Saving Your Time, Money, & Sanity! Do You Want to Save More Money? Download the Passion For Savings App for Hot Deal Alerts!The Brick Friday offers this year from LEGO are as follows: We do not know all the sets that are discounted (other than four that will be 20% off in Europe which I have listed after the break) but they should be listed or accessible from this BFCM page: USA | Failing that, check out the Sales and Deals page: USA | Most of the offers end on Monday, but obviously the best sale items will sell out quickly, so get in there today! We reviewed the snowglobe last weekend. It is one of the best gift-with-purchase sets of the year. These sets, and many more, will be 20% off in Europe this weekend:The holiday shopping season is here and LEGO has published their Black Friday 2015 sales as well as their Cyber Monday sales which are both good in-stores and online. During this time, you can get the 2016 LEGO Wall Calendar with purchases of $75 or more online and the 2015 exclusive Gingerbread House (40139) with purchases of $99 or more, while supplies last.
There is also FREE shipping on all orders. I’ve organized the list that was sent over by themes so you can easily see which sets will be on sale this weekend. The sales will start at 12am EST on Friday and Monday.Here’s what could be the 4 biggest Black Friday dealsBlack Friday may be nearly two months away, but bargain hunters are already getting an idea of what sort of doorbuster deals they might find., an aggregator of online deals, has released its annual predictions for retail's favorite day - and says big savings on electronics will once again set the pace.The hottest dealThe biggest deal of the season, says the site, will be 60-inch HDTVs. Forecasters at DealNews expect to see doorbuster pricing for the sets as low as $549 this year. Better still, the site says, average prices for off-brand 60-inch sets will likely be that same price throughout the day, meaning there will be more than just a handful of sets available. It's forecasting the average price for a name brand set - like a Samsung or Sony - to come in at $775.Other TV Black Friday deals will range from $425 for a 4K 55-inch set to $1,279 for a 70-inch HDTV."
I think what might make this Black Friday stand out is quite a few of the better prices might be easily obtainable for people," says Lindsay Sakraida, Director of Content Marketing at DealNews. "Even if you can't get that rock bottom price, you'll get something close."Laptop deals DealNews says mainstream laptops could got for $300 this year, with budget laptops as low as $149. Sakraida notes that 2014 saw two retailers offering $99 laptops, something she says is likely to happen again this year.Even high-end, ultraportable laptops could see serious discounts. DealNews says a 13-inch ultraportable with a Core i5 CPU could see discounts of 30%. (However, it notes, that category is a "wildcard".)DealNews makes its predictions by analyzing three years of archived deal data. The site, on average, says it has historically been correct on about 70% of its predictions for the retail holiday. Since Black Friday has long since bled over into other days, the site's predictions are for all of "Black Friday week" - including retailers who offer deals on Thanksgiving day.
(Some bargain hunters, of course, got started earlier than usual this year, when Amazon, Target and other online retailers had a high-profile skirmish in July.)Tablets While there have been few deals in most of 2015, DealNews says it expects across the board discounts on Apple, Android and Windows tablets. It expects the iPad Air 2 to go for as low as $300 and the iPad Mini 4 to reach the same level. The iPad Mini 2 could go as low as $199.Sakraida warns that while Apple will offer its own Black Friday sale, shoppers should avoid that and focus on offers from resellers like Best Buy, Amazon and Target, which often offer small discounts on the products as well as store gift cards of up to $100 with each purchase.A fierce battle in the streaming spaceThe competition between Amazon, Google, Roku and Apple in the streaming space should also result in significant bargains. DealNews expects the Google Chromecast to drop to $25 and Amazon's FireTV Stick to $20, while previous generation AppleTV boxes will fall to $50.
