Shopping

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is typically the busiest shopping day of the holiday season -- at least at the mall. Online merchants, on the other hand, herald the arrival of Cyber Monday -- the Monday following Thanksgiving, when consumers swarm the Internet to find once-a-year deals with a few ...

By Steve Karnowski, Margery Beck and Anne D'Innocenzio MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Count your blessings, then get to work. That may be Thanksgiving for more retail workers this year, as stores desperate to pull in buyers on the first weekend of the holiday shopping season push their openings earlier and earlier. ...

Ahhh, discretionary income. What most Americans wouldn't do to have more of it. It's the amount of money we have left over after paying for life's necessities -- food, clothing, shelter -- that goes toward buying fun stuff, such as iPads, vacations, jewelry or new cars, and more serious things, such as health ...

A likely sign of the return of consumer confidence, 53 percent of those surveyed by ShopperTrak said they plan to keep shopping this week, despite the snow and cold. That's an encouraging number, considering only 47 percent said they were going shopping last week, which included the few days before Christmas, ...