DaleRider

Whacked? Maybe...my wife thinks I am. But, fortunately, she humors me and actually assists me in my BF craziness. BF is a prime opportunity to be a "BB devil." Just love buying the store loss-leaders and walking out wihout buying anything else.

Since my wife and I are both off until next Monday, we're actually adjusting our sleep patterns over the last few days to sleeping after noontime and spending the night awake. Of course, readjusting will be cruddy, but thankfully she's the first going back to work. Thankfully, she's on evening shift (4PM-MN), so she won't suffer too badly. Our plans are to arrive at the stores by 8PM and check out what sort of lines are already formed.

Wasn't that way last year......the CUSA in Augusta, GA had the same AOL sign-up deal and the line for the computers wound around inside the store for signing up within 15 minutes of the door opening. I just went in for a video card, hard drive, and had a heck of a time getting to a check-out counter. Had to be 75-100 people in line pushing along their AOL-optomized computers alongside them.

Mondo excellent!!!! Thx for the info!!! Didn't know you could print out the outer envelope.....cuts a LOT of time out there!

Of course, it's best if you conduct this hiding the day before the sale, or on Wednesday in this case. In this way, there's no time for your booty to be discovered except by employees. Other places.....one of the more overlooked spots is the freezer compartment of the refrig/freezers with the bottom-mount freezer, top shelf. Another option is upper shelf of product display further down from the item's stocking area from which you secure yours, behind and mixed into the stock up there. More difficult if you're short, but makes it somewhat difficult for others to find. But, with BB, many times the doorbuster and specials items are already on carts in the appropriate department with associates on either side handing them out to who wants them. Video cards, hd's, and the like has been done this way the last two years in the BBs we've gone to.

Ross.....what's been your average ROI on the BB Bucks, if I may ask? It works by sending in an SASE to McD's, right? And you get back at least a $1 BBB, sometimes a $3 BBB, or other stuff, right? So how's your ROI? I'd figure at least a 22% ROI (taking into consideration .74 for stamps per the two envelopes, two envelopes at .02 for the pair, but not including time spent addressing.) Thanks!!! This is just for future reference for next year....figure a 20% reduction in price is worth the effort!!!

Very true. Why would they encourage you to NOT spend your money today with the particular item at its full price? You better believe they've been told to discount/defer/deflect questions about the BF sales, otherwise their regular sales the last week or two would suffer. This may be the true reason the stores/chains hate the early leaking of their BF sales ads.....eats doo much into their sales the week(s) prior to BF.

Last year, when the doors were about to open at BB and there were 400 people in line and it was growing longer by the minute, the Office Depot at the other end of the strip center building both OD and BB share had a total of 12 people in line. BB, CC, and CompUSA draw the crowds in about that order from what I've seen.

So, as most know now, WalMart has their BF ad up on their website....put yur zip in and you can preview. Seems the laptop, desktop, LCD TV, among other things, have two prices....$488 and $378 for the laptops, $488 and $398 for the desktops, and $194 and $178 for the 15" LCD TV, and $129 and $98 for the 20" TV/DVD combo. Guess it all depends upon where your local WalMart is located. Live in a small town with no BB, CC, etc. competition? You're paying the higher prices. Live near a WalMart that has some competition? Then the price is lower. Sucks!!! I used 30458 and 30904 as comparison zip codes.....the 30458 is Statesboro, GA with the higher prices; the 30904 zip is Augusta, GA with much lower prices.

Just be aware that if you go into someplace like a BestBuy or Circuit City and ask for a memory stick, you'll probably get handed a Sony Memory Stick. That's Sony's name for their brand of flash memory. If you want a generic-type USB compatible flash memory drive, you need to ask for a USB memory drive.

Neither of us has anywhere to be until next Monday......the 28th. So some house cleaning is in order right now and BF planning.

I haven't seen much this year, either. The ATI X700 Pro at BB isn't too terrible given it's a built-by-ATI card, but if you can stand a Sapphire or other ATI-partner brand card, they're $120 or so all day long at Newegg.....and probably cheaper elsewhere. (Bought my wife a smaller branded X700 Pro two months ago for that exact $99....not a BBATI, but it's working quite well and was $99 without any rebates.) The MX4000 is not too bad a price if you need a cheapie PCI card. CUSA's Radeon 9550/9250 is average, but then again, a PCI card. The GeForce 6200, if it's 256MB, isn't awful. The Radeon 9600 256MB is alright I suppose. The GeForce 6600 256MB PCI-e is an awful price.....runs $110-$120 all day at Newegg. There seem to be a lot of PCI video cards this year.....guess trying to clear out old tech. stock. A few AGP video cards, but their prices aren't that outstanding. Two PCI-e video cards and neither is a blockbuster price. Rather disappointed this year.......CUSA had a much better deal last year. C'est la vie. Seems to be the cheapie laptop year this year.

