Amazon announced today that it will hold yet another sale event at the end of March. The "Big Spring Sale" will start on Wednesday, March 20 and run through Monday, March 25. This is the first time Amazon will host a spring sale like this in the US, as it previously held a similar sale event in the UK in 2023. However, unlike Prime Day, the Big Spring Sale will not only feature exclusive discounts for Prime members — shoppers who do not pay for the annual membership will be able to take advantage of spring sale deals.

It's notable that the Big Spring Sale doesn't place an emphasis on Prime. In addition to drumming up more sales than usual, Amazon Prime Day, typically held in July, and the company's second Prime Day held in October, attempt to entice potential new Prime subscribers to pay up so they can get access to exclusive discounts. Given the details of today's announcement, we'd hesitate to call the new event a "spring Prime Day" because it doesn't appear that the retail giant is taking the same approach this time around. It remains to be seen how many Big Spring Sale discounts will only be available to Prime members (if any).

What kind of deals can we expect at Amazon's Big Spring Sale?

It’s unclear how much of a boon the Big Spring Sale will be for tech deals. Amazon’s announcement mentions few gadgets like Echo devices and Kindles, and mentions discounts up to 40 percent off select electronics. However, Amazon usually features a lot of fashion-focused deals as winter comes to an end and the first days of spring arrive. The announcement calls out deals on "spring fashion, outdoor furniture, lawn and garden essentials, cleaning and organizing products," all of which are items we typically see go on sale in the March-April time period across the web.

We at Engadget do not cover deals like these (although you can head to our friends at Yahoo if you’re interested in that). But we will cover the Big Spring Sale insofar as we can elevate the best tech deals to come out of the event. That will also include discounts that may not be explicitly tied to the Big Spring Sale, but are available on Amazon during the same time period. Sales like Apple's AirPods Pro for a record low of $189, the Roomba 694 robot vacuum for $179 and the PS5 Spider-Man 2 bundle for $400 would fall into that category.

After a few weeks of rumors, Apple announced the newest entries to its MacBook lineup today: 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models, both powered by the M3 chipset. As anticipated, the M3 addition is the biggest change for these notebooks, bringing them in line with the latest MacBook Pros and 24-inch iMac, which were all updated at the end of 2023 to run on Apple's latest silicon. You can order both new MacBook Air laptops today from Apple's website starting at $1,099, and they will be available in stores on March 8. With these new machines, Apple has removed the M1-powered Air from its online store and the MacBook Air M2's starting price has dropped to $999.

Apple states that the M3 MacBook Airs will be up to 60 percent faster than the M1-powered laptop and up to 13x faster than old-school Airs running on Intel chips. Speed and efficiency are the big takeaways here, because otherwise the MacBook Air specs haven't changed much. The new 13-inch and 15-inch notebooks have octa-core CPUs and support up to a 10-core GPU, along with up to 24GB of RAM and up to 2TB of internal storage. Notably, the base 13-inch MacBook Air M3 has the same starting specs of the M2 model that came before it: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Display specs remain the same across the board as well: both new models include a Liquid Retina panel with a 2560 x 1664 resolution and up to 500 nits of brightness.

The only other noteworthy additions on the M3-powered MacBook Airs are the added support for Wi-Fi 6E (the M2 Air supports just standard Wi-Fi 6) and up to two external displays. The latter should be particularly useful for multitaskers and anyone using the new Air as a daily driver and wants to use more than one external display in their desk setup.

Color options have carried over from the M2 version as well: the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 are available in midnight, space gray, starlight and silver. Although it appears Apple's now billing the M2 Air as its "budget" option in the lineup, the M1 machine remains on sale (at the moment) at other retailers like Amazon when you can pick it up for as low as $750.

