Every November, shoppers across the world gear up for the biggest retail event of the year: Black Friday. The promise of “70% off” deals, ticking countdown timers, and “only 2 left in stock” alerts make it feel impossible to resist.

But behind the discounts lies something more powerful than price tags: the psychology of Black Friday shopping.

Retailers know how to tap into our scarcity bias, push us into impulse buying, and exploit our fear of missing out (FOMO). That’s why so many of us end up overspending on things we don’t actually need. With holiday spending growing over 7% year-on-year, with both in-store and online purchases climbing sharply, it is no surprise that we face the dreaded January debt hangover.

But here’s the truth: you don’t have to fall into the trap. With the right approach, you can outsmart Black Friday marketing tricks, stick to your budget, and even come out ahead. Here are 7 survival tips to help you beat the Black Friday machine and protect your financial wellbeing this holiday season.

1. Make your shopping list before the sales start 
2. Don’t fall for fake urgency
3. Set a hard Black Friday budget
4. Compare prices before you commit
5. Focus on value, not just discounts
6. Sleep on it before you buy
7. Remember the marketing machine

Black Friday thrives on one thing: spontaneity. The flashing discounts, the ticking countdowns, the rush of “limited time only”, all of it is designed to nudge you into buying things you didn’t know you wanted five minutes earlier. And once you’re in that zone, rational decision-making starts to slip.

This is why the simplest and most powerful strategy is also the least glamorous: make your list before the sales begin.

It also helps to write your list somewhere you can’t ignore it — your phone notes, a sticky note on your laptop, even a quick spreadsheet. Then, when the adrenaline of the sales hits, you have something tangible to guide you back to reason.

Urgency creates panic. It narrows our focus so dramatically that we stop asking important questions like: Do I need this? Can I afford this? Is this actually a good deal? Instead, the brain fixates on not missing out. Psychologists call this loss aversion, the pain of losing an opportunity feels stronger than the satisfaction of gaining something.

Marketers know this. It’s the dark side of digital nudging that we’ve unpacked in another post. Marketers design websites with timers that tick down even if the sale resets the next day. They send you emails saying “Your cart is about to expire” (even though it’s not). They frame stock levels as scarce, because scarcity bias convinces us that rare = valuable.

But here’s the truth: more often than not, the urgency isn’t real.

So how do you resist? The simplest counter-nudge is this: pause and ask yourself, “Would I still buy this tomorrow at the same price?” If the answer is yes, maybe it’s worth considering. If the answer is no, then the deal is the one controlling you, not the other way around.

Black Friday is often compared to a shopping holiday, but in reality, it’s more like walking into a casino. The lights flash, the pace is fast, and every little win feels thrilling: “I saved 40%! I grabbed the last one!” In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget that money is still leaving your account.

Budgets also combat present bias, our tendency to value short-term pleasure (scoring a deal) over long-term stability (financial peace of mind). When you set a limit before the sales begin, you’re listening to your future self as much as your present self.

One of the sneakiest tricks of Black Friday is the illusion of a bargain. You’ll see banners shouting “Was R3000, Now R1500!” and feel an immediate rush of victory. But step back and ask: compared to what?

Here’s a real example:

A friend once bought a “discounted” coffee machine for R2500. It had been marked down from R5000. He felt triumphant, until he discovered the same model had been retailing for R2600 for months at another store. His big “win” was really just a small difference dressed up as a jackpot.

The lesson? Don’t trust the anchor; trust the data.

Reframe this with a question you ask yourself before every purchase: “Would I buy this if the original price wasn’t mentioned?” If the answer is no, then the “deal” only existed because of an anchor, not because of value.

Black Friday can be valuable if you truly need something, but only if you know the baseline price. Without comparison, you’re at the mercy of whatever number the retailer feeds you.

The psychology of Black Friday is built around one number: the percentage off. 30%. 50%. 70%. The bigger the discount, the bigger the rush. It feels like winning a prize, and for a moment, it doesn’t matter if we actually wanted the item.

But here’s the catch: a 70% discount on clutter is still clutter.

This is where the discipline of focusing on value comes in. Instead of asking “How much am I saving?” the better question is: “How much value will this add to my life six months from now?”

Cost-per-use thinking (or girl math 😉), a far more useful metric than “percentage off.”

On Black Friday, it’s easy to confuse price and value. Retailers scream about price; very few whisper about value.

Impulse buying is one of the strongest forces at play on Black Friday. Retailers know that if they can get you to decide in the moment, they’ve won. The flashing timers, the “only 2 left” banners, the urgent emails in your inbox, they all work together to push you toward an instant “yes.”

But here’s the truth: most of those “must-have” purchases don’t feel so urgent 24 hours later.

That’s why one of the simplest yet most powerful strategies is the 24-hour rule: if you see something tempting, wait a day before you buy it. If the desire is still strong tomorrow, and it fits your budget, then you can go ahead with confidence. But if the urge fades, and it usually does, you’ve just saved yourself money and regret.

Some people even adapt this rule further:

• The “one-week rule” for big purchases. Anything over a certain amount must sit on the wishlist for a week.
• The “sleep test.” If you can’t stop thinking about the item the next day, maybe it really is worth it.

The brilliance of this tip is that it’s free, instant, and requires no complicated budgeting tools. Just patience.

Every year, Black Friday feels like chaos. The flashing banners, the urgent emails, the social media ads that somehow know exactly what you’ve been browsing, it all seems overwhelming. But what often goes unnoticed is this: none of it is accidental.

