outnumbered

There are usually things that I'd like on sale that day, so if the deal is great and I have the money, I'll get it. I try to focus on gifts first though, to make sure I have enough money to get them.

Isn't it mandatory that you have to have that in your car to drive it anyway? Mine's in my glovebox.

My kids. I decide what I'm getting them and look for deals on those things way before I think about other family members.

I do. It's no problem in the area I live in. Back home, I might come up with a different strategy, but here...it's a safe area and not nearly as crowded as it gets in other areas. I mean, the stores are crowded, yes, but there isn't too much brushing up against other people, and nobody is running people over, etc.

I take the minivan that I always drive...I leave the seats in. I've never bought anything so big that I would need to remove seats to get it to fit.

It was 2002 that I first got up early to be in line...in the 90s I did my shopping during more "normal" hours that day though.

It's the planning that got me hooked. I've always gone alone and it's too crowded to really enjoy the holiday atmosphere...but I just love making a game plan and spending my money 5 different ways on paper before finalizing my list, etc.

LOL, I got it, I just had no comment. (I know, me? without comment?)

I don't know what the other sites have because I don't go there...but I really like the features Brad and Ross had last year. You could very easily find sale lists by store and by type of item, you could customize email alerts for certain stores, you could make a shopping list by checking off which things you wanted from various stores...GREAT organizational/planning tools.

I can't vote. I look for toys for the kids first.

Normally Toys R Us, because gifts for the kids are at the top of my list. Last year Sears was first though, for the gift card.

Everything I've bought for us, we still have...well I guess some of the toys might have been outgrown by now, but for the most part, if it was bought for someone in the household and not as a gift, it's still here.

That was really nice of you. Nothing like that has ever been needed around here...plenty of workers.

I may go out on Thanksgiving this year and do most of my actual BF shopping online...Thanksgiving the stores are empty around here and it'd be safer to have the kids out, and I wouldn't need to be there at 5 am.

I get the ads and figure out which things I want. I already know the store layouts, so assuming things are in the normal place, I know where to go. I just make a list, store by store, of what I want to get at each place so that I don't forget anything.

Last year I got to Sears at 4 am and I was the first person there. There were maybe 10 people outside Best Buy when I drove past. Nobody really started showing up till around 5 am.

No, because every last store in the area is either practically across the street or all the way across town, and the nearby ones don't have what I need...so if I need toys/clothes/appliances/electronics/*whatever*...I tend to wind up at the mall, at TRU, or Target, and those are all a 20 min to half hour drive. So really that encourages me to do BF because I can get deals on things that one day and not have to make multiple trips down there.

I have been...although purely for the hype I guess LOL. It's fun to have the deal conversations. I don't spend enough money to really need to focus on BF all that much though LOL. It's just so fun!

Woohoo!

Oooh, good to know! Although we may be a little sick of pizza, LOL...it's "school night" at a local pizza place the day before that, so we'll be going there for dinner. But it'd be nice to get a pizza for $5 without having to buy three to get that price per pizza.

I have no family here to form any kind of "plan" with and my friends and neighbors change each year, it seems (because people are always moving away in the army)...so I don't have any of those kind of traditions. My only real "tradition" if you can call it that is checking out all the ads/lists and deciding which things to get from which stores.

Somehow I only remember the giant stuffed animals for spending lots of money...the gift certificate sounds like the way to go, if they do that again this year. I'll have to resist temptation and not buy toys little by little, then, so I can spend my money all at once and get the bonus.

Hmm, good point. Sounds like it'd be better to pay for shipping in that case. But hopefully there will be a lot of free shipping deals/coupons out there. On a semi-related note...when does TRU's website start having their free shipping promotions? It annoys me so much that they don't participate in amazon's super saver shipping LOL. I want to buy my oldest a scooter or something similar, I think...he had one when he was 3 that is broken and too small for him that he still tries to ride...but shipping charges on that kind of stuff are just about as much as the item. I'm in no rush, though...still saving up. :)

Do you know if stores offering in-store pickup for online orders tend to still do that with their BF sale items? I could avoid shipping charges that way (if there are any) and still be able to be at the stores in person on BF, but later in the day when it's a decent time to have the kids awake and after the morning madness has died down somewhat and it's safer to have them out. Just something I thought of. I don't know if I'll even be buying things at stores that have that option.

Online shopping for you too, then?