I think it all depends upon one's comfort level doing one's own repairs, the cost of replacement items, and such. As DVD burners are now hovering around $40, CDRW drives are around $20, memory chips (256MB strips are $20 and up.....512MB strips are in the $40 range), the most expensive things to fix/replace would be the motherboard and processor. Catch the right sale and even a motherboard can be quite inexpensive to replace as long as you are willing to accept a brand other than ASUS or MSI or DFI or the like......more along the lines of ECS. Even hard drives can be obtained quite cheaply if one is willing to rebate. (These BF prices on hard drives are actually quite typical after-rebate prices seen during the year on hard drives.) On the $150 desktop, the extended warranty's cost would just about rebuild the computer outright, sans the monitor. But CRT monitors are a dime a dozen these days......but it, again, depends upon one's comfort level opening up and replacing items inside a computer. I know my 75 y.o. mother wouldn't have the first clue as to how to even open her computer case, much less put in new memory or replace an optical drive. So for her, a warranty is perfect. On the other hand, I build my own.......

Doorbusters are never online......only in-store. You can look at the scanned ads and see the disclaimer on the pages of doorbuster items each store has. BB, for instance, has the disclaimer just under the LARGE "7 Hour Specials" print on the top of the first page. It says "7 hour specials apply only to items on this page and are not available at BestBuy.com." The other stores all have similar disclaimers in their ads for their doorbusters. This is the way they try to motivate you to coming to the store instead of sitting at home, warm and snuggly, buying on-line. :)

Sorry, double post........DUH!!!

Honestly, I can say I think I do understand why someone would get the protection plan for the cheap desktops, especially if being given to someone who will be far from home, on their own for the first time. This would give sort of a back-up or security net for the computer at least. So if the hd dies or the mb dies or monitor, there is a replacement warranty in effect so the kid just has to get the thing to BB instead of trying to call Dad, then find a repair shop, guess how much it'll be to fix, and on and on. This would cut the out-of-pocket expense for the kid quite a bit, at least for computer repairs. Now, for just a cheapie computer at home....no, I wouldn't spend the money on the extended warranty on the desktop. As for the laptop, I'll buy Toshiba's extended warranty from their website sometime during the next year.....it seems a little cheaper than BB's cost for the same thing.

So you're absolutely sure they really have none in stock in the back, right? Could the salespeople have been told to SAY they have no stock in the BF items just so they can deep their limited stock there for BF? I've been to BB for more than a couple of years for BF sales and they've always had what is in their sales ads for BF.....and this despite the fact that the week prior to the BF sales, the normal stock of the item will sometimes disappear and be "out of stock" according to salespeople who are asked. The video cards are one item I see this happening to all the time. Wouldn't surprise me in the least to see this go on with the cameras, too.

Ummmmm......this 'n' that, and this, and that..........couple of things on eBay, soem locally.........

That's great!!!

Nope, not disappointed at all........BF ads from the major retailers arrive on Thanksgiving, always have, always will. Wal-Mart's mailings are the exception. The BB 4-day ad did sort of help answer a question....they're running the $250 AOL discount in this ad that CompUSA and CC are doing on BF, and the ad plainly states, in the fine print, both the broadband and dial-up accounts qualify for the $250 discount. So, hopefully, the CC ad on Thanksgiving will be the same.

No.....several around us only close on Christmas Day. On BF, they remain open all night and shoppers crowd around the plastic-wrapped pallets of the "limited quantity" items. Other items, though, are available to be picked up and put into your cart before the blitz hours, they just won't scan for the correct price until then.

Augusta, GA is supposed to have a low of around 38, guess that beats under 30......partly cloudy to clear on Friday, but a high of 54. Wish it was warmer, but at least no rain like we had last year.

Close tie between CC and BB. CC gets me for the laptop (going to treat AOL's rebate/sign-up as a no-interest loan), BB gets us for the desktop, a TV, and other assorted odds-n-ends.

They've always come out in the Thanksgiving Day newspapers.....the day BEFORE Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Gives you a day to actually peruse the "real" ads and plan. It's done this way, I suppose, to give as little time as possible to consumers to make long-range plans. Those Thanksgiving Day newspapers are HUGE!!! Worse than normal Sunday papers.

How true!!! Thanksgiving for good food, good friends, and hopefully good football. Friday for great sales!!!