marathonshopper

Checking in for August, at least I don’t think I have yet .

Happy 4th of July!! Excited to still be in the running.

June check-in. Yay, I remembered!!! I honestly can’t believe I have remembered for this many months in a row….lol!!

May check-in. This last month was not a good one for my family, sure hope this one is better.

I’m so sorry about that for your family. Tornadoes are truly devastating. My sister-in-law and her husband had their house hit twice when they lived in Missouri. The first tornado completely blew their house away. Contents with their names on them were found hundreds of miles away. When we went to help with cleanup, seeing the devastation in person was awful. We were picking clothes off the barb wire fence hoping to find something salvageable, but most of them were loaded with insulation from the house. There was a mattress in a tree, way up in the tree! They built back and got hit again about a year later and lost their barn that time and just a few shingles on the house, they moved away from there after that.

April Check-In. Can’t believe I have remembered this long!! We had some of those crazy high winds here for a couple of days. Friday was so beautiful temperature wise but those winds were insane and we lost power for a couple hours from a tree falling on the lines. Power came back on just a few minutes before it got dark. I was so glad because I didn’t want to dig out all the candles and flashlights.

Congrats to Kendall!!! Yeah, you probably will need lots of bargains…lol!

March check-in. Still hangin’ in there!!! LOL!! We had a couple of really nice and warm days this week and it spoiled me. I’m hoping we don’t have any more bad weather left for the season, but in reality I’m pretty sure we will get more.

Checking in for February….can’t believe I’ve made it this far!!!

I really hope Party City and Bed, Bath & Beyond can turn it around, particularly Bed, Bath & Beyond for me. I am a gadget girl and they get a chunk of $ from me. I hate when brick-and-mortar stores close because I am a person that likes to see the quality of an item before buying. Not all places offer free returns and I hate to have to return things anyhow. I’d rather just be able to see what I’m getting and know I have it in hand instead of ordering and hoping it shows up, and is intact when it does!!

I guess for me this is ok news. I like the free shipping now, and as for the reward certificates, I didn’t spend enough the last 2 years to even earn one, and I’m sure not opening a credit card with them just to earn rewards. Not worth it to me, since we don’t seem to be buying a ton there these days. I would have thought that in order to draw more customers back in, that lowering the spend amount to earn a reward would be better than making it where only a limited amount of customers earn them. Back a few years ago when the spend amount was considerably less than it is now, we used to earn rewards fairly frequently and we always spent much more when we redeemed the rewards. But the free shipping will come in handy if we do order something.

Woo hoo!! I’m excited to have stayed in the Prize Club for three months now!! Happy New Year to everyone!!! I’m hoping this one treats me better than the last one did, too much drama last year. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, we had a nice time with family, even though a couple of them were sick and couldn’t make it for family dinner.

Month Two…I’m on a roll!! LOL!! I’m still reeling from the crappy (for me, anyhow) Black Friday sales. It was not a ‘fun’ Black Friday this year and I feel soooo let down. I hope the stores all have someone lurking and reading posts about what everyone likes and doesn’t like and takes note. Personally, I want real paper ads back and real Black Friday experiences. The stores were weirdly empty of the usual BF crowds and it just didn’t feel right. Weird not to be surrounded by people wanting a good bargain.

Well, for the first time EVER, everything I bought was for me, and there wasn’t really all that much. Actually, a lot of it wasn't even in a Black Friday sale. We had extended family over for Thanksgiving dinner, so it was about 1am Friday morning when I crawled in bed for a catnap and I was back up and on the road by 3:15am headed to Tulsa which is about an hour an half away. Got to Kohl’s about 30 minutes before they opened and there wasn’t really much of a crowd yet, I had no trouble being one of the first 200 for the scratcher card, but Kohl’s website had a big issue for awhile with the promotion, it went up for maintenance and you couldn’t see what you won for a few hours. I had already bought a Ninja Air Fryer Oven online from them, and had a little fiasco with the order before I got it so I wasn’t really after anything big. Mostly I just NEEDED to feel it was a normal Black Friday this year by doing the stand-in-line, wait-for-the-store-to open thing. At Kohl’s I ended up buying some really cute St. Nicholas Square Mickey Mouse melamine plates, a couple of rugs for my living room, and a Kohl’s Cares Stitch with a little book. On one side of the store the line was only back to the sign that said at that point your wait would be 15 minutes, walked to the clothing side of the store where the line was nonexistent. That was the strangest thing to see because I’m used to their Black Friday lines crisscrossing at the back of the store!! Then I went to Shoe Carnival and they were out of my size in all the shoes I wanted to try on, so I went to DSW where I found the same problem. Next was Bed, Bath & Beyond to look at curtains that were on sale. They were out of the size I needed but I just ended up ordering those online. Then I went to Tuesday Morning and Ross, not because they were having a sale, but just because I wanted to look in there. Between the two I found some Disney Christmas kitchen towels with Mickey & Minnie and some with Stitch on them and some everyday ones with Stitch on them, and a couple of Mickey Mouse Christmas rugs. Walmart came next where I bought two boxes of the requisite Rubbermaid. I buy that every year to replace the pieces that disappear through the year. I went to a few various stores in between, just to look around, but I didn’t end up buying anything. I stopped at Steak and Shake on the way out of town for breakfast, lunch and dinner rolled into one and got home about 8pm, tired and kinda disappointed in the overall day. It was just too weird not having lines at checkouts. I didn’t even go to Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s or Best Buy, stores that there is always at least one thing on someone’s list to go buy. I just want the REAL Black Friday sales days back, not this fake, lets have sales for a month before Black Friday thing that posed as Black Friday this year!!! It’s too hard to keep up with that many sales and I’m sure I missed out on something great, but, at this point, I really don’t even care.