Like clockwork, the new year has brought new Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The company announced the new Galaxy S24 lineup today, which includes the flagship S24 Ultra along with the Galaxy S24+ and S24. The handsets will look familiar to Samsung diehards, and the company spent most of its launch event hyping AI features rather than hardware upgrades. The new phones boast AI perks like an enhanced photo editor, a “circle to search” feature, quick summarization tools and more. If you're on the market for a new smartphone, here’s how you can pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, S24+ and S24, along with everything else announced at Samsung Unpacked 2024.

I’ve always been pretty money-conscious, but I didn’t really get into budgeting until I was in my mid-twenties. “Budgeting” is generous — I thought I was budgeting, but really I was using a crude Google Sheet system to track my expenses every month. I didn’t truly understand the difference between those two things until I started looking into ways to upgrade. It had been working fine for me, but as I got older and wanted to grow my savings, save up for a home down payment and a wedding and generally do more “adult” things with my money, I started to scour the internet for alternatives. I settled on You Need a Budget (YNAB) about four years ago and I’ve enjoyed it so much that I keep using it even after achieving some of those milestones.

The YNAB Method is an approach to budgeting that resonated with me then and still does today. I won’t belabor the basics here, but put simply, you’re to give every dollar a “job” as soon as you get paid by taking care of immediate needs first and then accounting for the rest of your true expenses. The way YNAB does this is basically by acting like a digital envelope system where you can customize all of your envelopes (or “categories”) and the amount of money you need for each (“targets”), and dump money into all of them every time you get paid. For example, I know I need $65 each month to pay for internet, so I have an internet category in YNAB with a target of $65 each month that’s due by the 15th, since I’ll need that money to pay the bill on the 20th of every month.

Follow that example for all of the rest of your expenses like rent or mortgage payments, groceries, electricity, insurance premiums and you’ll have a full YNAB budget in place. You can (and should) also do that for “true” expenses, which include things like hair cuts and car maintenance in the YNAB system. You may not need a specific amount of money for things like that every month, but you can plan for them by saving a little every time you get paid — so by the time you need to get that hair cut ahead of a wedding or unexpectedly need a new set of tires, you have at least some, if not all, of the money necessary to pay it.

YNAB

I was already taking stock of my standard expenses and setting aside money for those first and foremost, but YNAB made the process much easier. It’s worth noting that was already part of my routine. I was privileged enough to get a decent financial education from my parents growing up (mantras like “pay yourself first” come to mind, and I see taking care of your most necessary expenses as a way of accomplishing that).

The game-changer for me was considering my “true expenses,” which added up quickly. The inevitable weekly takeout order, veterinary bills for our cat, train and rideshare fees and the like were all things I knew I needed to pay for but didn’t previously deal with until the time came. In YNAB, you can create categories for all true expenses and plan for them each month (or week, depending on how you budget/get paid) so there’s (hopefully) never a question of how you’re going to pay for any of them.

If you’re able to do this and get your expenses in order, it’s possible that you’ll find you have money left over each paycheck. Then you can expand your budget to think about other true expenses or sinking funds you may want to address. My line between true expenses and sinking funds is blurry at best, but the latter are just allocated monies you set aside for variable expenses that you know are inevitable like home maintenance or insurance premiums.

Holiday gifts were big for me; every year, I have even more people in my life that I need to buy gifts for during the holiday season and I never planned for that in advance before using YNAB. Now, I have a “holiday gifts” category with a generous target that I put money toward every month and set to be “due” every year in early October. As soon as sales start to kick in during the fall, I have a pool of money with which I can buy all of my loved ones’ gifts.

I should say that YNAB appeals to my Type-A, über-organized personality, but you can’t plan for everything. A few years back, I unexpectedly had to spend about $500 for some car repairs and I didn’t have quite that much in my “car maintenance” sinking fund. Instead of panicking, I moved some money over from my “clothing” category to cover the remainder of the costs. It was a bit painful psychologically (I love seeing those little green progress bars in the YNAB app), but it didn’t impact my finances at all. YNAB accounts only for the money you actually have, regardless of which category it’s in, so I wasn’t spending anything that I couldn’t afford. That’s really important to me, as someone who tries to live within their means — and as much as possible, below it — to avoid lifestyle creep.

