THE HELP DESK The Help Desk: Top Tips

Scoring the hottest Black Friday deals

Forget about limited-quantity doorbuster deals, here's how to take home the the best holiday bargains.

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By Gerri Willis, CNN personal finance editor

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Black Friday is nearly here. And we have your guide to the hottest deals and how to score them.

1. Go beyond the doorbusters

OK -- so we all know about the doorbusters, the $3 appliances at Target (TGT, Fortune 500), the washer/dryer for $580 at Sears, (SHLD, Fortune 500) the HDTV for $600 at Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500). But, the truth is that many of these doorbusters have limited quantities -- sometimes as little as 2 items per store. So, we hunted around and found out deals that WILL stick around this Black Friday.

You can save about $100 on 32 inch LCD flat screen TVs. On Black Friday it's going for $380 at major retailers. The average retail price is $500.

You can save about $40 on average this Black Friday on GPS devices.

Digital photo frames are discounted about $50 bucks.

And digital cameras are going for about $100 on Black Friday, a savings of about $30 on average.

This year more retailers are luring consumers in by concentrating on the dollar price point, like $3 toasters, instead of saying something is 85% off says Frank Luby, a retail-pricing expert and partner at marketing consultants Simon-Kucher & Partners. Generally the higher the price tag, the deeper the discount will seem, says Melissa Perenson, senior editor of PC World.

2. Let the tweets come to you

You can use social networking sites to give you the heads up on deals. Twitter feeds that follow Black Friday sales allows you to get last minute deals says Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine.

One advantage to using Twitter is having up-to-the-minute Tweets sent right to your cell phone. Just type in twitter.com/blackfriday or type black Friday into the search field so you can follow the deals.

If tweeting isn't your thing, you can also track Black Friday deals through Facebook. If you have an iPhone, there's a bar code scanner app. This way when you're at the store you can scan the barcode and see if you can get it anywhere else for less money.

-- CNN's Jen Haley contributed to this article.

Talkback: What's your strategy for finding the best Black Friday deals? To top of page

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