While the holidays were in full swing, stores were bustling with holiday shoppers. However, the amount of money spent during Black Friday and Cyber Monday dramatically decreased since last year during the pandemic.

    According to an annual survey from the National Retail Federation, consumers planned to spend an average of $997.73 for themselves and their families during the 2021 holiday season, which was a lower average than  the pre-pandemic high of $1,047.83 in 2019. 

   Cyber Monday hit a record low this year when it comes to spending. As CNBC covered, “Cyber Monday online sales dropped 1.4% from last year to $10.7 billion, falling for the first time ever.” This was unexpected, considering the percentage of people celebrating the winter holidays has risen from 87% to 90% over the course of the past two years. 

  Many shoppers thought this year was pretty disappointing. There were very few deals that actually made many shoppers say, “Wow. What a great deal. I’ll buy this” There were little to no doorbusters and all the merchandise was basically the same price. 

   We did, however, find a few hidden gems such as cute clothes, pants, makeup, and shoes at stores such as H&M and Target. Other than that there wasn’t much going on.

   We went to many different stores including big box stores and smaller stores. Smaller stores had an advantage over the big stores in terms of crowd size.

  Kohls, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Five Below were extremely busy so we bought nothing there. Sephora’s deals on expensive items made no difference and they were still too expensive with discounts, so we bought nothing there. 

   To our surprise H&M was the best deal, 30% off on everything! With that deal We were able to get two shirts that were originally $5.99 for the 30% deal. Our total came out to $9.12 which was a really decent deal for two shirts. This Black Friday we only spent $40, which is a lot less compared to last year when we spent nearly $300.

   Senior Bailey Sparks also went shopping on Black Friday. Sparks bought candles at Bath and Body Works, gift cards from Starbucks, Pottery Lounge gift cards, hair dye from Sally’s, and socks. On the previous Black Friday they bought the candles online.

 “Things felt more expensive and there were way less deals this year,” said Sparks. “I only participated in real life shopping due to shipping prices. The best deal was the Bath and Body Works candles.”

   Sparks did more Black Friday shopping this year than they did last year. 

   “It was way busier this year,” said Sparks.