lauralmarek

I've been buying phones on black Friday for a few years. Best Buy, Target, Radio Shack and Walmart all have deals which range from about 10-50 percent off. One word of advice, if it's a prepaid phone, order over the internet when the BF deals become available and then activate at home. In stores, people are trying to ACTIVATE along with buy cell phones, so the wait is horrible.

It said at least three per store - is this true or will they end up having more? Here in Chicago it's way too cold to wait outside - I might go stop by at 2:30 in the morning to see if I get a ticket at 3:00. Would I just be wasting my time? Jewel grocery store here in Chicago is giving out $20.00 coupon for every $100.00. So you could spend $200.00 on Best buy gift cards and get $40.00 for groceries.

For those of you in the Chicago area, Carson's posted their black friday ad on their website. Last year the $10.00 coupon wasn't good on the doorbusters - and EVERYTHING was a door buster! A few weeks ago I received a $10.00 coupon in the mail and it said it WAS good on door busters - so I don't know if the one in the paper is different this year.

Not really that sweet - in the fine print it states it can not be used on specials. Look at the ad -EVERYTHING is a special. Carson's pulled the same thing off last year.

CVS is also online at CVS.com. I'm not sure if they will have this on special but you should check.

Do the 24 hour Walgreens sales start at Midnight?

Just to let you all know, I read on another website some grocery stores will take Walgreen Register Rewards. If you notice they say manufacturers coupon. In the Chicago area Meijers and Jewels are supposed to take them. I suppose you could buy a small item with a RR reward and try it before Black Friday.

On Sunday 12/20 Best buy has one for 329 - Tobshiba 15 inch screen. They also have a net book for 249.00

On Sunday Meijer.com has $20.00 off any item. I'm not sure of your location but there are good in store specials. On Sunday the Ipod touch is $195 less the $20.00 plus you get a coupon for 5% off your groceries.

To those of you on the West coast who are thinking about heading to Toys R US If it is anything like here in the Chicago area - please think twice. It's really not worth it.

Toy R US Joliet @midnight Crazy - tons of cops - people aren't behaving! You can't even get near the store Don't even try !

Oswego, IL - 9:30 p.m. About 20 people in line at best Best Buy. Very few to none in line at the Walmart. No line at K mart. I guess some of the ad sales are starting at midnight not 5 am - at least that's what's one clerk said.

More more thing - don't be too disappointed if you don't find the right ones. In the spring there will be Federal rebates.

I asked my local Lowes if they will be price matching Black Friday ads from other stores, they said YES! Lowes will usually beat the price by 10% too. I saw a Maytag Washer for 299 at Home Depot - for some reason it was also this weeks ad. My Lowes sold it to me for 270.

Reminds me of the ToyRUS paypal problem a few years ago. I hate when retailers change their mind - you spend all sorts of time on their website only to find they revoked the code.

One more thing. If you are worried about going over your balance and getting overdraft fees, you can ask your bank to decline the purchase instead of having them approve it and charge a fee.

What about opening a small checking account? Put your Christmas cash in that account. Most will usually give you a debit/credit card. TCF in Illinois never charges a fee - I'm pretty sure where ever you are, you can either find a bank or a credit union to open an account. After Christmas either close the account or use it as a savings or perhaps as a limit account for vacations/birthday presents. The bank may even give you a gift for opening the account. The banks in the Chicago area will usually give you $50 to $100.00 to open an account. Prepaid cards are kinda scary because they are hard to replace if you lose them. Plus things can get messed up if you are returning items.

You get what you pay for in this case. A few years ago I purchased a Sylvania 19 inch too. It was really cheap. It totally stopped working after 7 months - it ONLY had a 6 months warranty. I would think twice about this product or at least buy the extended warranty.

I'm not sure if any one posted this but I thought it was worth mentioning. On Thursday at 9:00 am pacific, amazon will offer one of 4 discounts on toys. The discount will be selected based on votes. (It seems that the X-box for $100 will win). I noticed that people were posting a test message to make sure their clocks were in sync with amazon.