Right that is me done for the day. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions you’ve sent me. I expect I’ll be here on Monday for Cyber Monday when you can look forward to about four times the number of Doctor Who references being crow-barred into it. And it will be the same drill on Monday too, trying to highlight offers from smaller sustainable ethical businesses in among the big-hitting offers from major retailers. Thanks for reading - and keep sending me suggestions to martin.belam@theguardian.com and maybe I’ll feature them on Monday. Have a good weekend.

Etsy is packed full of small companies and individuals and they are offering up to 60% off across Homewares, Jewellery, Clothing, Personalised Gifts and more for Black Friday.

Similarly, RedBubble hosts creative products made by small businesses and sole traders, and they are offering 25%-60% off over the Black Friday period.

Not On The High Street champion small, creative businesses and are also offering Black Friday discounts that will end at midnight on Monday. Sales apply across a range of their 5,000 sellers and products, and they’ve also created a dedicated edit of products that are half price.

Trouva are all about helping you find the perfect item or gift that might be “sitting in a characterful, little store on a quiet street in a place you don’t even know yet”, by giving small business owners an online platform. At the moment, they have up to 50% off for their ‘Boutique Black Friday’ sale curated from their boutiques from across Europe.

Obby are offering 30% off the courses and workshops you can book through the service, which includes Christmas wreath making, house plant happiness, drawing classes and more.

RoomFifty sells ‘affordable, museum-quality prints by 50 of the best illustrators and designers in the world’ and today, they are offering 20% off all prints.

Sustainability in fashion has been a huge issue in recent years, and here are some options if you are looking for clothes but worried about the environmental impact.

People Tree, specialists in sustainable and fair trade fashion, have 30% off everything until 2 December at midnight. To justify their stance on sales, they outline that’s important to them that discounts don’t affect their producers’ wages or livelihood.

As an alternative to Black Friday, Thought are donating 50% of today’s sales to Woodland Trust, dubbing it ‘Thoughtful Friday’. Scandinavian brand Lindex are discounting 25% off everything until Sunday, also valid on their sale items - a rare gift.

Toms - who provide shoes, sight, water and safer birth services to people in need - have up to 50% off, with lots of vegan shoe options included.

Oxfam’s online fashion section is imploring us to do Black Friday differently, with every purchase helping to beat poverty, while saving 40% on everything from womenswear to gifts.

Oh, and here are some tips we had earlier this year for getting more out of your clothes:

• Commit to wearing every piece 30 times. If we doubled the amount of time we kept clothes for, we would cut our fashion emissions by 44%.
• Get smart about fibres. Cheap cotton and synthetics come with huge environmental footprints. Cotton uses unsustainable amounts of water and pesticide. Go for hemp blended with organic cotton and silk and lyocel/modal.
• Treat cotton as a luxury fibre. Buy products certified as organic to be free of the pesticide burden and plan to keep them for years.
• Wash clothes less often. The average laundry cycle releases hundreds of thousands of tiny fragments of plastic from synthetic fibres into waterways. Put jeans in the freezer and remove dirt when frozen. Fleeces have been shown to release the most plastic fibres.
• Use a rental service. Peer-to-peer clothes and accessories rental services such as Hurrcollective.com and byrotation.co.uk aim to make use of some of the estimated £30bn worth of clothing left hanging in wardrobes. Other models include rent-the-runway, where membership gives you access to a number of pieces per month.
• Delete shopping apps from your phone and swear off insta-shopping for fashion. Go shopping for clothes in a shop. Feel the fibre, interrogate the structure – especially the seams – and make sure it fits.
• If dry cleaning is a must, use an eco-friendly process: conventional dry cleaning harms the soil, air and water. Use Johnson’s GreenEarth system or a dedicated eco cleaner such as Blanc.

I’m going to be taking a lunch break shortly, as I’ve been hammering away at this since 6:30am. But before I do that, here’s Alan Bradshaw channelling the thoughts of a lot of you in the comments this morning.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but not everything on Black Friday is a bargain, or worth suddenly splashing out on with a wild impulse buy. And this very definitely applies to the next item. I mean, it might be £500 off, but do you really need* a genuine original vitreous enamel London Underground sign in your house? The Transport for London Museum has a discounted selection available, including an original roundel sign from Liverpool Street station, a snip at £2000. But imagine the fun you could have carrying it around the underground network and standing holding it in front of a station’s real sign, just to confuse tourists.

[*I do]

Someone in the comments said this was just Daily Mail-style consumerism but without the ALL CAPS shouting. I hope two successive updates featuring ALL CAPS shouting - three if you include this one - has disabused them of that notion. Talking of newspapers though, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Guardian Weekly magazine has got an offer today, which is 40% off the subscription price.

