Making Black Friday Work For You

Black Friday and Cyber Monday some of those things that most frugal bloggers write about, and not just somewhat, but with a lot of emphasis, especially advertising deals as the days get nearer.
You might have noticed that I have not done anything of the sort. Unlike many other frugal blogs, my emphasis is not on sharing deals; I rarely do that. Instead I talk about how to live a frugal lifestyle, and the tips and tricks I do to make that possible. Additionally, I share my experiences, what I did, after the fact, so people who want to get ideas and inspiration can.

Some people use Black Friday deals as an excuse to make a lot of purchases they wouldn't have had otherwise, but convince themselves that it was a frugal purchase because it was on sale. Something that you purchased just because it was on sale but you wouldn't have purchased otherwise isn't frugal; it's still more money than not buying at all.

Some people, like my friend Michelle, manage to get the best of Black Friday by making shopping lists of things they and their family needs, and waiting until Black Friday to buy them. In order to do this, you need to be well prepared and not desperate because when you're desperate you end up needing to spend more money to get things now.

The way some people utilize Black Friday reminds me of the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and being ahead in your budget. When you're living paycheck to paycheck and without a stockpile of groceries you can't always wait until things are on sale to purchase them; you end up buying them as needed even if they are pricier because you don't really have a choice since you need to eat.
If you buy clothing for your children as the season changes, you can't really wait for Black Friday to purchase them clothing, as it gets cold enough to need winter gear even before Thanksgiving. The friends of mine who buy clothes on Black Friday don't buy for their kids' current sizes but buy future sizes on sale to have on hand. I haven't managed to do this, and to be honest don't know how well it would work for my kids, because my oldest, Lee, not only grows in sporadic patterns so I don't know what sizes would fit him what season, but he also is very particular about fashion and style and even if I buy what I think he'll like for next season, he's probably going to change his mind between now and then on what is fashionable.

So this Black Friday I didn't have a whole long shopping list of things I was planning to buy. In fact, I hadn't planned on buying anything. I even went clothes shopping for Lee on Vertbaudet a few weeks earlier for winter clothes....

And then Michelle told me on Thanksgiving day that Vertbaudet was having a Black Friday sale with the entire store 40% off, and flat rate 5 euro international shipping. And then I realized that when buying Lee his winter clothes, I had forgotten to buy him pants. So I went to Vertbaudet and picked out some pants for my son together with him, and then price compared them with other sites that also had cheap or free international shipping (because just because something is on sale doesn't mean it's the cheapest or best option) and saw that it was the best deal so went ahead with that. (PS the sale, as of my writing this post, is still live!)

Last year I bought myself really cheap airfare on Cyber Monday to Belgium (25 dollars round trip) and took a look at my favorite website for finding cheap airfare, Skyscanner.com, and didn't find anything that was so cheap that it drew me in that I haven't already visited that I felt I must buy, and I already have an international trip planned this winter (more on that in another post) so I felt less of a drive to purchase a ticket, so didn't buy anything for Black Friday /Cyber Monday there. However, I do recommend that if you love to travel you go today to Skyscanner.com and search for airfare which will be much cheaper today. Alternatively check out Ryanair.com today to see if they have any 10 euro flights to and from where you're located.

The last thing I bought on Black Friday was another pair of shoes. The store I went to the other week had amazing shoes in my size, something really hard to get locally, and I decided to see if they had any black Friday sale and discovered that their entire site was more than 20% off. The pair of shoes that I was eyeing but was waiting to arrive in black was available, and the sale on it was even more than 20% off and I ended up purchasing it for 20 dollars off the original price. Yes, I didn't need the pair now, and did recently buy myself a pair, but finding shoes I like in my size is hard enough, and when I do they're pricey enough that it was worth getting my dream shoes on sale now.

I had looked for art supplies for my son, but what he wanted was so pricey even with a Black Friday sale (over 100 dollars for the set of Prismacolor Premium pencils) that I decided to skip that for now.
I also was looking for a cup with a cover and wide reusable straw for homemade smoothies as store bought smoothies are one of my indulgences I allow myself, and with the right cup I can recreate that experience more cheaply at home. But I found out when searching for those cheaply with black Friday sales that it's available cheaply all the time without any special sales, so no rush to buy it specifically now.

Yes, there are so many things available for Black Friday and so many things with deals available that one might say that I missed the opportunity to get bargains by not checking out deal sites with black Friday sales. I could have looked for holiday gifts but I didn't have anything specifically I was looking for, and haven't even decided what I'm doing about gifting this year, so I'm totally cool with not buying gifts and not buying more in general.

I'm big into making Black Friday work for you, and not have it be an excuse to blow the budget. And this year, I definitely feel like I made Black Friday work for me instead of being a slave to the deals.

How do you feel about Black Friday? Do you tend to save up your purchases for a while and buy them all on Black Friday? Do you avoid spending money on Black Friday as a protest against consumerism? Do you do something in the middle?