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The end of February brought me grand baby number 7. I'm so in love with her.

You may remember that we didn't give away t-shirts last year due to some unforeseen events that took up much of my time. This year we will be giving away some fun t-shirts on a limited basis. Introducing this year's Black Friday t-shirt: This year's shirt pokes fun at the common sentiment that Black Friday has passed it's usefulness and has nods to some of the stores we've lost along the way since GottaDEAL first started covering Black Friday. The shirts will be given away in our traditional forum contests so be on the lookout for the first contest in the next week or two but know that they will be extremely limited compared to past years, so be sure to enter every contest that pops up if you want the best chance of winning one.

With so many different sales happening throughout October, November and December it can be a little overwhelming to keep track of everything. We have several ways to stay updated with all the new ads and sales that we post: 1. Sign up for our email newsletter. We'll email you about the latest sales and ads as well as the best deals we're finding throughout Q4. 2. Follow the Sale & Ad Discussion forum. On this page, there will be a light blue "Follow" button (on the top of the page if you're on a tablet/desktop and on the bottom of page if you're on a phone). You can get notified when we post new threads in this forum for each ad, sale or catalog. 3. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook , Instagram and/or Threads. We'll post updates on these accounts including when we post new ads or learn about upcoming sales. 4. Bookmark our Black Friday news page and check it regularly for the latest updates. This page also will have a list of ads we've posted, upcoming sales and more.

It has to be frustrating for people who want to shop on BF in store at Walmart because you have no idea which deals will be there without clicking on each item to see a) if it's sold by Walmart or a 3rd party and b) if Walmart carries it in store or is it online only. With the old ad you knew, these items should be available in store. But yeah, the full sale should be out Thursday morning unless plans change.

Happy May Day! A recent photo from our family farm property in Texas.

We didn't lose anyone in April. Still at 40 members.

I just received Menards and Farm & Fleet in the mail today. Will take pics and get them up on the site soon.

I still would prefer paper ads. Easier to lay them out and compare deals.

I really wish Walmart would stop selling stuff on their website from "other sellers"...if I wanted to purchase items from random people, I'd go to eBay...

I just conducted the random drawing from the 1,519 eligible entries and the 2 winners are... Bopeep (post ID #1569649 from the Amazon Black Friday Sale thread) ytmomof4 (post ID #1569019 from the Disney+ Deals on Black Friday? thread) Congrats to the two winners and be sure to check your messages to claim your prize.

I went to get my snow globe yesterday morning and ended up getting the $500 off of $500 coupon for my store. Totally unexpected! I just wanted the snow globe!

I put together a quick and dirty page with a schedule of when I think the various online sales will start this year. You can check it out here: https://gottadeal.com/schedule I'm still working on a new version of the old tracker and I expect to have that ready for next year. There's a lot of data to put on the page and have it work for both desktop and mobile screens so it's taking a little longer. But this simple page has the times listed, you can pick your time zone to customize it and each sale is linked.

First tracking # is in! This would be a good time to remind you - PLEASE post here when you receive your package, even if you are not opening until Christmas. It keeps my spreadsheet happy :).

I wish more ads were in print. I miss going through the big stack of ads on Thanksgiving to prepare for where to go first to get the best Black Friday deals.

I saw my shadow, so at least six more months of posting on this thread.

The Christmas tree will remain up for a while longer. The queen has decreed it...

Happy New Year! My luger, Kendall, returned home a few days before Christmas from a 2 week training camp and race in Utah, and just left yesterday for another 2 week training camp in Lake Placid, culminating in another race on Saturday, January 18. In the Utah race, she placed 4th, after being edged out by just 0.025 seconds. Not the result we wanted, and she was pretty upset to be edged out of the medals again, especially since she was 3rd after her first run, but the athlete who edged her out is also 2 years older than her, and has spent much more time on that track, where this was only Kendall's second training camp there. These athletes will meet again next weekend, on what is Kendall's home track, and we are hoping for a better outcome for her. Looking forward to being there to watch her race this time. We bring her home on the 19th, and she will spend about a month home before heading back to Utah for the final training camp of the season, where she will compete in 2 levels of National Championships in that time. In the meantime, she had an awesome article written about her that appeared on the front page of our local newspaper, and will have a third article written for our local area weekly Merchandiser in the next week or two. Today's photos include the pic from the front page of the newspaper article, and a pic from race day.

