Deep Question: Do y’all go out to shop on Black Friday or stay in and shop online?
I love getting out to shop on Black Friday. I don’t actually have much on my list (don’t hate me but I’m almost finished Christmas shopping!) but I use Black Friday to replenish some household essentials. Like underwear. Undies are always super cheap on Black Friday, y’all.
I’ll also be shopping to fill the gift baskets that we are going to give out to the families in our local NICU this year. This is mainly why I am braving the crowds, because it’s a project that I am so very passionate about and I want to snag some nice gifts to include in them.
Anyhow, I am a big planner when it comes to my Black Friday shopping and I thought I’d share a few fun facts with y’all. Like, did you know you can get a map of where Target puts all of their Black Friday deals in the store? YOU TOTALLY CAN. This prevents wandering around looking for the $2 pajama pants only to find the empty bin next to the greeting cards. You can go here to find your store’s map so that you can plan things out in advance. Is this information new to anyone else? Because I am really geeked out by it. I have a thing for diagrams.
Here are a few more tips & tricks to get the most out of your Black Friday shopping.
(Referral links included and as always, I appreciate your support!)
1.) Use Your Shopkick App! If you don’t have the Shopkick installed on your phone, do it! It’s just free money, y’all. I have a detailed post on how to use Shopkick here but basically, you earn “kicks” just for walking in a store. You can trade kicks in for gift cards to your favorite stores, like Target or Starbucks. It honestly doesn’t take that many kicks to earn a gift card, I use on at Target when I go grocery shopping every week. You can earn bonus kicks from referring friends (like I am now, thanks!) or from scanning items in the store but you don’t have to do either of those things. (Someone told me they give their phone to their kids and have them find the items to scan as a scavenger hunt while they shop, which I thought was a great idea.)
Anyhow, on Black Friday they almost always have huge bonus kicks so if you are headed to the mall or any brick and mortar stores, turn on your Shopkick app and just let it rack up lots of bonus kicks for you! I would wager to bet that by the end of the day you’ll already have enough kicks for a gift card.
2.) Shop Through Ebates! If you shop online, make sure you have an ebates account to go through first. I have a detailed post on how to use ebates here (I love talking about saving money, y’all) but the gist of it is, you just log in to ebates, choose the store you want to shop at, click the link and then earn cash back. Ebates almost always offers double cash back the week of Black Friday, in addition to the coupon codes they offer for each store. I rarely buy anything online without going through Ebates first because that’s just an additional discount on money I was planning on spending anyhow.
3.) Gift to Give! This year I am working with a few different companies and our local March Of Dimes chapter to fill gift baskets for the families who are going to be in our NICU during Christmas. I’ve mentioned before that a former preemie mama brought us a gift basket on Christmas when we were in the NICU and it was such a thoughtful gesture. It’s so hard to hold on to hope during the holiday season when your baby is critically ill and that small act of kindness meant so much to me that we decided to continue the tradition. On Black Friday there are tons of great deals on items that would make wonderful donations. I’m planning to pick up some photo albums on sale at Michaels to tuck in our basket, and Walgreens has some black Friday freebies that will be a nice addition.
4.) Shop Small! If you want to stay home and shop from your cozy computer chair in your warm pajama pants, then check out this holiday gift guide featuring over 25 handmade/mom-owned shops. Not only can you enter to win over $250 in paypal cash just for browsing the gift guide but there are some great gift ideas in it and each of the awesome small business owners participating included a discount code for my blog readers. So you’re supporting small business and still getting your sweet Black Friday savings.
Oh, and I wanted to mention that Silhouette sent me an amazing discount code to share with y’all on Black Friday. I can’t tell you the actual info until then (which is very hard for me, I’m sorry to tease) but I did want to give you the heads up that if you were thinking of getting one, it’s a really great discount- even better than any ads I’ve seen so far (they said it’s going to be the best discount they’ve ever offered!) I figured that I would mention that early so you could plan accordingly 😉
If you have any good tips, feel free to share them. I will write them down in my notebook next to my list of sales. Scarlette likes to call it my “handy-dandy notebook” because Mommy is trying to write a book and may have introduced her to Blue’s Clues.
