Black Friday will be here at the end of the week. Let’s go over some of the great local deals we can expect on the most capitalist of days.
These are all my personal observations. I can’t even guarantee our local stores will have all of these items. Your tastes may vary. For those of you who want to do your own in-depth research, I recommend visiting bfads.net, which I have been following since 2004.
Ace Hardware
Good Buys:
2-Pack Stanley Sawhorses – $9.99 : Great price for some light work sawhorses.
Dremel 300 Series – $39.99 : That’s a better price than I can find seen anywhere else.
Not Worth It:
LED Flashlight – $0 ($3.99 FAR) : It’s not worth my limited time on BF to hunt down a flashlight with a MIR. YMMV.
Holiday Solar Lights – $2.99 : The price may not be bad, but the concept is. Unless you want to look like a nut, these lights will be outside for the couple weeks out of the year with the least amount of solar activity.
CVS
Good Buys:
Matchbox Cars $.50 ($1/2) : Just a good price on ’em.
Not Worth It:
Sylvania 7″ Android Tablet – $94.88 : It’s slow, runs an outdated operating system (2.1) and doesn’t have enough memory.
Wireless Air 60 Gaming System – $19.88 : It’s a knock-off of a Microsoft Kinect that preys on people who don’t know anything about video games. I feel sorry for the children who get this when their gift purchaser thought they found the deal of the century.
In fact, I’m going to say this: Please don’t purchase any electronics that are on sale at CVS. Most of them are a low quality product and the prices are not good. CVS has GREAT deals this BF on a lot of items, especially if you are an Extra Bucks shopper or like to work with the free gift cards, but please stay away from the electronics.
Orscheln
Good Buys:
LED Flashlight – $1 ($10/10) : For that price I WILL spend my time hunting them down.
Disclaimer: I’m not a farm person. I’ve reached my limit of my knowledge of the Orscheln deals.
RadioShack
Good Buys:
SanDisk 16GB Flash Drive – $16.99 : It’s not the best price for a 16GB flash drive on BF, but it’s still a very good deal.
6″ Amazon Kindle WiFi w/ $10 Gift Card – $79.99 : Almost everyone is selling the Kindles for the same price this year. This one comes with a free gift card. Woo!
Not Worth It:
McAfee Mobile Security – $14.99 : McAfee is, as usual, never a good choice for anything no matter what the price may be.
Cordless Soldering Iron – $4.99 : I wouldn’t count on this to cordlessly solder cheese.
Sears (Appliance & Hardware)
Good Buys:
Kenmore Washer & Dryer – $469.99 (Each) : As bfads.net puts it, “a $283 savings per unit is nothing to sneeze at.”
Tech Craft TV Stand – $49.99 : A high quality stand which sells for about double online.
Sony 55€ LCD 3DTV Bundle – $1698.99 : If you want an amazing TV experience without having to do all the hard Home Theater work, here you go. It even has those fancy glasses that makes everything dark and gives you headaches.
Canon T3i Bundle – $899 : A good price on a wonderful DSLR and telephoto lens.
6A Reciprocating Saw – $29.99 : Half off regular price. And it’s a reciprocating saw. What’s not to love?
Not Worth It:
Sylvania 7″ Android Tablet – $79.99 : It’s slow, runs an outdated operating system (2.1) and doesn’t have enough memory.
Sylvania 7″ Windows CE Netbook – $79.99 : Windows CE. Not even once.
WalMart
Good Buys:
Vizio 42″ 1080p 240Hz 3D LED HDTV – $598 : Amazing Quality to Price ratio!
LG BD640 Blu-ray Player – $89 : It’s not the cheapest BR player, but for the price it has some nice features: WiFi, NetFlix, and MKV support (via USB). The only downside is that to use WiFi, you have to plug a dongle into the front USB port, making it a nice target for children and evil cats.
RCA WiFi Streaming Media Player – $39 : Still want NetFlix and WiFi without needing the BluRay? This is what you want.
45 Piece Train Table – $59 : Trust me, the wife and I have been doing a lot of train table research this year. Unless you can get the Toys-R-Us Imaginarium City Central Train Table on sale for $99 (it randomly goes on sale), this is the one you want. Well, don’t really trust me. I don’t want to be held accountable.
Not Worth It:
Canon EOS Rebel T3 Kit – $479 : Technically it isn’t that bad of a deal and the equipment isn’t bad. I just blame Canon for naming it the T3. If you’re in the market for a camera, please be careful because a T3 is not close to a T3i. Small letter-big difference.
Rival 2-Slice Waffle Maker – $2.84 : I had one of these. It did not work well. The temperature never got hot enough, the batter always sticks to it, especially the few parts that aren’t coated, and it’s too small to make good waffles.
Other local happenings:
- Main Street Gifts is having a sale this weekend. It looks like they will have between 10-25% off of Willow Tree Figurines.
- Bonham’s Appliances is/was having a Pre-Black Friday sale of sorts.
- Markle Music will have a Thanksgiving Day sale.
- Southern Indiana Workwear is planning a Stuff and Save event. 20% off anything you can fit in their bag.