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Black Friday

Waited all year for the one sale worth getting up for?

The best savings of the year. Get your deal now.

  1. Admit oneOne readingFor Secret Santa
  2. Admit oneOne readingFor The boss
  3. Admit oneOne readingFor Staff room
  4. Admit oneOne readingFor A teacher
  5. Admit oneOne readingFor Neighbour
  6. Admit oneOne readingFor You

The deal

Checking with the machine…

What it is

Black Friday is the day after American Thanksgiving, the traditional start of holiday shopping. The name came from Philadelphia traffic police, not accountants. At the Midway Machine it means our lowest price of the year on a pack of six reading tickets: personalized cards for everyone on your list.

This weekend the pack of six reading tickets costs less than at any other time of year. Each ticket is one personalized card: whoever gets it types in their own birthday, and the machine emails them their card a few minutes later.

It's a gift that doesn't come in a box and never goes back to the store. Six covers the office Secret Santa, the staff room, a teacher or two, and that one person who is impossible to buy for.

How to tell a real Black Friday deal

Black Friday is real. A lot of Black Friday "deals" are not. The British consumer group Which? tracked 227 Black Friday offers from eight big retailers in 2023, checking their prices for the 12 months before and the six months after. 92% of them were the same price or cheaper at some other point in that time. 1

A few habits sort the good ones from the noise:

  • Make a list and a budget first. A bargain on something you didn't need is still money spent. 2
  • Check the price history, not the "was" price. Price trackers such as CamelCamelCamel or PriceRunner show what an item has actually sold for over the year. 1
  • Don't let the clock rush you. Similar or better prices often come round again. 1
  • Compare the total. Look at the same item at a few stores, online and local, and count the shipping. 2
  • Read the return policy before you pay. Keep the receipt, the order number and the policy together. 2
  • Shop on secure pages and treat gift cards like cash. Look for https in the address, and be wary of "offers" that ask for financial details a purchase doesn't need. 2

    Hold us to the same test. When the deal is on, the panel at the top of this page shows what each reading works out to in the pack, next to what a single reading costs on any ordinary day.

    What the research says about gifts people like

    Spending more doesn't buy more thanks. Stanford researchers Francis Flynn and Gabrielle Adams found that givers expect a pricier gift to be appreciated more, and recipients don't feel that way. It held for engagement rings and for ordinary birthday presents. Givers may spend $100 on something the recipient would only have paid $80 for. 3

    Experiences tend to bring people closer than things. In four studies, Cindy Chan of the University of Toronto and Cassie Mogilner of UCLA found that experiential gifts strengthened relationships more than material ones, because they stir up more feeling. Yet 78% of the people they asked said their latest gift had been a thing. 4

    That's the thinking behind a reading ticket. It isn't an object that sits on a shelf. It's a few minutes of somebody reading about themselves, usually out loud, usually to somebody else.

        Why it is called Black Friday

        1. 1951The earliest known use of "Black Friday" for the day after Thanksgiving is in a trade magazine article about workers calling in sick that day. It had nothing to do with shopping. 5
        2. Late 1950s to early 1960sPhiladelphia police started calling it Black Friday. Downtown filled with shoppers, the Army-Navy game was the next day, and officers worked 12-hour shifts in the traffic. 6,5
        3. 1961Philadelphia merchants hated the name and tried to rebrand the weekend as "Big Friday" and "Big Saturday". It didn't stick. 5
        4. 1970s–1980sThe name spread to other cities. In the 1980s the story that stores went "into the black" that day began to circulate, a kinder explanation than traffic jams. 5
        5. 2012Canadian retailers adopted Black Friday to keep shoppers from crossing the border. One poll found 14% of Canadians planned a cross-border Black Friday trip, up from 6% the year before. 7
        6. 2015A weak Canadian dollar and online shopping kept more Canadians at home and shopping on their screens instead. 8
        7. 2024US shoppers spent $10.8 billion online on Black Friday alone, according to Adobe Analytics. 9

        Two things most shoppers get wrong

        • The name came from traffic police and a trade magazine, not from shops going "into the black". That story only appeared in the 1980s. 5
        • In one year of tracking by Which?, 92% of Black Friday offers were the same price or cheaper on some other day. 1

        Why this weekend

        Black Friday is when everybody cuts prices, so we cut ours the furthest. The deal runs while the countdown runs, and then it's gone until next year.

        Everyone else is fighting over televisions. You'll be the one handing out something nobody else thought of.

        How it works

        1. Order the pack. A few minutes later your email brings a printable page of six ADMIT ONE tickets (two by three, with cut lines and a To and From line on each), plus a link to forward each ticket by email.
        2. Hand them out: to the office Secret Santa, the staff room, a teacher, the neighbours, or forward one by email to someone you haven't seen in a year.
        3. Each person redeems theirs with their own birthday, and their own card lands in their inbox a few minutes later.

        Each ticket is one reading for one person and works once. Tickets are good for 12 months from the day you buy them.

        Questions

        Is this really the lowest price of the year?

        Yes. The pack is never cheaper than it is this weekend.

        When does the deal end?

        When the countdown at the top of the page hits zero. After that, this page stays up and tells you when it's back.

        Can I buy enough for the whole office?

        One order holds up to two packs: twelve tickets, one for each person in the gift exchange.

        What if someone doesn't believe in astrology?

        They don't have to. The cards are for entertainment, and most people who read their stars do it for fun.

        Why is it called Black Friday?

        Philadelphia police called it that in the late 1950s and early 1960s because of the traffic and crowds downtown the day after Thanksgiving. The story about stores going "into the black" came later, in the 1980s.

        Are Black Friday deals really cheaper?

        Some are. Which? found 92% of the Black Friday offers it tracked were the same price or cheaper at another time of year, so check the price history before you buy.

        Sources

        1. Nine in 10 Black Friday "deals" cheaper or same price at other times of the year (26 November 2024), Which?. Read on .
        2. FTC's tips for happy holiday shopping (Gretchen Abraham, 20 November 2019), Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Advice. Read on .
        3. Research Confirms It's the Thought That Counts (Marguerite Rigoglioso, 1 December 2008), Stanford Graduate School of Business. Read on .
        4. The science of gift giving: U of T research on the best kind of present to receive (Don Campbell, 16 December 2016), University of Toronto News. Read on .
        5. The Origins of "Black Friday" (Ben Zimmer, Word Routes), Vocabulary.com. Read on .
        6. "Black Friday" started in Philly (25 November 2011), The Philadelphia Inquirer. Read on .
        7. Retailers embrace "Canadian" Black Friday (2012), Global News. Read on .
        8. Black Friday losing appeal for cross-border shoppers (Laura Wright, 26 November 2015), CBC News. Read on .
        9. Cyber Monday Hits Record $13.3 Billion in Online Spending with Majority of Sales Driven by Mobile (3 December 2024), Adobe (press release, Adobe Analytics data). Read on .

        For entertainment and self-reflection. Astrology and numerology are traditions, not science.

        Spotted something wrong, out of date or missing? The corrections page says how we fix it.

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