Black Friday Black Belt: 8 High-Tech Ways to Save Money on Gifts
When it comes to buying presents, I stink. Just ask my wife. Birthdays are bad, anniversaries worse. And holiday gifts? Forget it.
But as we get closer to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Taupe Thursday, and every other fictitious holiday created for the sole purpose of separating us from our money, my inability to shop becomes a real problem. I don’t have the patience to battle crowds and sift through websites to find perfect gifts at perfect prices.
Read: The Best Black Friday Deals for Tech Products at Best Buy and Sears
Fortunately, there are tools and sites that can turn a shopping doofus like me into a bargain-hunting black belt. From shopping lists that track total spend to price comparison websites to mobile apps that can shoot a coupon to your phone just as you’re about to swipe your card, there are many ways to save time, money, and headaches. Here are eight top tips:
1. Make a list; check it twice.
The best way to keep your finances and sanity intact while buying a lot of gifts at once is to use a free mobile app like Santa’s Bag (iOS) or Christmas Gift List (Android) to keep track of who you’re shopping for, what you’re thinking of getting them, and how much you want to spend. Those apps will keep a running total of how much cash you’ve burned through and what’s still left to buy. It’s up to you to decide who’s naughty and nice.
Be sure to add your own name to your shopping list, suggests Trae Bodge, senior lifestyle editor and blogger for coupon site RetailMeNot.
“Everyone does a little self-indulgent shopping when they’re out, which can totally throw off your spending,” she says. “My advice is to add yourself as a recipient and create a budget, so you can make better choices while you’re splurging.”
2. Devise your plan of attack.
Are you planning to charge bravely into the Black Friday madness or hunker down in front of a screen in your jammies? There are advantages to each. In person, you’ll probably be able to take your gifts home with you, but you’ll have to schlep to the store and pay sales tax; buy it online and you may be able to avoid the tax but be on the hook for shipping (though this is getting easier to avoid — see tip 5 below). Some discounts are available online, some only in stores, although differences here too are rapidly disappearing.
Read: The Best Black Friday Deals for Tech Products at Target and Walmart
“The idea that shopping in-store on Black Friday is better than shopping online is a retail-hyped illusion sold to consumers that in the end only benefits retailers,” declares Kara Kamenec, editorial director of Faveable.com, a curated shopping site for men. Shopping online is also a good way to avoid getting sucked into expensive impulse purchases, she adds.
3. Compare prices first.
Regardless of where you shop, always compare prices before you spend a penny. One store’s dramatic “50 percent discount” may be another store’s normal asking price. The only way to know for sure is to do your research, says shopping blogger Andrea Woroch.
Mobile apps like RedLaser and ShopSavvy let you do this inside the store by scanning bar codes; the app then scours the websites of online and local retailers for prices on the same item. If it finds a better deal, you may be able to negotiate a price match with the retailer, Woroch says.
Read: The Best Black Friday Deals on Video Games and Systems
At home, you can visit sites like PriceGrabber and TheFind to compare prices across dozens of online retailers. (PriceGrabber powers the price comparisons found on Yahoo Shopping.) The differences can be dramatic. As the following screen shows, the same 60-inch Samsung HDTV that lists for $1,700 at one outlet can be found for hundreds less at another.
4. Release the discount Kraken.
If you don’t know about mobile discounts, it’s time to get up to speed. There are dozens of apps, like RetailMeNot, Coupon Sherpa, and Shopular that will deliver coupons directly to your desktop or mobile. Then you just show the coupon code to the cashier and reap the rewards. The RetailMeNot app can use your phone’s location to send you coupons for nearby stores; Shopular will let you know if a deal is truly hot or not.
Read: The Best Black Friday Deals for Tech Products at RadioShack and Staples
Online, you can use a browser plug-in like Honey, which alerts you to sweet deals you may have missed at sites like Amazon and Walmart.com and automatically enters the promo codes into your shopping cart. Or you can install PriceBlink, which waits until you visit a shopping site and alerts you when it finds a better price elsewhere on the item you’re thinking of buying.
5. Get your shipping in shape.
More and more sites are offering free shipping with a relatively low minimum purchase, further erasing the gulf between in-store and online shopping. Other sites that are still holding the line on shipping tend to discount or eliminate their rates as Free Shipping Day (Dec. 18) approaches, Bodge says.
Some retailers let you order online and pick it up in store later, after the crowds have dispersed; Sears and Kmart will even let you order goods online and have friends or family members living in a different city pick them up at their local store, saving you the hassle of shipping them their presents (although this is about the tackiest way ever to give someone a gift).
If you’re going to ship, though, the U.S. Postal Service offers the most competitive rates, says Endicia, which partners with USPS to sell postage online. Then track your packages with the Slice app, which scans your email for e-receipts and lets you know where your goods are in transit. Slice will also alert you if the price has dropped since you purchased it, which may enable you to persuade the vendor to kick back a few bucks to match prices.
6. Crowdfund big purchases.
Do your kids (or spouse) long for that one special gift you can’t possibly afford on your own? Create a DreamFund — a Kickstarter-like campaign where you can invite friends and family members to contribute money. Setting one up takes about five minutes; you can then make your dream public or private and share it with potential funders via email, Facebook, or Twitter.
The site takes a small percentage of the money raised plus credit processing fees; the rest of the money is saved in an FDIC-insured account until your dream is achieved. Tilt offers a similar crowdfunding service, with slightly lower fees.
7. Read the fine print.
This is where the gotchas of shopping hide. A store might offer a great price, but tack on a 15 percent restocking fee — plus shipping — if you need to return the item. Or it may be shipping from halfway around the globe, turning your last-minute Christmas present into an early Valentine’s gift. Or it may offer only store credit on returns. You need to check all the policies before you click that Buy button, Woroch says.
TrackIf is offering an awesome free Shop Smarter Guide that lists all the policies of the top 32 click-and-mortar retailers, from Apple to Zappos, including how long you have to return products and whether they will match a competitor’s price.
8. Timing is everything.
It turns out some days are better for bargains than others. Mondays are usually the best days to buy electronics, as manufacturers tend to release rebates to stores after the weekend, Woroch says. Thursday is allegedly the day to find deals on clothing; Fridays are great for accessories. Your mileage may vary.
Adobe’s Digital Index, which tracks visits to more than 4,500 online retailers, predicts that shopping online on Thanksgiving Day will yield slightly lower prices than any other day this week. Some $1.35 billion will be spent on turkey day, or slightly more than half the amount shoppers will drop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, respectively.
My advice? Don’t do it. Thanksgiving is a day to spend with family and friends, argue with relatives you otherwise avoid the rest of the year, watch football, eat too much, and lapse into a tryptophan coma. It’s not a day to spend with your face glued to a screen just so you can save an extra 50 cents on an iPhone case.
There’s plenty of time to do it the next day, with all the other turkeys.
Questions, complaints, kudos? Email Dan Tynan at ModFamily1@yahoo.com.