I miss quickly downloading the pdf ad scan leaks before they got taken down

With each passing year, I miss BF at Walmart pre 2020 all the third party sale items are kinda annoying… Times have changed, but I like the old school sales ad where we could actually turn the page and not do so much scrolling of almost endless products…

The t-shirt winners are: tinkrbel Hartcollectibles BFgrl79 Gator Pam rockpzazz Congrats and check your messages to claim your prize. Next contest soon!

Also, there will be t-shirts given away this year. Not quite as many as past years but I've got a few dozen here and they are kinda fun this year... more details soon.

Happy June! It's been a super busy month here, and with working tomorrow, I will have only worked 12 days the entire month (and I pretty much work every day to pay for luge), which is crazy for me. My oldest started his internship in Philly on June 2, so I moved him into his apartment on June 1. Then Kendall's last day of school was June 4, and she, my other son, my husband, and I boarded a plane that night to go see my BFF in FL for 10 days. Returned from FL on the 14th, worked 4 days, and then Kendall had a couple of teammates fly in for her sweet 16 on June 19th. Spent the weekend taking them to Hersheypark, bowling on a rainy day, and to a friend's pool, as well as taking Kendall to get her learner's permit, before driving Kendall and her teammates to Lake Placid to start their summer training camp. Came back home on Wednesday, and have been working every day since. I head back to Lake Placid in mid August to pick her back up, and she starts her junior year on August 25, and summer is done. Unfortunately, the few days I was in LP, I didn't get to see any luge practices, since they weren't doing wheels training, and they had testing to start the season, which they compare to where the finished last season, so nothing for spectators, unfortunately. The pic I do have was taken a few days ago, in front of the USA Luge start house (there are 2 frozen tracks inside where they practice exactly what it sounds like, their starts), and it is of all of the team that was in LP at the time, from the Development Team (beginners), all the way up to the Sr. National Team (including those who will be heading to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy in February). See you next month!

My landlords son’s birthday is next week, but my landlords are going to visit him this weekend. I generally bake some sort of goody for his birthday. This year it is This Old’s Instant Pot plain New York cheesecake with homemade strawberry glaze and strawberries. It will chill overnight and go up with my landlords tomorrow. I increase the recipe for an 8”x3” push pan, but the recipe is written for a 6”x3” pan. Jill gives directions for increasing the size for different diameter pans to keep the thickness consistent.

Happy 50th birthday to me month!!! I have clawed, scratched and climbed this hill and ready for the other side. Happy May!!!

April's here...hopefully bringing warmer weather here to stay. This past weekend we were close to 70 degrees, yesterday and today in the 40s and barely feeling like it. It's supposed to be warm again tomorrow but bringing in some nasty weather with it. On a good note...a couple weeks ago hubby won $10,000 on an Ohio lottery scratch-off! No April Fool's joke, he really did!

I have a friend who is planning to move across the country at the end of next month. She has a lot of canned goods she’s not planning on taking with her. I saw a photo the other day the free pantry at one of the churches in Kirkland showing it could use some donations. I also went through some of my shelved food stuffs I wasn’t using, packed them up and picked up some goods from my friend. I then made my first donation at the pantry. Here’s hoping I did it right. I’ll probably make a stop once a week until my friend’s back stock is diminished. The outside of the pantry at Holy Spirit. What I found when I first opened it. And a few non food items on the bottom. After I added the items I brought. I hope some of these items will fill needy bellies. A lot of these foods need a can opener. Not that I can afford it, but if I could find a deal on bulk inexpensive manual can openers, like at least 100 but no more than $20 for them, I might order some to donate along with the canned goods.

One to rule the tree ... And one to tear it down ... Who will win??? Tune in next time! Same cat time, same cat channel!

