Denise Jones stood in front of shelves filled with toys Friday morning at the Walmart Supercenter in Elgin.
She was out early, Jones said, in search doorbuster Black Friday deals to help stretch a holiday budget being pinched by inflation.
“I’m going to get some bargains,” the Elgin grandmother and great-grandmother said. “I found a couple, but not much.”
She’ll also be doing some shopping on Cyber Monday in the hope of finding more deals but she admitted she’ll be spending less this year on gifts than in the past.
Jones isn’t alone in the hope of saving a little this holiday season.
The 2023 Deloitte survey, which surveyed about 4,000 people, found 66% of respondents will be looking for price breaks this weekend as opposed to 49% last year. And stores are responding with deals they hope will persuade people to part with their cash on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.
Inflation as taken a toll on consumers, who are paying more for food, clothing and other basic items they need on a daily basis, leaving them with less money for gift buying. According to www.statista.com, prices are up an average 3.2% from what they were in October 2022 and in October 2023.
Deloitte found that, among other things, people are trimming their list from nine gifts to eight this year.
In addition to inflation concerns, people told Deloitte their ability to save money has declined and 17% of respondents said repaying student loans they thought had been erased by a presidential initiative later reversed by the courts is hurting their bank accounts.
Luis Briceno, of Elgin, said he’s one of those people who was out hunting for bargains Friday. He won’t be buying as much as in years past, he said.
“It’s very difficult so we’ll be spending less,” Briceno said. “(Prices have) risen a lot. There’s a lot of inflation.”
One deal he found was on a flat-screen TV, which he said he decided to splurge on since he and his new wife don’t have children yet. And thanks to all the price cuts already offered before Thanksgiving, he won’t be doing much shopping on Cyber Monday, he said.
“We’re buying everything today because we don’t have much more money,” Briceno said.
Melissa Malone arrived early Friday at the Kohl’s store at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee/Carpentersville. It’s the last anchor store still open at a place that had once been a Black Friday shopping mecca.
Unlike those days of yore, before online shopping and sales were a thing, there were no huge crowds to be seen this Friday. And that was OK with Malone, who lives in Carpentersville.
“I don’t do Cyber Monday,” she said. “I just like to see things.”
This year, she has fewer people to buy for but that doesn’t mean she still didn’t want a good deal, she said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
