shopping

A mall and the night visitors.

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According to the National Retail Federation, 74 million U.S. residents were expected to take part in Black Friday promotions. Another 77 million planned to participate if the deals were worth the cold weather and the crowds.

Well, people were lining up at least three hours ahead of time at stores here in Anchorage. The weather had warmed up to double digits for the first time in days, but it was snowing pretty steadily — and let’s face it, standing in one spot for hours in 15-degree weather is still kinda chilly.

Some people will do anything to get a Kinect with four games for $99.

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Occupy Black Friday: A grab-bag of tips.

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Today I had a pleasant realization about the Black Friday online deals that start at 12:01 a.m.: In Alaska, that’s only 8:01 p.m. My niece and I will be able to hit the one or two specific sites we wanted without staying up late.

Midnight isn’t that late, necessarily. My hostess and I were up until almost 3 a.m. yesterday. But my niece and I also plan to do some shopping outside the house, so that 8:01 start time means we can get sufficient sleep before joining the doorbusters queue. I believe that’s 5 a.m., and we’ll probably have to brush fresh snow off the car and warm it up for a while.

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Game shows, rescued pennies, bonus Swagbucks and how to have a cheaper Christmas 2011.

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Today’s post is a bit of a grab-bag.

To anyone interested in joining Swagbucks: I might be able to get you 100 extra points. On Saturday evening I took part in an online chat about shopping/rewards sites. Those “attending” were given a code to offer to new referrals in addition to the usual 30-point sign-up bonus.

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Win a $100 Amazon card for Black Friday 2011.

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Yesterday I went into a drugstore and found several aisles completely stocked for Christmas: lights, ornaments, wrapping paper, toys, candy and, of course, traditional sacred images such as Mickey Mouse wearing a Santa hat. Sigh.

While too-early Christmas marketing and commercialism in general both bug me, I am also practical enough to acknowledge they exist — and to help a reader stretch his/her dollars to the utmost. That’s why I’m happy to announce a giveaway sponsored by the Consumerism Commentary blog: a $100 Amazon gift card, just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

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Back-to-school sales: What, already?

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Kids all over the country are in mourning, having seen “back to school” signs and adverts since early July. Today’s circulars included deals like 1-cent manual pencil sharpeners (Office Depot), 25-cent crayons (Kmart), free-after-rebate yellow highlighters (Staples) and $9 backpacks (Target).

It’s not time to buy yet, though.

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Goal-oriented groceries.

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Yesterday I filmed my first “Ask A Money Expert” video for MSN Money. I’d done several videos for MSN in the past, but this is a different format: Readers post questions on Facebook, to be answered by people like Jim Jubak and Liz Pulliam Weston. And now by me too, also (as the cat from Mutts would say).

The challenge was giving good information succinctly, since I had just 3½ minutes to answer a trio of questions. I’ll post the link once the finished product is available. In the meantime, I want to talk about one of the responses I gave.

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