Do yourself a favor...AVOID Black Friday deals..

Somewhere between the turkey and the eggnog, someone in your family is almost certainly going to mention their plans to pick up a cheap tablet or TV set. Or maybe someone will bring up the nearest mall electronics store’s “amazing” deals on HDMI cables. The holidays are no time to slack on the year-round battle that comes from being more tech-savvy than other members of the family; in fact, the end of the year requires extra vigilance to stop those nearest and dearest to you from letting the consumer electronics manufacturer/retailer train take them for an unholy ride. Without our help, family members can all too easily spend too much of their money on bad, outdated, or overpriced products.

Quite simply, most deals are not really great deals.  Most of the "doorbuster" deals are cheap for a reason, nobody would buy them during the rest of the year.  Remember, you get what you paid for.  If it is cheap, chances are in a couple of months, you will be upset when it starts to fail.  Don't be...it was cheap for a reason. 

Avoid any tablet under $150 or that you have never heard of.  If you do not, please do not call me to help troubleshoot it. 

But no cable or accessory at ANY store.  If you want a cheap price on a good product, check out monoprice.com for your cable needs.  Top quality, better price.

DO NOT TRUST THE "PRICE CUT" listed in the store circular.  Quite simply, just because a store says it is $200 off does not mean they are telling the truth.  Often, the sale price is the actual regular price, you just do not realize it. 

You could exhaust yourself debunking every electronics deal your you and your family goes after, but education is your best weapon. A few basic principles go a long way: namely, doing your Internet research and comparison shopping on online outlets, where there are often identical products for similar prices. Below are a few good references for information and comparison:

• Newegg, for cheap computer components
• Monoprice, for cheap cables and networking items
• Nextag, for viewing price histories of various products
• Amazon, slightly more of a crapshoot for electronics, but it can have good sales
• The Wirecutter, for readable guides and clear-cut picks for the best of different product categories

If nothing else, appeal to emotion: instead of waking up in the dark, waiting in the cold, and trying not to rain blows upon your fellow shoppers, wouldn’t it be so much nicer to wake up early Black Friday, get some Thanksgiving leftovers and eggnog, and then crawl back to bed and buy things online?  It's actually cheaper there.