benjamin." One good thing about shopping with cash is knowing that when you're out of money, you're really out of money. So, you shop more wisely and hang on to more green.
3. My brother's tip: if you have to use credit cards, use the one with the best terms and plan for paying off your bills as early as possible. Do you know that many people carry as many as five bank cards in their wallets and don't always know what the interest rate is on each card? Nor do they know that if they exceed their credit limit or pay late, their rate could jump to 30% or higher, and they could be slapped with a penalty as high as $39.
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3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."
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