Happy February!! It's been a busy month since my last post here. My luger had.a training camp in Lake Placid for 2 weeks, culminating in the second USA Luge North American Continental Cup race, in which Kendall redeemed herself after missing a bronze in the first part of that race in Salt Lake City by 0.025 seconds. She won bronze in the Lake Placid race, besting the Canadian that beat her in Salt Lake City by a large margin. Next up is Kendall's final training camp of the season for 3 weeks in Salt Lake City, with Youth National Championships (for ages 12 to 17) taking place over the course of 2 days the second weekend of March, Jr. National Championships (ages 14 to 21), taking place on March 14th. Kendall has a very good chance of bringing home a medal in at least Youth Nationals, but will have stiff competition in Jr. Nationals, though barring anything unforeseen, she should still do very well. A few days before she heads to SLC, she will be flying to Wisconsin to spend the weekend with her bestie teammate, and they will fly on to SLC together for camp. I'm heading out to SLC in March to watch both races, and to fly back with Kendall. I'm excited to.be in Utah again, since it's been 3 years, though with all of these recent air travel events, and me already being a nervous flyer, I'm not thrilled about flying anytime soon, nor with sending my child flying on her own. With Kendall being a Team USA athlete, this one accident hits way too close to home, as we have likely seen some of these ice skaters during Empire State Winter Games of years past. Surreal. Anyway, here is a pic of Kendall with her "bronze" wooden medal, lol

It’s here!! I’m out of town so I won’t be opening until Christmas Eve. Thank you so much for all the wrapped goodies. I can’t wait to see what’s inside Thank You Secret Santa

DISCUSS BLACK FRIDAY & WIN 1 OF 2 APPLE IPADS! Time for our annual forum contest. We covered our first Black Friday here on GottaDEAL two decades ago, so we've got two prizes this year instead of one! Here's how it works: Through Monday, December 9, 2024 at 11:59:59pm EST, you'll earn one entry into the contest every time you post in one of the Black Friday and holiday shopping-related forums including this main Black Friday Discussion forum and the Sale & Ad Discussion sub-forum. As usual we're not going to require your posts to be a certain length to qualify or anything like that - we just want a lot of great discussion. We know there are times when a one-word reply is fine. All posts in nearly all threads in these forums will count, including other contest threads. However, posts in the GD Prize Club threads will not count. So create interesting threads, reply to other members' questions, give your opinions on everything that is being discussed. This is a discussion board - let's have some interesting discussion here! On Tuesday, December 10, 2024 we will randomly select two lucky winners from all eligible entries and you will each win a brand new Apple iPad 9th Generation Tablet. Prize must be claimed by replying to the winner notification PM here on the forum by January 31, 2025 or prize will be forfeited. And as a benefit to those who were here early this year, all the posts in the forums up until now (again, aside from the prize club thread) will also count towards this contest. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to answer them.

Prize Club is closed with 56 members to start. Good luck to everyone!

Happy BF! I got my bucket.....I am happy.

I love seeing all of the new members chatting and getting the items they want. I remember when I found this site and all of the excitement and help from the veterans of BF shopping. Len Mullens (sic) is a technical wizard and has helped me by tv's, computers, and even a GPS (dating myself). So if you are looking for something or need help, post it here or in the respective chats and we will all be happy to help. Welcome to the Gottadeal Family and I hope you stay around all year as the sales never end.

I miss having a finite list of items that we could type up each year and utilize a search feature across the ads to compare items. Now, it spans 7 weeks and 10,000 items that is just unreasonable to manage/follow the items and the sale intervals.

Thanks Jesusluvu. Yes she loved her sweets! I have a tons of pictures of her eating too. I used to send them to her aide, almost daily, when I took mom out to eat. Her aide used to get a kick out of it. She could never get over seeing a 92 year old woman who could eat as much as my mother did.

I’m in!

WooHoo, Let's go! We are on day 3 of tornadoes in Oklahoma. Hopefully Mother Nature gets her stuff together and gives us some fall weather the rest of the month. I saw someone on Facebook post "We wanted hoodie weather, not "evacuate your hood" weather!"

October! Breast cancer awareness month! 14 year survivor!!!!!!

Sad, but true... Just the other day I was thinking back on the stores I used to hit up every BF, starting with K-Mart on Thanksgiving morning, Toys R Us and/or KB Toys were always a stop... how standing in long lines in the cold, snow and/or rain was the norm and I couldn't wait to do it... but yeah, it's pretty much dead in 2024...

