One Week to Black Friday: The Best Deals You Can Get This Weekend

Every Friday, we scan the weekly ads, deal sites and retailer marketing emails to find the best deals available for the coming week. With Black Friday only a week away, we look at some of the early sales and deals already cropping up.

The video game industry struggled mightily in October, with U.S. sales dropping 25% versus the previous year, according to the NPD Group. But relief arrived this month in the form of two hotly anticipated games, Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Amazon is currently running a promotion on both games: If you buy either for Xbox 360, you'll get $10 off the price of a 12-month Xbox Live Gold Subscription. Just add the game and the subscription to your cart and the latter will be marked down to $39.99 from its usual price of $49.99. And if your game of choice is Halo 4, you'll also get $10 Amazon Instant Video credit with the purchase. The Xbox Live deal is good through Saturday, though it's not clear how long the Instant Video deal will last.

Starbucks is getting into the holiday spirit. Now through Sunday, when you buy a Starbucks holiday drink between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. local time, you can get a second holiday drink of equal or lesser value free. Eligible drinks are the Crème Brulee Latte, the Peppermint Mocha and the Gingerbread Latte.

Aeropostale offers 30% off most purchases this weekend with no minimum purchase requirement. On its website you can use the coupon code AERO30OFF to get the discount online, or print out the coupon for use in-store; the discount expires after Sunday, and fragrances and cosmetics are excluded.

Finally, BeFrugal.com passes along a great deal at LandsEnd.com: Through Monday, you can get 40% off any one item and free shipping on orders over $50 when you use the coupon code JOLLY and the PIN 1112. The deal excludes monogramming and gift cards, and expires Monday night at 11:59 p.m. CT.

Matt Brownell is the consumer and retail reporter for DailyFinance. You can reach him at Matt.Brownell@teamaol.com, and follow him on Twitter at @Brownellorama.