Circuit City sales are expected from Dec. 26 until supplies last.  Watch for deep discounts as fall inventory is liquidated on digital cameras, LCD and HD TV’s, and laptops.  www.circuitcity.com

Home Depot sales are expected from Dec. 26 to Dec. 31 nationwide and online.  Watch for discounts on General Electric appliances and Dirt Devil products.  www.homedepot.com

Macy’s sales are expected from Dec. 26 to mid-January nationwide and online.  Watch for discounts as high as 75 percent off on fall items like appliances, bedding and jewelry.  www.macys.com

Sears sales are expected from Dec. 26 to Jan. 3rd.  Up to 70 percent off on home appliances and fine jewelry.  Some treadmills will be discounted up to 40 percent off.  www.sears.com

Target sales are expected from Dec. 26 until supplies last.  Save 75 percent off on women’s designer clothing by Jonathan Saunders, as the new GO fashions come in for 2009.  www.target.com

Walmart sales are expected from Dec. 26 until supplies last.  Clearance prices could reach as high as 80 percent off, as stores sell off their 2008 inventory.  www.walmart.com

Some do-it-yourself gift suggestions:

Get those family photos organized into a digital photo album, a customized DVD, or put them online.  There’s plenty of photo websites that give you personal storage space and even offer tools to organize and edit photos.  Try flickr.com, shutterfly.com, snapfish.com and kodakgallery.com.

It’s easy to create a digital scrapbook too; there’s plenty of software available from Canon and HP, and some programs are even included with a new printer, so check to see if you may already own digital scrapbook software.  Try canon.com and hp.com for software, and these other online resources: cropmom.com, scrapblog.com and scrapo.com.

We all love photographs but don’t overlook video.  With today’s software, it’s possible to make and edit your own movies, or even create a multimedia DVD of your videos and pictures.  Try onetruemedia.com or smilebox.com

Publish or print your own book.  There’s a number of self-publishing websites where you can create your own book.  Or make it a gift to the author or novelist in your family.  Try blurb.com.

Create your own coupons to give the gift of yourself, or at least your time.  Try gurl.com.

Create your own wrapping paper; scan the kid’s artwork or doodles into your favorite art program and print and wrap.  There’s also gift wrap websites like papergiftwrap.com.

Speaking of weird, all the early wintry weather is making it very hard to travel, so that’s challenging any last minute shoppers.  Consumers are also sticking to their budgets, according to recent surveys, so that’s really hitting retailers where it hurts.

Judging from all the blogs I’ve read and news reports coming in, the 24-hour trend is still catching on, so you can expect Macy’s, Walmart and Toys R Us to follow suit this week by staying open extended hours.

Be on the lookout for discount coupons too, many of which can be downloaded and printed right off a store’s website.  That’s what Toys R Us are doing.  Their stores are offering Deals Of The Day on today’s specials right on up to Christmas Eve on December 24th.  Look for these printable coupons under their Deals Of The Day on the company’s website www.toysrus.com

I ordered 3 of the SanDisk Cruzer 8GB USB Flash Drives because of the great sale price of $11.70 each.  However, the shipping cost of 17.85 raised my order total from 35.10 (the cost of the 3 drives) to the grand total of 52.95.  So the unit price for each drive came out to 17.65, quite a difference from the advertised sale price of 11.70.  Still a great deal, but if I had paid closer attention, I would have seen this in the shopping cart at the end of my order.  But I was in a holiday shopping rush and overlooked it.

Plus, my order finally arrived after waiting for two weeks, because there was a typo on my original package, so the post office returned it to the shipper.  The company did replace the order, and emailed a status update.

That’s why I say be careful when shopping online.  A good deal may not be so good, once you factor in shipping costs.  In the case of amazon.com, not only is the shipping cost higher for third-party sales, but tracking information is not available for your package.

As in my case, careful attention to each click to your final shopping cart at the end of the order should eliminate any chance of errors.  I should add that I’ve purchased many items through amazon.com, and their customer service has always been outstanding.  I will shop them again, but with a wary eye for third party vendors.

Walmart.com has unbelievable deals on all kinds of electronics including video games, CD and DVD.  Check their daily specials, and whether the items are available online only or also in-store.

BestBuy.com has it right on their home page…CyberWeek Specials now through Dec. 6.  And they’re got great prices on LCD HDTV too.

But today’s favorite is their Hair Metal CD Sale…Shred it up and fill your CD collection with great pricing on some of the all-time hair metal greats.  Oh yeah, like WhiteSnake; those guys probably fought over who got the hairdryer next.  LOL!

Amazon.com has list prices marked out with sale prices listed in red on thousands of items, like Guitar Hero On Tour $29.95, Kingston 16GB USB Flash Drive $24.99, plus DVDs for $4.99, Blu-ray $10.95, and CDs under $9.00.