Every element of a Black Friday campaign is carefully engineered. Retailers employ teams of behavioural scientists, data analysts, and marketers whose job is to design an environment that nudges you into overspending. It’s not just “marketing.” It’s a machine.

Alone, each tactic might be easy to resist. Together, they form a sophisticated system designed to chip away at your willpower.

But here’s the good news: awareness breaks the spell.

A reader once shared how this awareness changed her shopping:

“I used to fall for every countdown clock. But now, every time I see one, I smile and think, ‘Nice try.’ Just knowing it’s a tactic takes away its power.”

Some people even turn resisting the machine into a personal challenge, a game of awareness. “How many tricks can I spot this Black Friday?” That mindset shifts you from being a passive consumer to an active observer.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t buy anything on Black Friday. It simply means you’re buying on your own terms, not the machine’s. You’re not reacting to scarcity cues; you’re acting on your list, your budget, and your values.

Black Friday doesn’t have to be about overspending, stress, and regret. If you prepare, set limits, and focus on value, you can shop with confidence. This year, resist the FOMO shopping trap, avoid the January debt hangover, and make your money work for you, not the retailer.

Because at the end of the day, the best deal isn’t the one with the biggest discount. It’s the one that protects your wallet, reduces stress, and aligns with your financial wellbeing.

• Heuristics and biases in decision making – This was the first post in the series which shares some behavioural economics research. Specifically, the heurstics and biases that influence our relationship with money. It uses System 1 and System 2 thinking examples from Daniel Kahneman’s New York Times best selling book, Thinking Fast and Slow, to help us be more conscious of the workings of our brain. 

• Mirror, mirror, on the wall, stop telling me I’m wonderful – This post focuses on the impact of overconfidence bias in decision making. It introduces the illusion of knowledge bias and the illusion of control bias to illustrate the difference between confidence and carelessness. It also discusses the better than average effect, the self-serving bias and fundamental attribution error. You’ll learn how to confront some unpalatable truths and get out of any false sense of comfort (if you’re up for the challenge?).

• Why you can’t argue with a vegan – Ballsy title, we know. But if you read the post you’ll (hopefully) understand why. We’ll be discussing confirmation bias. It’s one of those psychological biases that you can see everywhere. We’ll also touch on cognitive dissonance theory. We all struggle with these biases. They’re both humorous and serious. But because of that, it’s useful to know how to avoid confirmation bias when you need to.

• Size does matter… when it comes to framing – This post uses framing effect examples to show how framing bias influences the way we interpret information and make decisions. We discuss glossing, the compromise effect, and how the size of the frame can influence the volatility of your investment portfolio.

• Loss aversion vs risk aversion – Once you understand framing, you’re ready for this post. It introduces an incredibly powerful bias known as loss aversion. It also touches on prospect theory, the disposition effect and impression management.

• Anchors pulling you down? – Anchoring bias is a straightforward behavioural bias that causes us to focus on a certain initial value and then make decisions with reference to it. This posts looks at some examples of this anchoring effect.

• The danger of the default – Default options nudge us to make better decisions. The option of opting out also respects freedom of choice. This post unpacks this notion of libertarian paternalism and the perils of status quo bias.

• Regret, it’s not a nice feeling – Regret influences the decisions we make and pushes us to conform to social norms. Examples of regret avoidance show us how this makes complete sense yet no sense at all.

• When the past influences the future – The Concorde effect is a famous example of sunk cost investment. Too often we invest time, money and energy into something we should’ve just abandoned. This post looks at some examples of how sunk cost fallacy affects our human decision processes.

• What’s mine is more valuable – In this post, you’ll learn why you place extra value on things you own. The endowment effect has implications for our investment portfolio, bonuses and consumer behaviour.

• How to improve self-control – Self-control is an essential life skill. It’s what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. Learn how to improve self-control to achieve your long-term goals.

• Procrastination is the enemy of success – We know procrastination is the enemy of success. But while it looks like laziness, it’s often just mental exhaustion at play. Learn how to overcome procrastination.

• The problem with wanting it now – When you delay instant gratification, you will experience long-term satisfaction. It’s the hyperbolic vs exponential discounting debate. Don’t let present bias win!

• The power of first impressions – The order of information influences your decisions. First impressions matter! It’s all got to do with primacy and recency effects.

• We prefer wrong information to no information – Availability bias and survivorship bias influence our decision-making. We make decisions based on the information available to us.

• Learn to deal with uncertainty – Risk and uncertainty will always surround us. Gambler’s Fallacy, the hot-hand effect, the law of small numbers & ambiguity aversion are just some of the biases that arise because of it.

• Stop stereotyping – Representativeness heuristic refers to the fact that we stereotype. It’s a mental shortcut. But beware of making unfounded comparisons.

• Mental accounting – Money is money! Or is it? Mental accounting says we place different values on different money which leads to irrational decision making.

• Money Illusion– Money illusion is a sneaky bias. It causes us to focus on the amount of money in our hands, rather than it’s purchasing power.

• Hone bias– We invest close to home and in what we know. But this lack of diversification results in missed opportunities. Say hello to ‘home bias’.

• Behavioural bias guide for entrepreneurs – We break down 5 common behavioural biases that could be sabotaging your business, with real-world examples!

• Digital Nudging – Discover how digital nudging shapes your choices online. From fintech savings apps to dark patterns in e-commerce – are apps helping you or tricking you?