If you're making a game plan for Black Friday shopping, you may want to start considering stores' price-matching policies. That's when a store says they will match the price a competitor is advertising. It's a good way to score a deal at a store that may have more inventory of the item you want.

Remember if you're price matching that you generally need to take the advertised sale (ie, the store flier with the price advertised) to the store that you want to match it. The folks at dealnews.com have compiled a list of stores and their price-matching policies. You can find it here.

And, while we're on the topic, I'm looking for Black Friday volunteers. If you will be out with a team of shoppers bright and early scouring for the best deals, I might want to tag along. E-mail me if you are interested.

There's a new coupon for 25 percent off one item at Barnes & Noble stores. There's some fine print, but overall, that's a good deal. The coupon is good through Nov. 22.

Here's the link!

Food Lion and BB&T have partnered to offer customers who open a new checking account gift cards from Food Lion. If you're planning to open an account soon, that could be a great way to get a little more.

But there's a lot of fine print, including the fact that you get a $10 gift card when you open the account and then are eligible to receive up to $40 more over the course of the year.

Here's the link to the offer.

If you're looking for a reason to get in the holiday mood, there are two events happening tonight that could help.

Tonight from 5 to 8 p.m. Cameron Village is hosting its open house complete with entertainment, a visit from Santa and other kids' activities. Also remember that the first 800 guests who spend $100 can claim a $25 Cameron Village gift certificate (purchases at grocery stores, Rite Aid and ABC Store are not included). Click here for more.

North Hills is holding its open house tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. You'll have the chances to win prizes, take part in special promotions and enjoy some entertainment tonight. There's also a giveaway. Spend $100 and get a free pair of tickets to Cirque Dreams Holidaze on Dec. 1. Click here for more.

Andrea has posted this week's Frugal Feast on our Mouthful blog.

This week: Crock Pot Italian Wedding soup

Here's the link!

With one weekend left between now and Thanksgiving, retailers are pulling out all the stops and putting everything related to Thanksgiving on sale. If you have a big freezer or a second refrigerator, now would be a fantastic time to stock up. Baking items, especially butter, are ridiculously cheap this week. And of course things like turkeys, hams, gravy, rolls and frozen pies are all on sale.

Note that because of the holiday, the normal sale cycles for some grocery stores are a little different this week. The sales in the Lowes Foods and Harris Teeter fliers are good through Thursday the 26th. That means we’ll probably see a little mini-flier from both of them next Friday and then a "regular" flier the following Wednesday. And the sales in the Food Lion flier are good for two full weeks.

One final thought: If you’re afraid all that holiday eating will give you heartburn, this is also a good week to stock up on Prevacid. Just this week, Prevacid became available over the counter and it is on sale everywhere. Partner that with the $4 coupon from Sunday and you have quite a deal.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Deal of the week: Best price on butter this week is at Kroger, where Kroger brand butter quarters are three for $5. If you’re a brand-specific type of person, you can score Land o Lakes butter for $2 at a lot of stores this week. Remember, butter can be frozen, so go on and stock up. The USDA says it will maintain its quality for two months.

Click “Read more” to see the list! And remember, if the store has a loyalty card, you’ll need it to get the sale price.

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OK, I know that at this point I sound like a broken record, but today is the LAST DAY to sign up for coupon class!

Don't you want to come join us?

Remember that in addition to learning about using coupons, rebates and meal-planning, you will also be eligible to win some pretty cool door prizes, from coupon books to gift cards to area stores.

Also, remember that anyone who brings a food bank donation will get an extra ticket for the door prize drawings!

Here's the link to sign up! 

Hot Coupon World has some new printable coupons today, including one for $2 off a whole Butterball turkey. (You know, if you happen to be needing one of those this time of year...)

Here's the link. 

Many thanks to everyone who entered my new pricebook contest.

The winner of the random drawing for Clue: Secrets & Spies is tammy_baldwin.

And the winner of coffee with me for making the most entries is carytexan. No surrpise there!

Tammy and Carytexan, please shoot me an e-mail at sue.stock@newsobserver.com and we'll work out the details about collecting your prizes!

Just a reminder that you have until tomorrow to register for my coupon class this Saturday.

Come learn about how to save more money using coupons, rebates and smart meal planning.

This will be the final coupon class of the year, so don't miss it! NO LATE REGISTRATION WILL BE ALLOWED.

Click here to register! 

Apparently, it's National Seafood Month. And you can turn that into a 20 percent discount at McCormick & Schmick's using the coupon below.

Be sure to read the fine print. There are some exclusions, and it's good only on one menu item, not your total order.

But still, that's a nice deal! Expires at the end of this month.

Today's the last day of the buy one get one Progresso soup sale at Harris Teeter, and there is a great $1.10 off ONE coupon for the High Fiber varieties.

You can find the coupon through two links. One may work better for your browser, depending on which one you use.

Link 1 and Link 2 

I found an interesting post over on The Consumerist Web site the other day. It was 10 confessions of a telemarketing insider. Having received plenty of telemarketing phone calls it was kind of interesting to read.

Here's the link... 

Sears has partnered with a company called Gazelle to launch an electronics recycling program that includes old cell phones. That's awesome because I have at least three of them sitting in my house!

The gist of the deal is that you go to http://sears.gazelle.com/ and fill out a little survey about the items you have. You get an offer and then instructions on how to ship your items to Gazelle for free. Upon receipt, your items are inspected and you are issued money back, in the form of Sears gift cards. Just in time for the holidays, too. Oh, and if your item is determined to have no value, Sears will recycle it for you anyway.

Sears is one of a number of retailers now offering such services. Another popular one is the recycling program from Office Depot that was launched earlier this year.

Mark your calendar for the Cameron Village holiday open house on Thursday, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Santa will be there, in addition to a lot of other performers and entertainers. There will be gifts for kids, and the first 800 guests to present receipts showing they've spent more than $100 at Cameron Village stores will receive a $25 gift certificate to the center (that excludes the grocery stores, the ABC store and pharmacies).