If you don’t know it, Guardian Weekly is a round-up of the world news, opinion and the long reads that have shaped the week, and it was an absolute godsend when I lived outside the UK for a couple of years. It is - although obviously I would say this, wouldn’t I - a great gift idea for someone living abroad.

I’m an absolute music nerd [LENGTHY PLUG FOR AUTHOR’S OWN BAND REMOVED - Ed.] so one of the things I had been thinking about was obviously loads of new music software so I can twiddle with pretend knobs all day. Insert your own punchline. Audio Plugin Guy has a lengthy list here of stuff that is on sale cheaper today. Producer Hive also have a similar effort.

If you are thinking about buying other people’s music, rather than making your own, especially if you are thinking about buying other people’s music for someone who is a bit of a collector, then can I recommend to you the Super Deluxe Edition website, who are keeping track of the best prices on those 5CD/2DVD/Book reissue packages which are in vogue at the moment.

Now, for those of you saying the best way to save money on Black Friday is just to do nothing, I’ve got just the thing. Here’s a rather neat list of 5 time-unlimited, priceless Black Friday offers from the Sharpham Trust, in Totnes, Devon. They suggest things like “Go for a winter walk in nature”, “Spend some quality time with friends” and “Put some winter feed out for the birds and spend time watching them” as ways of spending the day instead of spending the cash.

Just thought it might be worth another mention - as it is a common thread in the comments, and I’ve had some emails asking why would the Guardian live blog something like Black Friday. Here’s the reply I’ve been sending to people:

“Hey, thanks for your email. It’s maybe a fair point. Personally I know we will get a lot of traffic to the site today via search for Black Friday, and if I can try and direct people to more sustainable and ethical choices than if they landed on a different newspaper website, then I think it is worth us doing, and providing a service to our readers. Today I’m trying to be the Black Friday live blog on the web that has a focus on giving, fund-raising and small sustainable businesses, rather than links to [REDACTED BIG BUISNESS] et al. Guardian readers are still going to buy gifts for loved ones, why not try and help them save money. But we keep it under review, I don’t think we live blogged it last year, although I did do a summary article of deals I think, and a Cyber Monday live blog. I appreciate what you are saying though - it is something that we have thought about quite hard.”

And to that end, please do feel free to keep emailing me if you are a small ethical sustainable business with Black Friday offers - martin.belam@theguardian.com - and I’ll feature the ones that catch my eye.

I was planning to make some joke about it being a Black Friday for Arsenal and Manchester United fans after their dismal Europa League performances last night, but now that Arsenal have sacked Unai Emery maybe their fans will at least have cheered up a bit.

Pro-tip though, if you’ve got a football fan in your life you need to buy gifts for, nearly every football club is doing discounts in their online store at the moment. There’s up to 20% off at Manchester United, Arsenal have up to 50% off, Spurs have got up to 25% off, Manchester City have up to 50% off and so on.

Liverpool have opted to brand their sale as “Red Weekend”, with 20% off when you spend more than £75. They have a black away kit this year though, so a missed opportunity for a Black Away Kit Friday pun or two.

Hey, even my beloved Leyton Orient have got a sale on.

I see someone below the line mentioning that I’ve used the word “folks” which is an Americanism. I mean, to be honest, the whole of Black Friday is an Americanism, so I think I can be excused. I think I’ve always said “folks” though - I blame watching too many Bugs Bunny cartoons in the seventies.

Talking of cartoons - and by extension comics - Forbidden Planet have got some absolutely massive reductions on comic books and graphic novels at the moment, which could be ideal to buy for the geek or lonesome awkward teenager you need to get gifts for. Or me. You could buy me the cheap Doctor Who comics slashed from £18.99 to £1.99!

Trees have been in the news this week, as Labour were promising to plant a gazillion of them, and lots of people did the maths to “prove” that we don’t have room for one single extra tree in this country, apparently, and it was a ludicrous policy. The people at Pomp disagree. Their Black Friday offer is “Buy one, get one tree”. I approve of puns by the way, more of this sort of thing please.

For every order of their ethically-produced clothing made by Tuesday, they’ll plant a tree. They also have an ongoing promotion courtesy of Prof. Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading who kindly allowed them to use his warming stripes graphic for their #showyourstripes collection. Profits from the sale of items from this collection fund their membership of a social enterprise planting trees.

Gift company The Book of Everyone are offering 50% off any personalised map when bought with a personalised book, which saves up to £25. You have to follow this link. The company say their books are completely carbon-neutral.

The idea with the map is you can pick somewhere that really means something to you. What would I pick? The bridge in Paris where I proposed to my wife? The beach in Crete where we first discussed having kids? The bit of Oxford Street where I got stopped and searched by the police in 1988 on the suspicion that I had been shop-lifting cassettes from HMV? The possibilities are endless.

I’m trying to set a new world record for the number of times somebody can type ‘of’ instead of ‘off’ in a live blog. All praise to the sub-editors who keep coming in to tidy up my mess afterwards.

