TheTodayNews.com

$1 specials aren’t just for fast food menus…$1 can also buy you an HDMI cable! While big-box retailers such as Best Buy have been lightening the wallets of their customers for years by charging $40, $50, and even $70 for a basic HDMI cable, Amazon.com has offered a cheap HDMI cable with little fanfare, costing under a dollar.

It looks the inventory bean-counters at Best Buy have finally noticed the masses of customers who have purchased an HDTV but left the store without coughing up for an HDMI cable, since Best Buy now offers a $9 HDMI 3′ cable.

Although $9 is an appropriate price-point for the convenience of having it immediately, if you know you’re going to buy an HDTV this Black Friday you can still save a lot of money by getting a handful of $1 HDMI cables in advance online before backing up the truck containing your new über-TV.

Sure there are some select deals on big-ticket items (in limited quantities of course), but for your seasonal or Christmas shopping needs this year there is really no reason to wait until the Black Friday ads come out.

A trip to a Cleveland-area Macy’s earlier today garnered us a Boston Harbour leather jacket, suggested retail price $395, for just $120 after sales and markdowns! (Actually we could have gotten it for $105 had we opted to sign up for a Macy’s credit card on the spot.)

But the $395 to $120 hacking in price made us wonder: do stores ever actually PRICE these jackets at $395? Or is the retail tag just a marketing gimmick to make people think they are getting a great bargain?

Either way, this season it is all about the discounts. You can probably complete your Christmas and seasonal shopping long before Black Friday, and just kick back at home in your Snuggie as everybody else hits the malls that AM.

Black Friday 2009 will soon be upon us. Although standing outside a big-box store at 4am, both hands wrapped around a Starbucks coffee to keep warm in the 20-degree pre-dawn chill brings back nostalgic memories, The Today News .com staff will instead look for our Chicago Black Friday ad sales online, wrapped in our Snuggies. (OK, not wrapped in Snuggies. Seriously, has any guy actually gone out and BOUGHT a Snuggie?)

And we are not alone; The Yahoo! sales team has discovered that Black Friday showed a 147% increase in online sales. So set that alarm early, press a few clicks, and go right back to sleep faster than you can say “I’d like a grande double-mocha latte frappachino please!” (Don’t end up like the girl below from one of the Houston Black Friday ad sales!)