YNAB

Getting back to those “adult” priorities I mentioned before: YNAB was one of the key things that helped me and my partner save up a home down payment and the funds we’d need to pay for our wedding simultaneously, without feeling too stretched along the way. We cut down (not cut out, mind you) on all unnecessary expenses and aggressively saved during this five-year period, and YNAB made keeping track of it all easy.

But I would like to stress that the service was just one of the things that helped, and there were other factors that contributed as well. It’s not realistic to suggest budgeting alone is the answer to all of one’s money prayers. But it’s certainly a step in the right direction and a good habit to build over time.

I consider YNAB up there with 1Password as one of the few services I’m happy to pay for every year because of how much it adds to my life. However, it’s worth noting that you don’t have to pay for YNAB to start budgeting using its tenants. The YNAB method, the envelope system and zero-based budgeting are all very similar and you can do them all with less expensive tools, and even manually with physical envelopes and cash. There are plenty of online communities with flourishing examples of how you can get started without paying for yet another subscription. I recommend checking out Taylor Budgets, Budget Treasures and other similar YouTube channels for more inspiration.

The holidays are right around the corner and you might be a little more behind on your shopping than you’d like to admit. We don’t blame you — between family gatherings and the final work rush before PTO kicks in, it’s hard to find the time to go to a store to pick out presents. And once you get there, you could find half-empty shelves and very few choices. But that’s why we have the internet: you still have time to buy holiday gifts online.

USPS, UPS and FedEx have laid out their holiday shipping deadlines for 2023: Ship your items via USPS by December 16 to have them safely arrive before Christmas, while FedEx and UPS have deadlines of December 15 and December 18, respectively, for standard shipping. At this stage in the game, we recommend picking up small, affordable gifts that will ship quickly so you have plenty of time to wrap them up nicely and make it look like you had everything well-planned from the start. Here are the best last-minute Christmas gifts you can get right now and still have in time before the holidays.

Amazon Echo Dot with Clock

Freelancers

Anker 511 portable charger

JLab Go Air Pop

TP-Link Kasa smart lights

PopSocket Phone Wallet

Amazon Smart Plug

UE Wonderboom 3

Stanley IceFlow Tumbler

Anker magnetic power bank (10,000 mAh)

Apple AirTag

Tile Mate

Blink Mini Pan-Tilt Camera

8Bitdo Pro 2

Audible Premium Plus

It's no secret that robot vacuums are some of the most expensive gadgets you can get for your home. But Black Friday robot vacuum deals make it a bit easier to grab one, and this year is no different. A handful of machines from Shark and iRobot have dropped to record low prices for Black Friday, including a few of our favorite models. You can snag a Roomba for as low as $159, which is one of the best prices we've seen all year.

But before making a purchase, we recommend thinking about the type of home you have and how you'll use the machine: do you have carpet or mostly hard flooring? Do you have pets who shed constantly? Do you want a combo vacuum-and-mop machine? Once you have those details settled, check out the best deals on robot vacuums for Black Friday 2023 below.

iRobot Roomba 694

The Roomba 694 is on sale for $159 in this Black Friday vacuum deal. It's our current favorite budget robot vacuum thanks to its strong suction power, easy to use mobile app and handy spot-clean function. It doesn't come with a clean base, but it has Wi-Fi connectivity and voice control with Alexa.

