In the United States, there’s an event every year called Black Friday.
This is the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in which retailers offer
deep discounts on products in their stores to mark the beginning of
the holiday shopping season.

If people wanted to take advantage of these deep discounts, they have
to arrive at the store very earlier as quantities are limited and the demand
is sky high.

I remember one year when I was looking at the Black Friday ads for the
Best Buy Electronics retailer. I saw a nice and really cheap laptop for
under $400. I figured if I got there right at opening, I would be able
to pick up a super cheap laptop. To my surprise, when I got to the store
at opening, there was already a line wrapping around the inside of the store
with people waiting to pay for their items.

The computer that I wanted was already out of stock and they would
not offer any more at that price. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.

After I went home, I went online to research Black Friday and found out
that people had formed a line as early as 8:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day
to get into Best Buy. This was a common occurrence at most major retailers
on Black Friday.

It seems like a ridiculous idea when you initially learn about this fact but
if you think about it then it starts to make more sense.

Many people are willing to forego celebrating a treasured holiday and wait in
cold weather for 24-48 hours so that they can save hundreds of dollars on
their Christmas shopping. For them, that extra several hundred dollars is
equal to their weekly paycheck, a mortgage payment, or a car payment.

Knowing this fact, do you really think you could use Black Friday as a way
to buy products that you don’t need and sell them later for a steeper price?

You’re essentially taking away someone’s opportunity to save much needed
cash.

The holidays are about giving. It’s a bit ironic to think that after the
Thanksgiving holiday, you’re TAKING away someone’s chance to save
money on something that they need.

Although giving gift cards to someone for their favorite store may be a good idea in previous years, you may want to rethink your plans for this holiday season.

If you give a gift card to someone and then the store closes then the gift recipient will not be able to redeem their gift card and your gift is wasted.

I had a friend who was given a gift card to Sharper Image. You may know that Sharper Image filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year and thus ended up closing all their stores. Even before they closed their stores, my friend was not able to redeem his gift card. It’s a bit unfair since they already received the money but what can you do?

If you’re a die hard gift card giver then make sure the store you’re planning to buy from is not about to close any stores.

Here is a list of companies I got from Aol’s website which are facing some big financial troubles.

1.) Circuit City

Just filed for bankruptcy and closing 155 stores nationwide.

2.) RadioShack

Cash tight. Small player catering to low-end consumer base.

3.) Safeway

This large grocery chain operates on a very small profit margin.
Tight consumer spending could decrease that small margin to nothing.

4.) Tiffany and Company

Catering luxury consumers who are seeing layoffs in the financial sector.

5.) Apple

Imacs are expensive when compared to PCs. Most people have an iPod
already. Bad news!

6.) Tuesday Morning

Problems with inventory

Below is a list of stores which are closing. I found them on Craigslist so you
should do some fact checking on this list.

Ann Taylor closing 117 stores nationwide.
Eddie Bauer has already closed 27 shops
Cache closing 20 to 23 stores
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherine’s closing 150 stores
Talbots, J. Jill closing 22 underperforming stores
Gap Inc. closing 85 stores
Foot Locker to close 140 stores
Goodbye Levitz / BOMBAY - closed
Zale’s, Piercing Pagoda close 82 stores
Home Depot 15 store closings
CompUSA (CLOSED
Macy’s - 9 stores
Pep Boys - 33 stores
Ethan Allen Interiors close 12 stores
Wilsons, the Leather Experts - 158 stores
Sharper Image 94 store closings
KB Toys 356 stores that it is closing

If you ever find yourself in my situation, then the following guide will save you a lot of money and time.

I was working like normal on 1.4 year old HP Laptop when all of a sudden my screen flickers streaks of colored lines. I turn off the computer and then turn it back on only to find that the screen is totally black.

The lights powered on but I was not able to get a picture on the screen no matter how many times I restarted. I just couldn’t figure out what happened. I’ve owned 4 different laptops in my lifetime and none of them had any problems like this. I never spilled anything on my PC nor did I drop it. I treated it like a Queen.

I decided to bring the laptop into a local repair shop for them to have a look. They charged me $65 to take a look at it and find out what was wrong. A couple of days later they called me and told me some bad news. They said that my motherboard was fried. What?!!! How can that be?

It wouldn’t be worth the price to fix the PC since I could get a brand new one for the same price or even less. After regaining my composure from this shocking event, I decided that I must move on. Before thinking, I told the PC technician to recover my data as it was essential for my business.

They quoted me a price of $75 which seemed like a fair amount to trade for retrieving my data. Only later after doing some research online did I find out how much money I had wasted.

The next day, I went into the shop to pick up my PC. Can you believe they wanted another $75 to transfer the data they backed up onto my external hard drive? That what they charged, I figured I would get the whole thing. Luckily I had done my research and knew with a little confidence that I could simply recover the data myself.

I picked up my laptop, took out the hard drive, went to Fry’s Electronics and purchased an external hard drive enclosure for $10 measely bucks! All I had to do was stick the hard drive into the enclosure and connect the unit to desktop computer via a USB connection.

I then went into My Computer and there was a new drive that I could access and find all my data sitting right there! If I hadn’t done my research I would have been out $150.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that when I picked up the laptop from the repair shop, the technician asked me why I didn’t want to transfer the data to my external hard drive for $75. After I told him why, he wanted me to give him my non working laptop and he would drop the transfer fee.

To hell with YOU! was on my mind. I paid good money for this piece of equipment and I will not just give it to you so you can profit even more. I’m going to take my dead laptop and sell the parts myself on Craigslist.

OMG, these PC repair guys are just as bad as car mechanics and lawyers. It just irritates me to no end when I get overcharged for something that doesn’t require much work or time.

At least I have my data now safely stored away.