Black Friday: For Best Results, Go into the Day with a Plan

So, how do YOU approach Black Friday shopping?

You might be disinclined to approach it at all, but assuming you have a rather substantial list of folks for whom to buy gifts this Christmas, or simply desire to take advantage of some great deals for yourself, then Black Friday, and the days near to it, will likely be relevant to you.

That said, the best way to negotiate the madness of Black Friday is with something of a plan - engaging the day with a bit of forethought will help to ensure that you emerge on the other end with your sanity and bank account intact.

The Garden City Telegram quotes Benjamin Glaser, features editor at DealNews, this way on the subject of Black Friday preparedness:

���Have a shopping list and budget, and stick to them. The most important thing you can do is to do your research and have a plan. This way you know you���re getting a good deal ... and you won���t have to think twice when you see a deal. That can mean the difference between getting a good price and having it sell out too quickly.���
One of the real problems with venturing into Black Friday without a firm list and budget is that the emotion of the day can act as a catalyst for going well outside of your spending limits.

���Being in a crowd and having everyone else around trying to buy things kind of urges you to buy,��� says Ivy Chou, DealsPlus director of content and marketing.

It���s worth noting that, with increasing frequency, retailers are no longer demanding that you go into their bricks-and-mortar locations to secure the best deals. That ���requirement��� has been going out of fashion for a while now, as stores intensify their fight for market share. By having the ability to access the same rock-bottom prices for goods online as those available in stores, you are less likely to incur the damage so often done to your wallet by giving in to impulse buys in the retail locations.

Along the same lines, you can help yourself out a great deal by shopping online from home on Thanksgiving Day. Rene Kirschbaum, director of content and marketing at BlackFriday.fm, says that a great many Black Friday deals become active at 12:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving, so even if you have no intention of leaving home that day to go shopping, or if a preferred retailer is entirely closed on Thursday, the same deals that you will find in the stores on Friday will often be available online the day before.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large