Let’s get this straight right now, I’m going to be sleeping in on Black Friday morning. Heck, depending on how much turkey I eat the day before, I might not rustle until eleven”ish”. With three kids, I realize this is more of an aberration than a reality.

Sure, I’ll undoubtedly have a bunch of Black Friday coupons on my website, but you won’t find me standing is some ridiculously long line at Best Buy freezing my ass off.

Why? Well, a couple years ago, I discovered a way to get close to the same “door-buster” prices without getting out of my pajamas.

It is called eBay.com. Essentially it works like this. A bunch of “wanna be” entrepreneurs stand in line for hours to get the great deals, then turn around and sell them on eBay for a small profit. So be sure to check eBay on Saturday, November 30th and December 1st for an influx of “hot” Black Friday products.

A Real Life Example of this Frugal Hack in Motion…

A couple Black Friday’s ago I was in dire need of an external hard drive.

I had all of these great family pictures and videos and was running out of space for them on my computer’s hard drive. So I did some research and settled on a 1 TB external drive from Western Digital. The average asking price was right around $99.

So I decided to see if I could score a Black Friday deal. According to their Black Friday ad, it was selling for $69.99 at Best Buy from 6 a.m until noon. So I set my alarm and was all ready to head for the store a 5:30 a.m to save a quick $30.

At 5:15 the alarm went off and my turkey filled body said “Yeah right, this ain’t happening dude.” So I rolled over and kissed my $30 savings good-bye.

Then later that weekend, on a whim, I went on eBay.com and did a search for my external hard drive. What happened next will shock you. Their auction marketplace was flooded with them and they were selling for right around 75 to 80 bucks.

That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. People are snatching up the “door-buster” deals and unloading them on eBay for a quick profit. Genius idea if you don’t mind freezing your cahones off in the cold for hours on end.

So long story short, I snatched up a “Buy It Now” auction for $75.99 with free shipping and ended up only paying $6 more than if I had actually gotten up before dawn.

What Products Work Well with this Strategy?

Obviously, I have found shopping for consumer electronics using the eBay method works really well. Things like HDTV’s, Bluray players, digital cameras, tablets, laptop computers, and accessories. Similarly, popular toys for Christmas are all over eBay right after Black Friday. Also, home goods and small kitchen appliances work really well as they are easy for eBay sellers to stock-up on and ship.

Ask the Reader: Have you ever used eBay to score a Black Friday deal? Do you plan on braving the elements this year or are you avoiding it all together?

And yes, that is indeed a picture of me sawing logzz!

By Kyle James