Anker Eufy RoboVac 11S Max

As part of Anker's Black Friday deals, the Eufy RoboVac 11S Max is down to $140, but a clippable $10 coupon will bring it down to $130. That's close to a record low and a steal on one of the best affordable robot vacuums we've tested. This model has a super slim design, helping it clean underneath tables, couches and other furniture better than competing machines, and it has a solid battery life as well. It's not Wi-Fi connected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It comes with a handy remote with which you can control the machine, making it a decent option for anyone who's never owned a robot vacuum before.

iRobot Roomba s9+

The Roomba s9+ is the most powerful model that iRobot makes, and it's down to $600 in this Black Friday vacuum deal. It's usual high price tag may be prohibitive for most, but it's a much better buy when you can get it on sale like this. We like it's elegant design, extra-strong suction power, home mapping and object detection features, and the clean base that comes with it.

iRobot Roomba j7+

The Roomba j7+ robot vacuum has dropped to $469 for Black Friday. This model comes with a self-emptying base and it has advanced obstacle detection so it can avoid things like pet poop, should your furry friend have an accident. It also supports cleaning schedules via the iRobot mobile app and voice commands from Alexa, Siri and the Google Assistant.

Shark AI Ultra robot vacuum

This Shark AI Ultra robot vacuum is on sale for $300 for Black Friday, or half off its regular price. Shark makes some of our favorite robovacs, and this one has strong suction power, a self-cleaning brush roll and support for home mapping and voice control with Alexa and the Google Assistant. Shark's machines also stand out because their self-emptying bases, like the one included here, are bagless, so you don't have to constantly buy proprietary garbage bags to use with them.

Shark AI Ultra 2-in-1 vacuum and mop

Shark's AI Ultra robot vacuum and mop has been discounted to $400 for Black Friday at Amazon and Best Buy. It has all of the same features in the vacuum-only model, but it also includes a water reservoir and a mop pad with which it can automatically mop floors for you. You have to switch out the dustbin for the reservoir whenever you want to mop, but otherwise the machine is pretty automated and convenient. The self-emptying base that comes with this model is also bagless.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Whether you're shopping for someone you love or yourself, Black Friday is arguably the best time of the year to stock up on digital storage. If you need a microSD card for your Nintendo Switch or camera, a speedy SSD for your PS5 or a high-capacity portable drive, you can find Black Friday deals on a number of the best models available today. Some of our favorites from Samsung, SanDisk, Crucial and others have hit record-low prices for Black Friday, which may make it tempting to pick up a couple of options to either give as gifts to the techies in your life, or save for yourself to use when the need arises. After combing through the slew of storage deals you'll find this year, here are the best Black Friday deals on microSD cards, SSDs and more that you can get for 2023.

Samsung Pro Plus microSD

Samsung Evo Select microSD

SanDisk Nintendo Switch microSD

Lexar Professional 1066x microSD

Samsung T9

Samsung T7 Shield

Corsair MP600 Pro LPX SSD

Crucial MX500

Crucial X8

Samsung 980 Pro

WD Black SN850X

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Black Friday is a great time to pick up big-ticket items while they're deeply discounted, and robot vacuums fit that bill this year. It's not hard to drop hundreds on an autonomous dirt-sucker at any other time of the year, but Black Friday deals have discounted a bunch of our favorite models. Before snagging a deal, think about the type of home you have and how you'll use the machine: do you have carpet or mostly hard flooring? Do you have pets who shed constantly? Do you want a combo vacuum-and-mop machine? Once you have those details settled, check out the best deals on robot vacuums for Black Friday 2023 below.

iRobot Roomba 694

The Roomba 694 is on sale for $159 in this Black Friday deal. It's our current favorite budget robot vacuum thanks to its strong suction power, easy to use mobile app and handy spot-clean function. It doesn't come with a clean base, but it has Wi-Fi connectivity and voice control with Alexa.