The new Apple TV may be offered for as little as $135.What about toys? DealNews says you're likely going to have to venture out on Thanksgiving to find it. And while you can expect up to 60% off on some LEGO sets, any hope of discounts on Star Wars toys for the entire holiday season is slim.Not everything will be significantly cheaper, though. The most notable deal vacuum this year could be in the smartphone space. Since so many carriers have eliminated subsidies, getting a free or severely discounted phone could be difficult, says Sakraida."In the past, Black Friday was a great time to get a free smartphone," she says. "But this year AT&T is the only [carrier] with subsidies for new customers. so you may not see as many this year." doing 20% off 3 or more select lego items, some of which already discounted. Black Friday, historically the starting line of the retail industry's crucial holiday buying season, has become a multiday quest, with shoppers desperate to get their hands on bargains and tough-to-find items keeping cash registers — particularly of the virtual kind — ringing Thursday and Friday.Shoppers spent $1.93 billion online on Thanksgiving, up 11.5 percent over last year, and another $490 million by 7:30 a.m. on Black Friday
, according to Adobe. Thanksgiving Day online sales might have been even bigger if not for deeper price cuts, particularly on items like tablets, TVs and toys, and higher-than expected sales on Wednesday as retailers began offering early online promotions, Adobe said. But for shoppers like Tony Cardenas, of Milwaukee, the quest remains a foot chase. At a Best Buy store at Harlem Irving Plaza in Norridge early Friday, Cardenas was running on three cups of coffee after scouring three stores on an all-night search for a mini Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition — a game system expected to be one of the season's hottest items. Cardenas failed to find the coveted system but picked up a $400 laptop and a TV.Of the 65 percent of U.S. consumers who planned to shop on Black Friday, 53 percent will buy online, with the rest spending at brick-and-mortar stores, according to an Accenture survey. Many combine the two, standing in stores with their smartphones, comparing in-store prices to online deals.
People shopping on mobile devices spent a record $771 million on Thanksgiving, up nearly 60 percent over last year, which Adobe principal analyst and director Tamara Gaffney attributed in part to consumers surreptitiously clicking "buy" at the Thanksgiving dinner table.Overall, shoppers are expected to spend $655.8 billion this holiday season, up 3.6 percent over last year, according to industry trade group the National Retail Federation. Shoppers at Chicago-area stores said crowds were bigger Thursday night than Friday morning. When a New Lenox Wal-Mart unveiled its door-busters at 6 p.m., all shopping carts had been claimed and jammed traffic in the aisles. A nearby Target was relatively orderly but running out of discounted Lego sets.By Black Friday morning the frenzy had cooled, though traffic picked up as the day went on. "I've seen worse," said Cintya Mejia, of Norridge, at Target with Eloy Galvez, who was buying a $200 40-inch Westinghouse TV for his brother. "A couple of years back, it was crazy."
Wal-Mart was "too crazy" and crowded on Thanksgiving, so Antwan Anderson, decided to shop at Best Buy on Black Friday in hopes of a less frantic experience. He was one of just two people in line at the Lincoln Park store at 7 a.m. Friday."I got in line last night at 6 p.m., but the (laptop) I wanted was already sold out," he said. "So I wanted to come back and make sure I get one." On North Michigan Avenue, about 150 protesters marched along the Magnificent Mile to raise awareness of police misconduct and inequality in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods. It was the second year in a row activists attempted to disrupt Black Friday shopping, though last year's protest drew thousands, following release of video that showed the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, by a white Chicago police officer.A loud confrontation broke out between police and demonstrators trying to block access to the Apple, Cole Haan and Nike stores, but protesters obliged when police officers escorting shoppers into Victoria's Secret asked them to let customers pass."
I don't see it disrupting a whole lot," said Jeff Crockett, of Harrison, Ark., in town visiting with his girlfriend and her daughter. "I guess they're making their point."One of the longer lines spotted Friday morning on Chicago's Near North Side wasn't at an electronics or toy store but at Binny's, which had a line around the block waiting to buy versions of Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout, released each year on Black Friday.People near the front of the line had been waiting since about 5:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, and many had traveled hundreds of miles to get their hands on a couple of bottles of the rare beer. Four friends — Matt Mead, Ryan Hardin, Nick Braasch and Joe Snyder — made the trek from Grand Rapids, Mich., equipped with a tent and space heaters so hot that a sleeping bag melted.Additional data on Thanksgiving and Black Friday spending and store traffic won't be available until later this weekend, but retail analysts predicted a moderate uptick in spending this season, citing low unemployment, a recent ramp-up in retail sales and rising consumer confidence.
"The exciting part is consumers are feeling confident about their economic situation, particularly in Chicago," said Stacy Kemp, a principal at Deloitte. About 41 percent of Chicagoans said their personal financial situation is better than last year, 5 percent higher than the national average. Chicagoans were also slightly more likely than the average American to say they planned to spend more during the holidays than last year, according to Deloitte.Still unknown is whether a contentious and divisive presidential election will tighten or loosen consumers' grips on their wallets. But some retailers were optimistic the end of the campaign meant consumers would no longer be distracted by politics.Wal-Mart, Kohl's and Target were upbeat about initial Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales numbers, particularly online.Target and Kohl's both reported double-digit, record-breaking online sales growth."The most encouraging trend I'm seeing is while guests were in our stores shopping for our big door-buster items, they continued to shop multiple categories," said Target CEO Brian Cornell said hours after door-buster sales kicked off Thursday evening.