As families across the country stuffed themselves with the traditional delicious food of Thanksgiving last week, many avid deal hunters spent the day contemplating the game plan for the night ahead. Stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy become war zones for frugal holiday shoppers every year. While the tradition of starting off the Christmas-gift-purchasing season on Black Friday has slowly become Black Thursday Night in an attempt by retailers to lure more customers, shoppers in turn have gotten increasingly rabid in their quest for the greatest deal.

Nowadays, shopping online seems about as common as doing so in person. Because standing outside a Best Buy in the freezing cold waiting to fight middle-aged mothers for that last half-off DVD player isn’t what some people would call “fun,” there’s also “Cyber Monday,” basically a Black Friday for online purchases.

Besides showing our country’s unrivaled obsession with consumer goods, these shopping holidays reveal just what types of products people crave. This year, the answer was new tech gadgets. According to IBM, 10 percent of online buying on Black Friday was due to iPads alone and more than 16 percent was due to any type of mobile device.

Clearly new tech devices are the hot item on Christmas lists. But if running out the door Thanksgiving night to wage war on your fellow bargain seekers doesn’t strike your fancy, and you missed “Cyber Monday,” there is still hope left for the gift buyer on a budget. With the endless resources of the Internet, there is no reason to get caught up in the hysteria of Black Friday when the pursuit of a cheap item can be done any time.

One of the most popular bargain finders is slickdeals.net, a website where discounts are found and posted by users. Much like the link-sharing site Reddit, links to deals are voted on by users as either good or bad. This, in turn, influences how prominently they are displayed. The site is simply a list of links to discounts and can be filtered by type, such as TVs, computers or clothing. The deals can range from predictable to obscure on items like shavers, magazines, pizzas, appliances and everything in between. If you know an exact item you want to purchase, it can be frustrating to have to look through all of the myriad links and categories, but it can offer a variety of bargains to those who aren’t quite sure what they might want to buy.

Of course, there are always more well-known places to find a bargain, such as websites like Craigslist. But as anyone who has browsed its blue and white pages knows, saying that the site can be hit or miss is probably an understatement. Since what is available to buy is dependent on what users actually have to sell, finding an item worth pursuing can be a struggle. And because most items are used (sometimes extremely so), product descriptions can often range from honest to outrageous. Because the site is split into geographical areas, it is usually used for large items, such as vehicles or furniture.

But if you’re looking for a cheap way to get a tech device that sellers usually want to get rid of for a bit of cash, Craigslist can be a decent resource. The Champaign-Urbana electronics section has items such as TVs and iPads, with prices from $40 to a $500. Craigslist should only be used by shoppers who are either desperate or looking for older items on the cheap, so use with caution.

This holiday season, remember that you don’t need to participate in what has basically become a shopping-fueled riot to get presents for friends, family and yourself. Just sit back, take out that shiny electronic device you got last year and use all of its cool outdated features to buy the one you want this year. And maybe something for your parents too; after all, they might be participating in that riot for you.

Tim is a junior in Engineering.