Anker Eufy RoboVac 11S Max

As part of Anker's Black Friday deals, the Eufy RoboVac 11S Max is down to $140, but a clippable $10 coupon will bring it down to $130. That's close to a record low and a steal on one of the best affordable robot vacuums we've tested. This model has a super slim design, helping it clean underneath tables, couches and other furniture better than competing machines, and it has a solid battery life as well. It's not Wi-Fi connected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It comes with a handy remote with which you can control the machine, making it a decent option for anyone who's never owned a robot vacuum before.

iRobot Roomba s9+

The Roomba s9+ is the most powerful model that iRobot makes, and it's down to $600 for Black Friday. It's usual high price tag may be prohibitive for most, but it's a much better buy when you can get it on sale like this. We like it's elegant design, extra-strong suction power, home mapping and object detection features, and the clean base that comes with it.

iRobot Roomba j7+

The Roomba j7+ robot vacuum has dropped to $469 for Black Friday. This model comes with a self-emptying base and it has advanced obstacle detection so it can avoid things like pet poop, should your furry friend have an accident. It also supports cleaning schedules via the iRobot mobile app and voice commands from Alexa, Siri and the Google Assistant.

Shark AI Ultra 2-in-1 vacuum and mop

Shark's AI Ultra robot vacuum and mop has been discounted to $400 for Black Friday. IT has all of the same features in the vacuum-only model, but it also includes a water reservoir and a mop pad with which it can automatically mop floors for you. You have to switch out the dustbin for the reservoir whenever you want to mop, but otherwise the machine is pretty automated and convenient. The self-emptying base that comes with this model is also bagless.

TP-Link Tapo RV10 Plus

TP-Link's Tapo RV10 Plus has dropped to $250 for Black Friday. It's normally a decently priced robot vacuum and mop, but this discount makes it an even better buy. In our testing, it did a good job vacuuming and mopping, and it has a pretty good battery life as well. It comes with a self-emptying base, and its companion mobile app is simply to use and provides detailed information about the machine, including suggested maintenance tips.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

If you've been eager to upgrade your wireless buds to Apple's latest, Black Friday deals will make that a little easier to do. The AirPods Pro with USB-C charging case have dropped to a record low of $190, which is $60 off their usual price. The third-gen AirPods are also on sale for $140. While Apple made tons of improvements to the more affordable buds, the AirPods Pro earned a spot on our best wireless earbuds list instead and are worth the extra spend.

The biggest perk of the latest AirPods Pro is their USB-C charging case, upgraded from Lightning earlier this year. The case is also MagSafe compatible, so you can use either a USB-C cable or a wireless charger to power it up. As far as battery life goes, the Pros should get up to six hours of listening time and a total of 30 hours of use when employing the extra juice from the charging case.

When Apple last updated the buds themselves, the company significantly improved audio quality and noise cancelation. Transparency Mode is a standout as well, which is the most natural sounding out of the many buds we've tested and reviewed. The AirPods Pro are, unsurprisingly, our top pick wireless earbuds for iOS users precisely because of how well they integrate with iPhones and iPads. You get quick pairing and switching with these buds, hands-free Siri access and spatial audio as well.

Apple's third-gen AirPods are a decent option as well, but you won't get many of the advanced features found on the Pros. There's no active noise cancelation, nor USB-C charging (you're stuck with Lightning), but you do get an IPX4-rated design, spatial audio, solid sound quality and all of the same iOS conveniences thanks to the H1 chip inside.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Whether or not you understand your loved one’s desire to wake up before sunrise and get in a 5K is irrelevant when it comes to gifting. Athletes, especially runners, are pretty easy to shop for since they can never have too many of the essentials like socks, gloves, foam rollers, trackers and more. There are plenty of things you can get them that will make their runs more enjoyable, or help them recover more efficiently so they can best yesterday’s time today. Here are the best gift ideas for runners for this year’s holiday shopping season.

Theragun Mini

Rise and Run: Recipes, Rituals and Runs to Fuel Your Day

Roll Recovery R8

Spibelt

Bombas Running Socks

Trigger Point Grid Travel Foam Roller

Yoga Toes

TrailHeads Power Stretch Fingerless Gloves

Apace Vision LED Safety Lights

Garmin Forerunner 55

Beats Fit Pro

Goodr OG Sunglasses