In the meantime I’m rather taken with this, some really lovely looking gifts made by a couple, Syreeta and Rob. Rob suffered a near fatal brain haemorrhage and stroke in 2014 could only communicate by drawing for a really long time. They’ve turned his art into a business - Moments Of Sense & Style - and today, instead of Black Friday, they are doing Give Back Friday. For every sale made today, they say they will donate 15% to the Stroke Association. There are prints, scented candles, and some really lovely looking sketches of places like Altrincham, Lincoln and London.

Time Flies for Kids are a new company, founded by two mums based in the South West. They design and make eco-friendly activity packs for kids. The packs are made from 65% recycled and fully recyclable cardboard and the idea is that everything in the pack is either recyclable, biodegradable or reusable. They are offering 30% off everything over the Black Friday weekend.

My colleague in France, Angelique Chrisafis, says that Black Friday has been a spark for protests there:

“In France, climate protestors are using Black Friday to stage high-profile protests and sit-ins over the impact mass-consumerism.

Friday’s demos began before dawn as several dozen people protesting over unfair tax structures for internet giants as well as climate change arrived at Amazon’s French HQ at Clichy outside Paris shouting “Stop back Friday!”. Politicians on the left as well as Greenpeace were present.

Yesterday, green protestors had blocked a vast Amazon warehouse in Brétigny-sur-Orge outside Paris, unloading old washing machines and microwaves and lying across the road to the entrance. After two hours, police moved the demonstrators, with eight arrested for blocking the traffic.”

You’ll notice I am being quite selective about which companies I link to today.

Here’s an initiative which takes the concept of Black Friday and then turns it into something much more worthwhile. Ethical superstore are instead doing Food Bank Friday. The deal gives you 20% off, plus they promise to donate much-needed grocery items to the Newcastle West End Foodbank with every order over £30.

If you’ve got questions about why we need food banks in the UK in 2019 however, allow me to point you over to where my colleague Jedidajah Otte is doing our general election live blog.

We’ve got comments open - you are very welcome to join in, and I’ll be dipping in below the line when I can. One of the main themes of course is “Why is the Guardian doing a Black Friday live blog at all”. Simple answer, as far as I’m concerned. Guardian readers buy Christmas presents, and I’m hoping to help save them some money, and maybe direct them away from the more obvious web-shopping destinations towards smaller sustainable and ethical businesses. 👍

Apologies, just took a break from posting there while I commuted into the office. Can confirm that Transport for London are not having a Black Friday sale on tube fares today.

Anyway talking of ethical Black Friday, one of the biggest differences you can miake to you our carbon footprint is switching to a meat-free diet. Gauthier Soho have been in touch to point out that are offering a Black Friday sale on their vegan taster menu for two.

At £65.50, even with discount, that might be out of your price range. Possibly more to your wallet’s taste are the offers from the Vegan Kind Supermarket, who have a range of deals on offer over the weekend.

This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Roka bags in London are doing Black Friday a little bit differently - a portion of each bag sold this Friday will be donated to Plastic Oceans, an organisation committed to pollution education and waste reduction. And Roka’s sustainable bags are each made using between 12 and 15 recycled bottles.

Seen anything similar to this? Let me know: martin.belam@theguardian.com

As I mentioned in my opening preamble, I’m not just interested today in banging out a load of links to where you can get great deals - although of course I will be doing that. But I’m also interested in the sustainability and ethics side of Black Friday. Are you doing something for Black Friday that isn’t about spending cash, but is instead about fund-raising or giving? Are you a small business or retailer with interesting quirky gift ideas that would make a nicer present than something off the regular high street? What about deals on things that people can experience, rather than spending on goods? Drop me an email at martin.belam@theguardian.com and I’ll include some of your ideas in the live blog.

As I mentioned in the intro, Black Friday has become a firm fixture of the pre-Christmas season, but increasingly with the climate crisis on the horizon people are re-thinking whether a massive splurge of consumerism is the right thing to be doing before Christmas. Here’s Eva Cruse with some thoughts about how Black Friday fuels the damage that fast fashion is doing to the environment.

Phones are always a big seller during the festive season, and if you are thinking of getting one of the latest models you could do worse than check out our buyer’s guide from my colleague Samuel Gibbs, our consumer technology editor.

I actually need a new phone myself, thanks to a small incident when I was out playing Pokémon Go with my youngest. True story, he was actually a little bit worried the Pokémon might escape when between us we managed to shatter the screen.

I had been thinking about switching to Giffgaff, their Black Friday deals are offering up to £100 off the latest models. Apple’s own offers this weekend seem to boil down to giving you gift cards of varying amounts to spend in the Apple Store.

Or maybe I won’t get a new one at all - just get the screen on mine patched up and try and break out of the cycle of renewing a phone that is working well enough every couple of years.