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Create a killer Black Friday plan to get all the best deals

Review all your local store flyers in one handy place and build a complete shopping list with just a few taps of this app.

rickbroida
rickbroida
Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
2 min read
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Flipp has many Black Friday ads available for your perusal.

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

You know the old saying: People don't plan to fail on Black Friday , they fail to plan for Black Friday.

Indeed, if you want to win the day, to score every killer deal from every store, you need to do a little planning. Not too long ago, that meant spreading out all the ads on Thanksgiving (because that's when they came out, of course), carefully comparing prices and locations, circling items you wanted, then mapping your route between stores.

That's no longer necessary. By using the free app Flipp, which aggregates store flyers -- including those for Black Friday -- you can quickly and easily craft an effective shopping plan.

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Tap any item to circle it and add it to your list. Digital ink FTW!

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

It works like this: Run the app, then agree to let it access your location so it can find flyers from nearby stores. Next, choose your "favorite" stores from the list. (This won't impact your ability to see Black Friday circulars; it's for future circulars, coupon-clipping and so on.)

Once initial setup is complete, tap the Browse option in the bottom menu, then find and tap Black Friday up top. Choose any store flyer, then swipe left or right to peruse the pages. When you see something you might like to buy, tap it. Presto! Flipp circles the item in digital ink and adds it to your shopping list.

You can swipe up to advance to the next Black Friday circular or down to go back to the previous one.

When you're all done browsing and tapping, choose Shopping List and then tap Clippings. Now you can see everything at a glance: each store and each item on your list.

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When you're done, view everything at a glance.

Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

The whole process is incredibly easy, and the resulting list is incredibly handy. It's also a great way to compare prices on similar items so you don't have to remember from one ad to another. (Shopping for a DJI Spark , for example? Add it wherever you see it, then you can look and see which store has the best price.)

The only thing I don't understand is why Flipp seems to be missing a few key Black Friday ads, like the ones from Best Buy and Home Depot.

Thus, if you've found another solution for browsing Black Friday ads and quickly building a shopping list from them, by all means share it in the comments!

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