Frugality and Black Friday go hand in hand right? Hmm, not for me. This year (as the years before) I will not be going out to do any shopping, unless it is to pick up a gallon of milk for my eat-me-out-of-house-and-home dependents. In fact, maybe I’ll do all my freezer cooking shopping, since the grocery stores are bound to be empty.
While I could give you many reasons to avoid Black Friday shopping from the point of avoiding the stress of long lines and maniac moms with sharp shopping carts, the truth is that I never found Black Friday shopping to be all that frugal. Here are my reasons.
1. You can get often get the same deals or even better ones when you shop online. The editor at FreeCoupons.com wrote an excellent post about how the best time to shop online is not Black Friday or Cyber Monday but Thanksgiving Day! There are plenty of free shipping or ship to store deals, so you won’t pay extra for the privilege of shopping in your PJS. Check it out: Black Friday or Cyber Monday? When to Get the Best Deals (scroll down a bit)
2. Most of the deals are for high end electronics and items we don’t need. Does everyone really need a 52-inch television, blu-ray player and top-of-the-line home theater system? If we do feel that we need any of these things, we can use other strategies to get them. For example save up to 90 percent off by buying it used, buying floor models or buying older models when the newer ones come out (sometimes only six months later).
Stay tuned for more reasons!
Click here for more articles by Mary Ann Romans.
Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day?
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