A Broke-Ass Black Friday Survival Guide

You have a few days to prep for this year’s Black Friday. You might have been saving money to go Christmas shopping or you might have saved it to buy something for yourself. Either way, people have literally died on this day. For this reason, I see fit to point out some details that might make your shopping experience a lot smoother and safer.

1. Make A List of The Items You Want

This should be obvious but it can easily be overlooked. Once you have this list ready I would then divide them up into categories so once you hit a certain store you can hopefully, get the items you want in that one store. (i.e., place a video game and a pair of headphones under Electronics & Entertainment because a retailer like Best Buy holds both.)

2. Pick The Stores & Create A Route

Once you have your list of items ready, you should make a list of the stores that sell what it is you want. I recommend actually going to the stores in mind and actually seeing for yourself if the item you want is physically there.

The next step is to create a route. It’s a lot easier to map out a route with these fancy gizmos we still call phones. (If possible try to keep all stores within a 10-15 block radius. It’ll make things easier on you. ) I’d suggest to start from the furthest place from home and you make your way back. This will make for a shorter trip back from an exhausting day.

3. Take Only What You Need

Remember; you’re not here to impress anyone. If anything, you’re buying the items that will do the impressing for you later on. Dress as comfortable as possible. Ladies, NO HIGH HEELS WHATSOEVER!!! Sneakers are highly recommended. Check the weather the night before and dress accordingly.

I’m not a financial expert and I surely do not want to advise anyone to dig themselves into more debt than they already have but for this day I recommend taking debit and credit cards over cash just because it seems just so much more efficient. (Cross your fingers and hope you don’t bump into a rookie at the register.)

Take your phone AND charger with you. Trust me; you’ll need your charger because your phone will be working overtime on this particular day.

4. Bring Friends

You don’t want to go through this experience alone, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, you can only carry so many things with you. Secondly, because you can’t carry that many things or keep an eye on all your belongings, you may become a target to any thieves lurking around.

You’ll be safer traveling in packs and you can help each other out on this aggressive day of shopping. Working as a unit may help you as you and your friends can divide and then conquer the retail world.

So what have we learned here, folks? Plan ahead if you want the smoothest shopping experience on Black Friday. If you need to do any last minute deal searching, sites like bfads.net or blackfriday.info is the place to be. (They also list store hours.)

One last thing, broke-asses, you might want to take a bat with you; it gets a little crazy out there.

Photo Credit: spawnkill.com