Are you prepared?

By Mark Sweetwood

It is about 36 hours before Black Friday officially begins.

Are you prepared?

Those who plan to take part in the annual shopping spectacle do so for a
variety of reasons. Some have grown accustomed to the camaraderie evident at
the all-nighters in the line at at Best Buy and other stores.

Others are frankly addicted to anything that says "sale."

Other are truly preparing to use the opportunity to shave scarce dollars of
of their holiday spending.

Whatever the reason, my goal is to help you maximize your savings in the
next 36 hours. I'll be blogging all weekend pointing out steals and deals
and providing some ways to spot and bag killer buys.

I'll start off by giving tips on how to prepare yourself. Then I'll spot
check some of the best deals available online right now. Thursday I'll walk
through the best deals as found in The Vindicator Thursday morning (hint: to
play along, you'll need to spend 35 cents to get a huge, ad-stuffed
Vindicator. Then, we'll create a fictional family with an average budget and
I'll provide a blow-by-blow of how to complete most of their shopping
between 4 a.m. and 11 a.m. Friday morning.

First, the advice. Like any big test, Black Friday is all about the
preparation. So, after you cram some turkey down your gullet (or even
before) you'll need to cram for the Black Friday exam. Here's how:

• Make a shopping list by person and by the spending goal.  A typical entry
might look like: "Aunt Betty, new scarf, $10." The only way to optimize the
Black Friday is to have a plan and stick to it ruthlessly.

• Know where the deals are. There are three good Web sites out there that
have previews and scanned images of some of the ads you'll find in
Thursday's Vindicator:

BlackFriday.Info

Black Friday 2008

Black-Friday.Net

Now, many of the deals available on Black Friday can be found at these sites
but I have to warn you: This is one example of how print is still superior
to some current online technology. The scans are hard to read and it is
nearly impossible to comparison shop. In Thursday's Vindicator, you'll see
more than 40 inserts and many, many ads extolling various sales. It is much
easier to spread them out and compare.

• When you read any ad, read carefully. Some stores have ads promoting
"early bird" deals, which generally start at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. Some have
completely different deals which begin after the early birds. Some stores
have different deals for Friday and Saturday. Some stores will have a 15
percent- or 20 percent-off coupon that lists "specials" as an exclusion and
then display mostly "specials" in their ad section (also called a "flyer" or
and "insert").

So spend some time NOW making your list, checking it twice and getting an
idea of what is out there.

Next: The basic shopping groups and what you are likely to find on sale.


Mark M. Sweetwood is managing editor of The Vindicator.