Can I trade the iPad for a Gottadeal t-shirt? Asking for a friend.

Sent everyone still eligible for a prize a message requesting your address so be sure to reply to that when you get a chance.

Happy August! We took our oldest back to Temple last Thursday (he is an RA, so he needs to be on campus before students), for his junior year. My most recent high school grad is taking a gap year while he tries again to get into a watchmaking school, which is extremely competitive. He will apply to a program in Seattle again this fall. And my daughter, the luger, just got back from her last summer training camp last week. She had two great camps, and this upcom8ng season, she will be sliding in both singles and doubles. This month's pics are flat ice training, practicing their paddling, with her coach (and former Olympian), photobombing to let me know that Kendall and her doubles partner are doing well for just starting out, and Kendall taking 2nd place in a starts race against her fellow Candidate team level teammates, as well as the next level team (Jr. National Team), of athletes aged 17 and up (Kendall just turned 15 in June).

Thought this was funny. Hopefully I don't offend anyone...I still LOVE BF.

Drove by Target (opens at 6am) at 4:15am; 2-3 cars in the parking lot, keeping warm and not lining up yet. Got to Kohl's (opens at 5am) at 4:20am and was 5th in line (few more still holding out in their cars). Got $5 Kohl's Cash. Walked out with $15 graphic tee for $2.24 in under 2 minutes. There were at least 400 people behind me at doors opening. Got to JCPenney (opened at 5am) at 5:06am, walked right in grabbed my snow globe (only about 40 left) and $10 off $10. Walked right out. Got to Target (opens at 6am) at 5:18am. #22 in line. They were taking "preorders" for Taylor Swift merch so they could get the items ready for you from the crate. Limit of 4 of each item. I got my 2 Eras Tour books with ease. Ran the whole operation through self checkout. There were hundreds of people behind me at doors opening here, as well. I didn't hang around long enough to see if any chaos ensued waiting to get the merch (was actually pretty slow process), or when they ran out. Got to Menards (opened 6am) at 6:25am. Typical BF Menards; running low on some items already, but got everything I went in for (and actually nothing that wasn't on my list - I'm impressed). Back to JCPenney to use my $10. Mostly felt empty. Home by 7:30am

As I do every year after Labor Day I've opened the various sub-forums here to unofficially start our coverage of the Black Friday & holiday shopping season. As Black Friday itself becomes less and less significant we'll continue with the "Sale & Ad Discussion" forum having threads not only for Black Friday ads but also for many of the additional sales and catalogs that get posted on the site, whether they take place on Black Friday or not.

I'm going to be messaging those of you still in the club to get your addresses to send out your prizes soon, so be on the lookout for those.

I hope everyone is staying cool and doing well. Gator Pam, my daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law would love your garden! My daughter bought me Lego flowers because I have a tendency to kill plants. So far, so good!

Pictorial update of my two raised beds at Marymoor Community Garden in Redmond, WA. Zone 9a, up from 8b last year. I’m basically treating it as a mixture of both zones. South side of the arching trellis: Purple collard trees Various tomatoes I got for free from one of my gardening Facebook groups Asparagus crown from a deserted plot at the gardens Various herbs and field greens Sweet corn I sowed from seed last month, so it has a ways to go Underneath cardboard towards the front carrot seeds I sowed yesterday North side of the arching trellis: Various tomatoes Various herbs and field greens Another asparagus crown from a deserted plot at the gardens Sweet corn I sowed from seed last month, so it also has a ways to go Under the cardboard towards the front of the bed are parsnip seeds I sowed yesterday

Back in June I cut back my rosemary and started 40 cuttings in potting mix after dipping in honey water and Ceylon cinnamon powder. I kept them in a dappled shade area of the porch in a couple of Costco pie keepers with the lids. Of the 40, 17 developed roots. However, 3 are iffy as the leaves are more brown than green, and 2 don’t look to be rosemary. Google Lens says they may be blue tomatoes. Probably a bit late to start them, but I’ll see how it goes. If the other 12 up pot well , hopefully I’ll have a dozen rosemary plants to trade at my first Green Elephant Plant Swap in September.