BestBuy.com started their 2-day sale on Sunday, with a 40-inch 1080p Toshiba LCD HDTV priced at $799.00, an Asus Netbook with 8.9-inch widescreen, 1GB memory, built-in webcam and 16GB hard drive for $279, and an Acer Aspire Laptop with a 12.1-inch widescreen, 3GB memory, 250GB hard drive and DVD burner for $799.99.

CircuitCity.com has the Sony Cyber-shot Digital Camera for $109.99, Apple’s 8GB iPod Touch for $226.99, and a SENS 8-inch Widescreen portable DVD player for $119.99.

Dell.com is finally offering laptops and notebooks under $500 now.  Their Inspiron Mini 9 is priced at $299 and comes with Linux installed, a 4GB Solid State Drive and an Intel Atom Processor.

eBay has their One Dollar Doorbusters through December 8th, like an iPod 8GB Nano or a LEGO Star Wars Republic Gunship.

OfficeDepot.com is offering deals like, buy one and get the second at 50% off.

Overstock.com has some good prices too.  For example, they have a large selection of LCD TV’s, some refurbished units and some brands I’ve never seen before, like the Hannspree Flora 12-inch LCD TV.  Like amazon, overstock offers savings on a wide variety of merchandise including furniture, clothing, shoes, jewelry, electronics and home items like bedding and housewares.

Sears.com is advertising online only specials like 10 to 50 percent off Tools, 15 percent off Appliances, and an extra ten percent off Fine Jewelry and Watches.

A lot of sites like Target.com are offering Free Shipping on orders of $50 and up, depending on what you’re buying, like clothing or furniture.  Target makes it easy to shop online by offering specials by price, where you can select gifts for under $25, $50 or $100.

Walmart.com has 2-for-$30 Game Bundles for Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and Xbox 360.  They also have the cool new Flip Video MinoHD 60-Minute High Definition Digital Camcorder bundled with a free tripod and case for $219.88.

KeepCash.com also features daily product deals and has online coupon codes for most major retailers.  They’re one of many sites that are tracking all the holiday sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The big day has arrived, and Black Friday has the Big Deals you’ve been shopping for!

If you’re shopping for electronics like I am, you’ll appreciate these shopping tips from Consumer Reports on the big items being sought after this holiday season.  It’s always helpful to arm yourself with a little knowledge so you can avoid any buyer’s remorse later on.  Scoping out the prices online can help narrow down the number of stores you actually have to shop at too.

If you’re looking for any of these items, chances are you can probably find a better price by comparison shopping at least two other stores. 
blackfriday.info has items indexed by category like:
Cell Phones
Digital Cameras

Game Consoles like the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 or the XBOX 360 are really hot, and most stores are offering a bundle package with 3 or 4 games.

Laptop and LCD HDTV prices have really dropped with several models priced at or below $500.

Best Buy:  Samsung 32-inch 720p LCD HDTV $499

Circuit City:  Apple 8GB iPod Touch $229

Office Depot:  HP Laptop 15.4-inch, Dual-Core, 3GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive, $349

Sam’s Club:  32-inch Vizio LCD 1080i HDTV $448

The video game version of the new hit Disney movie “Bolt” is already available for Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Sony PS2, Xbox 360 and Toys R Us has it as low as $29.

Sears has a Sony 32-inch Bravia 720p LCD HDTV $499

Target is advertising Guitar Hero World Tour $59

Walmart has some incredible deals advertised:
Xbox 360 Thanksgiving Day Value Bundle $288
7-inch Digital Photo Frame with 2GB SD Memory Card Bundle $39

more info at http://www.blackfriday.info/online/

Here’s the other store openings I’ve heard and read of…

Stores opening at 5:00 am:
Best Buy
Circuit City
Old Navy
Sam’s Club
Sears
Toys R’ Us
Walmart

Stores opening at 6:00 am:
Kmart
Office Depot
Radio Shack
Staples
Target

Stores opening at 7:00 am:
Office Max

The online specials start much earlier, and some are posted now.  Not everything will be available until Black Friday officially starts.  Best Buy online specials will start at 1:00 am this Friday, with other stores following suit.  Be sure to check for the advance doorbuster specials; those will probably sell out first and fast.

www.blackfriday.info has more information on all these Black Friday deals, in-store and online.

Even with a national economic downturn, this coming weekend looks like a full-out retail blockbuster full of great deals.  Forget the financial forecasters for this week.  If you’re looking for a great bargain, a super sale price or a big deal, this is the week to find it.  

I was reading another post about Black Friday yesterday and they used the phrase Brown Thursday.  I thought…”Brown Thursday?  OK, then there’s Black Friday, so what color is Saturday?”  I guess the color would be green, as in cash.  Cashing in on the Christmas sales.