How Actors Can Leverage Black Friday Sales to Save Money on Career Necessities

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have transformed into a months-long shopping extravaganza. What used to be a single day of big deals now seems to start in October and run all the way through January, making it easy to get swept up in the excitement of discounts and impulsively spend way more than usual before quickly regretting those purchases.

What if I told you there was a regret-free way to use the Black Friday sale season that would also benefit your acting career?

When it comes to stocking up on all your acting essentials at a fraction of the price, it’s all about going in with a strategy, sticking to your priorities and using the discounts to benefit you.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through how to leverage Black Friday sales to save money on these career necessities.

Create Your Acting Career Essentials Wishlist

Before you dive into those sales, make an acting career essentials wishlist. This step is crucial for staying intentional and not letting the discounts control you. You want to use the sales to your advantage, not let them take advantage of you.

Take a few minutes to sit down with your Notes app, your Amazon cart or whatever tool you like, and compile a list of all the acting career essentials that you’ve been wanting. This could be replacing an old self tape backdrop that has a stain on it, upleveling your lighting kit, or a gift card for an acting studio you’ve been wanting to take stage combat classes at.

Here’s some things you may want to add to your list:

Ring Light or softbox lighting kit for self tapes

Collapsible backdrop (especially if you live in a smaller apartment!)

Updated phone for higher-quality video

Sturdy audition bag

High-quality athleisure to wear to dance calls

BELTBOX for vocal warm-ups in tight quarters

Rehearsal/audition shoes

New luggage to use for out-of-town contracts

Hair styling tools to help you achieve those pre-2000s updos

Improv classes (some studios offer discounted class bundles)

Headshots (some photographers offer holiday sales)

Remember, every person has different goals and trajectories for their acting careers, so make sure your wishlist reflects your career essentials.

Create a Spending Plan

Now that you have a list of what you want, it’s time to decide how much you want to spend.

Look at your current bank accounts—what’s sitting in your savings? What income do you have coming in over the next month? Have you created your holiday financial plan yet? (check out this article for how to create one!

With your current finances in mind, how much do you desire to spend while utilizing these Black Friday sales (and any other holiday discounts)? Go ahead and put this amount into a savings bucket (banks like Ally have a feature inside of their bank accounts where you can visually split your savings up into multiple buckets), or you can just write down the amount.

Put a star by the things on your wishlist that are most exciting or essential, or you can sort the list from most important to least important. As the Black Friday sales start to pop up, you can focus on putting the spending amount you allocated toward the top priority items.

Remember, sales and discounts can be a wonderful opportunity if you plan ahead. The goal is to let the sales work for you—not against you.
Marketing teams are paid a ton of money to make you feel urgency, and like this sale will never come back again (it always will). Being aware of this makes it a lot easier to spot when you see those “LOWEST PRICE EVER, ACT NOW!” emails hit your inbox every day for the next two months.

By creating a wishlist beforehand and deciding how much you want to spend, you’ll be able to grab all your acting career essentials at a lower price and regret none of that spending later.

As Black Friday approaches and the sales start popping up earlier and earlier, stay calm, stay organized, and enjoy all of your new acting toys when audition season starts to pick back up in January.