Want the best holiday deal? Skip the turkey

Looking for the best deal? You might want to skip the turkey and shop on Thanksgiving.

An analysis of sales data and store circulars by two research firms contradicts conventional wisdom that Black Friday is when shoppers can get the most and biggest sales of the year. Of course, if you're looking for specific deals on items with limited shelf-life like toys and clothes and you don't care about specific brands, then shoppers should wait until the end of the season for bigger price cuts. Not to mention, plenty of stores pulled forward some deals earlier this week.

Here are the numbers:

THE STORES:

— There are 86 laptops and tablets on deeply discounted specials at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and others on the holiday compared with just nine on Black Friday, according to MarketTrack. It also counted 36 video game system deals on Thanksgiving, and two on Black Friday. And for Thanksgiving Day, MarketTrack counted 27 audio electronics deals, compared with three on Black Friday.

ON THE WEB:

— Online prices on Thanksgiving are expected to be about 24 percent cheaper compared with 23 percent on Black Friday and 20 percent on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe, which tracks data on 4,500 retail web sites. The average discount all year is 10 percent.