Black Friday deals are all the rage just now.  Retailers are gearing up for what is an incredibly busy period for spending.  According to Wunderman Thompson Commerce, in 2018, on Black Friday, the online retail spend was estimated at £2.23 billion, with roughly the same again being spent on our high streets. 

This is an average spend of nearly £175 for every household in the UK. With this in mind, it is important that you gear up now to ensure that you actually save money by buying Black Friday deals.

Many people use the Black Friday sales to start, or finish, their Christmas shopping and if you can manage to buy the presents you want, more cheaply than normal, then that has to be a good thing doesn't it?

Well, yes.......to a certain extent. 

However, how many times though do you end up buying things that you hadn't planned to buy?  One minute you are shopping for Christmas presents and suddenly you have popped a juicer, a soup maker or some other random item into your basket.

Why is this?

Retailers spend billions of pounds employing the best marketeers, and giving them huge budgets to spend on marketing and advertising.  They KNOW that we are easily tempted; that big red SALE signs make our heart beat slightly faster; that they can tug on our heartstrings with a cute little video! 

And they KNOW that this will make us put our hands in our pocket much more readily. That's their job and that is how the company makes a profit. 

Our job is to make sure that we get the good deals, but that we DON'T get tempted to spend more than we want to.

The following tips will help you to get ready to make the most of the Black Friday deals.

1 Who do you need to buy for?

If you are using Black Friday deals to get Christmas presents, then get your list written. 

Who do you need to buy for, and most importantly, how much do you want to spend on each person? You might find an app is a useful way of recording your Christmas purchases.  I use the Christmas list app and LOVE it.  Or you might like this similar one for android phones If you download one, and add a spending limit for each person, you will immediately feel more organised and ready to face the sales.

2 What are you going to buy?

Do you know what you need? Have you already bought anything throughout the year and forgotten about it?  That is such a common problem and can easily cause overspending, so check those cupboards before you start.

Then get your thinking cap on, WITHOUT going online to research.  Going online is amazing for lots and lots of reasons, but it is so distracting and you will no doubt lose focus. 

Spending some time now, thinking about what people might like, will save you HOURS of faffing about online.  Once you have decided what to buy them, all you need to do is search for that item at the best price, rather than browsing for hours.

3 How are you going to pay?

It's reported that 52% of people in the UK are still paying now for last Christmas.  If you don't want to be one of them, then check out the following ideas for saving on your Christmas spending.

My first suggestion is to check out credit cards which offer incentives on spending, but only if you will pay them off in FULL when the bill comes in.  If you are likely to be tempted to spend more than you can afford, by putting it on a credit card, then avoid credit cards like the plague. Cashback credit cards offer you cashback on every purchase that you make, with some initial deals offering up to 5% of your spending as cashback. 

Use a soft search from Money Saving Expert to see which cashback cards you might be likely to be accepted for. There are other credit cards, which will help you to clock up air miles or loyalty points, which might be worth checking out too.

4 More cashback deals

Get fully prepared for making the most of the Black Friday deals by signing up to cashback sites TODAY.  That way when the sales start, you are already signed up and ready to start making cashback on your purchases.

The two cashback sites that I like best are TopCashback and Quidco.  Going through one of these simply means that the cashback website earns a small commission for sending you to the retailer's website, and the cashback website passes some of that onto you, the customer.  It truly is a great way of saving on purchases that you are making anyway.  You won't pay any more for the item, than you would have done, had you gone directly to the website, so it makes sense for you to grab the cashback.

TopCashback is the UK's highest paying cashback site. Click here and you will get a free £5 Amazon gift card for signing up.

To be honest, the biggest problem I have with cashback sites is remembering to use them.  That's why I love TopCashback's notifier, which can be downloaded onto your computer, and then reminds that you could earn cashback!  Genius!

Quidco is another great cashback site. Click here to get £5 from them by signing up today.

Use both TopCashback and Quidco and be sure that you can get cashback from shopping with most of the major retailers in the UK.

Is it really worth signing up though?

Examples of cashback on offer on these sites are Argos 5%, Nike 11%, Groupon 11%, M & S 10% and some insurance and broadband deals even offer cashback of over £100.

If your total Christmas spend is £500 then getting 10% back will give you £50 in cashback.  If you also have a cashback credit card, then you can potentially get £75 for nothing!  It's got to be worth taking 2 minutes today, to get it set up.

5 Save on postage costs

Amazon has some fantastic Black Friday deals coming up, but if you are not careful the postage costs can really add up. 

Be organised and sign up today for a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime, to give you free one-day delivery.  It will also give free access to over 15,000 movies, over 2 million songs and thousands of kindle titles. 

Make sure you set a reminder on your phone or calendar to cancel the prime subscription if you don't want to pay the £79 annual fee, after the 30 day period.  Unlike on some websites, cancelling Amazon Prime is really easy

Completing the steps detailed above will help you to be prepared to make the most of the fantastic Black Friday Deals , without getting persuaded to part with more money than you mean to!

It will also help you to maximise the gains from your spending by using cashback and discounted offers.

If you have liked the ideas in this post, then check out my Christmas course, which is packed with ideas to help you to spend less, stress less and enjoy Christmas more than ever.

Feel free to pop over and join my women only Your Money Sorted Facebook group., where I help women to become healthier, happier and wealthier.

Eileen x