Black Friday Buys!

Yep, I'm one of them. I love the thrill of chasing a bargain. Cold, lack of sleep, only makes it better. This year I went through the ads on Thursday, wrote up my list, and layed out an agressive game plan all by 10 am in the morning. I had to analyze the sales, and determine which items would go really fast, and which ones would probably still be there later in the morning. It was tough, and I really took some risks. Overall, the shopping day was a great success!

For the first time, I went to the KB Toys sale. Normally the stores open at 5am and people have been lined up since 2am. This year I went to a store that opened at midnight. I expected the line to be huge and to miss out on some items. To my surprise, there were less than 100 people in line. The store is small, so it was still packed, but I got everything I wanted and was able to leave by 1am.

Then I napped for a few hours before waking up around 4am to leave for Target. Target doesn't open until 6am, so it was a pretty long wait. (I should have gone to Mervyns, because it was right next door, and I had my sister to hold the spot in line. I didn't see anything in the ad, but it would have been warmer than outside.) Target was so great! They came around and passed out goody bags. I got a re-usable shopping bag, a numbered collectible plush animal, cookies, granola bar, and gound coffee. Inside it was a madhouse. I wanted some items from Electronics, and they made us wait in another line. Actually that was good, there was less chaos in electronics. But the store is not set up for a big line of people and their shopping carts. While I stood in line, my sister did all the other shopping. We got some good deals on DVD's, clothing, an external harddrive, flash drives, video games. It felt like forever, but it only took us an hour at Target.

Next on the list was Best Buy. All the movies were really picked over, but we found the titles we were looking for. There were still plenty of inexpensive DVD players, MP3 players, and cameras.

Then it was off to JoAnn's. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few things on sale that weren't mentioned in the ad (unless I was missing a page). Sixxix die cuts were 40% off, add 20% on top of that, and you pay only 48% of original price. What a deal! Paper was on sale, so into my cart went the DCWV Ultimate Christmas slab, and the Extreme everyday paper stack. I used the 50% coupon on an item, add 20% on top of that, and I paid 40% of the original price. So many things were on sale, it was hard to find something to use the 50% coupon on. I settled on a bubble slot corner punch by EK Success. I'll have cards to show soon. Plastic storage containers and stickers were 50% off too!! I had a very full cart.

I crossed 3 people off my gift list, and I just need to work on 4 more.