Black Friday Shoppers Gearing up for Weekend Splurge

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and with it comes the most chaotic shopping season of the year. The price-cuts and sales of this holiday weekend have become an American ritual, and many experienced shoppers are preparing for this annual shopping event.

The National Retail Federation takes a survey of Thanksgiving weekend spending activity every year. Their reports show that this year, 70 percent of Americans plan to do some form of shopping — whether it's lining up outside of Best Buy at 5 AM on Black Friday, or logging into Amazon at the crack of dawn on Cyber Monday. That means that more than 164 million people will be taking out their wallets this weekend.

Their survey also found a startling rising trend. More and more people list their reason for hitting the mall on Black Friday as "family tradition." For many of us, Thanksgiving is a time to travel and spend some time with our family, and for many of those families, that quality time is spent bonding in a crowded mall or outlet, rushing to beat the shopper behind them to a sale.

The NRF has also found that Cyber Monday shoppers are becoming about as savvy and predictable as their in-store counterparts. Cyber Monday shoppers have got their holiday gift acquisition down to a science. There are methods out there of cross-referencing prices and hunting down coupons and deals that are simply much easier than running from store to store.

That's not to mention the appeal of getting all that shopping out of the way early. Still, for some, the deal-hunting and mall-crawling is the meaning of the season.