Free Apps: Black Friday Shopping

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when stores offer various deals and incentives to try to turn a profit for the year, has grown into an intense, competitive, in some cases week-long or month-long shopping extravaganza. If you're planning to head out this Friday, please keep these tips in mind:

1. In most cases, the store employees would rather be at home with their families (or in bed sleeping) than ringing up purchases at 5:00 a.m. Be courteous, be respectful, be friendly, and make sure to say "please" and "thank you" and "Happy Thanksgiving!" or "I hope you have a good day." A little kindness can go a long way to make someone's day better, and you'll usually get a better experience out of it, too.

2. Be safe and be cautious. It might sound ridiculous, but people really have been seriously injured and even killed in Black Friday chaos. Keep your wits about you, don't try to fight over anything, and, if possible, use the buddy system.

3. An advertised price isn't always a good deal. Just because it's Black Friday doesn't mean that all the prices are the best they'll be all year, or that every store has the best price on every item. And, in general, just because a price is listed in a weekly advertisement doesn't mean it's a significant sale, or even a sale at all. So have a rough idea of what you're looking for and what the "regular" prices are; you can also use a comparison app to scan barcodes to check prices at other stores.

...which leads me to the main point of this post: free apps (for Android, since that's what I use) to help you with your Black Friday shopping. Just click through for a run-down of the best apps to help you find deals, score more, compare prices, and calculate your discounts.