Frugal American presents you: the best Black Friday hacks you’ll ever hear!
I think Black Friday is one of the happiest days on the calendar for many people, including me. It’s the day after the fantastic Thanksgiving and it marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Yay! To make the best of it, you have to know about these Black Friday hacks!
There are plenty of sales on that day, and people who dream about getting early Christmas gifts or any other treats for them have the chance to get everything they want for a better price. Or, at least, this is what these big retailers want us to believe.
But if you want to get the best deals on this special shopping day and not pointlessly race through stores and online shopping sites to get some extraordinary things, this article is for you! Without further ado, let’s talk about the greatest Black Friday hacks you’ll ever hear!
1. Start your shopping spree on Thanksgiving
Why waste precious time at the checkout or be disappointed when you just put something in your cart and two seconds later it disappears? You can spare the stress by starting your shopping spree on Thanksgiving Day because more and more stores are open to allow customers to be ahead of the game. Both online and in physical stores.
If you know what you want, you shouldn’t waste time when you can see all the deals before everybody else. If you can sneak away from the festivities and the delicious food for an hour or two, you could benefit from amazing extra discounts from certain stores.
There are many other Black Friday hacks you need to know, so keep reading!
2. Start early
At the beginning of this article, I told you that some deals might not be true and might only be marketing strategies to make customers believe that they pay less for the things they want.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to every retailer, because some things are indeed on sale. If you know that there’s an item you want and you can’t wait for it to be more affordable on Black Friday, do yourself a favor and check the price now.
You can then keep track of it weekly until the special day comes, so you know for sure whether it’s a real deal or not. There are plenty of retailers who jack up the prices a few weeks or months before BF, so they can drop the price back to normal and say that you can get the best deal. Whether it’s true or not, do your research and then decide if you shop or not.
3. Use social media
We couldn’t talk about these great Black Friday hacks without including social media on our list. The majority of brands have an online presence, and they post pictures of their newest items, deals, and things that are soon to be available.
So why not take advantage of that and follow your favorite retailers to check their posts advertising early bird deals? Don’t forget that if there’s something you like, you have to quickly decide if you like it or not, because these BF offers are limited in quantity, and when something’s gone, it’s gone.
4. Use cash-back shopping sites
We continue our short series of Black Friday hacks by saying a couple of extra things about online shopping and what you can do better. If you want to browse your favorite online retailers and see what they have, why not make some cash out of it?
All you have to do is do your shopping through a cash-back shopping site, such as TopCashback, Swagbucks, Rakuten, and Ibotta, so you can earn a percentage of your shopping total back in cash.
Here’s how these things work: your transactions are recorded as long as you visit your favorite online retailers you want to purchase things from through the cashback gateway to which you are signed in.
After that, depending on the site you do your retail therapy on, you’ll get a percentage of the money back via PayPal transfer, a check, or other methods.
Don’t expect to receive a large sum of money back, because that’s not the case, but it’s helpful for those who want to save money, and every single dollar counts. These cash-back shopping sites can pay customers back from 1% to 4% or more, based on the particular store’s agreement.
5. Purchase discounted gift cards
I know a couple of Black Friday hacks for you to try, and one of them is getting discounted gift cards. Nothing complicated; you just purchase them ahead of time and then use them to get all the best things on BF. I did my research, and two good companies sell discounted gift cards, so here’s everything you need to know about them.
The first one is called Gift Card Granny and acts like a portal that shows you how you can get the best gift cards for much more affordable prices and then use them in physical stores. What’s great about this platform is that it also shows customers how they can sell gift cards they don’t want and get much-needed cash instead.
The second company you need to know about if you’re into Black Friday hacks is Raise and the reason why it’s so great is because it allows you to sell unwanted gift cards for cash or purchase discounted gift cards for your cherished BF shopping businesses.
Another fantastic thing about Raise is that it provides customers with free delivery on all gift card orders, and they also have the ability to download a free app to buy and sell gift cards, which is way simpler.
If you love these Black Friday hacks and you know that there’s someone who enjoys buying things from Amazon, here‘s the perfect gift for them!
6. Join the store loyalty programs
Have you ever joined any loyalty programs created by your favorite stores? You should do that, especially to enjoy some incredible Black Friday hacks. Plenty of retailers have a variety of loyalty programs that you can join to get member-only discounts (they’ll save you money, so it’s fantastic).
If you want to enroll in these helpful loyalty programs but don’t know where to start, you could try Justice for Girls and Kohl’s. These are the ones that we use in our household, and they’re pretty amazing.
But let’s go back to these Black Friday hacks and how these programs can help you save money and get the best deals ever. By joining them, you could receive discount coupon offers for 15% to 30% discounts, so imagine how big of a difference that can make.
If you know which stores you’re going to shop at on that special night of amazing deals, go on their websites and check if they have any reward programs. If they do, join them, and you’ll have the greatest shopping experience ever.
Which one of these Black Friday hacks do you think is the best one? Leave a comment down below and let us know! If you want to read something else that is just as interesting as this article about Black Friday hacks, click here: Frugal Living: 8 Tips for Doing That Without Looking Cheap