I still haven’t bought anything at Walmart from these early sales. I’m sure when it goes live in store Friday I’ll pick up some of the Rubbermaid and some men’s jeans, if they still have them when I make my way there, I’m not in any rush to get there though.

I was on their app with my item in my cart and ready to go at the moment it went on sale. I ordered the Ninja Foodi 10 in 1 Air Fryer Oven for $199.99. It gave the 20% off that was going the day before, also with a $10 Home discount and a $5 pick up in store discount. With tax and everything it was $160 and some change. The discounts knocked it down to $30 back in Kohl’s Cash instead of the $45 that was advertised. I was ok with that because of the out of pocket savings. Anyhow I placed my order for pick up in store and was so excited to have scored the item until about noon when I got an email saying my order had been canceled because it was out of stock. I’m assuming they opened the store first before going to fill my order and they were sold out then. I was a bit aggravated. I had to order it again, thankfully it was still available to ship. That time the only discount I got was 15% off, which made it be $180 and change out of pocket with $45 Kohl’s Cash. I did get a $5 Kohl’s Cash for the inconvenience of my order being canceled too. I got an email saying my order was ready to be shipped, so until it is actually in my hands….

Dollar General will have a 1 month Ultimate Game Pass (reg. $14.99) on sale for 20% off Thursday - Saturday. It’s not as good of a price as the Target one usually was but it is at least something off regular price.

Add me to the list of complainers!! I hate not having a paper ad (or at least what looked like an actual paper ad) on stores websites for sales and I don’t like following a jillion links to find what is on sale. Walmart’s site drove me nuts trying to figure out if what I wanted was going to be in-store or online only. Sections of online only, in-store only and in-store or online would be much appreciated by me. I always buy movies and tv series on Black Friday and the selection this year has been sad. I bought one season of a tv series at Walmart and nothing at Best Buy. I had anticipated Best Buy would actually have something, but if they do I haven’t been able to locate it. When I followed the link of movies there were only a few little sections with like 8 movies in each. At this point I’m not even sure what I will do on Black Friday. All the merchandise that is on sale will already be picked over and I don’t have a shopping buddy this year to just go out and have fun with. I think I’m just seriously bummed about Black Friday this year because the way they are having sales every week just sucks the fun of it. My family thinks I’m crazy to like going and standing in lines to snag a great deal instead of just shopping online, but it’s the thrill of the hunt!! I didn’t even buy anything until yesterday when I went to Costco and bought the Arlo security cameras they have on sale, and that isn’t even a present for anyone, just a necessity. Oh yeah, I got an email with a survey about my experience on the Best Buy website after I had poked around on there for awhile…I didn’t hold back any of my dissatisfaction either!! LOL!! Not that they will listen.

Gonna eat about 6…which in our family means more like 7! LOL!!! NEVER on time, but everyone knows that!!

About anything reasonably priced goes in the ones at my house. I usually get my guys movies or a video game, candy, cookies, good smelling body wash, jerky, stuff like that. My mom, who passed away this year, always put an apple and orange in everyone’s stocking (everyone has stockings at my mom & dads house, mom loved filling the stockings to the brim) because it was tradition from when she was a kid. She said when her and her sister and brothers were little that was usually all they got in their stockings, and sometimes that was all they got at all because money was tight. Not sure exactly what to do this year for one of my sons. He is trying to eat healthier and recently quit eating so much sugar, so I guess cookies and candy are kinda out for him.

I can usually find something at JoAnn on Black Friday. Cricut supplies are a good thing to stock up on, as well as paper crafting stuff. I’ll probably go in for some of the character fabric in the Cyber Monday sale.

From what I have read the Dyson site itself and Best Buy seem to have previously had the best Black Friday deals on it. I haven’t seen it in any of the ads yet.

Our family is very traditional for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. They are pretty much the same for both meals with the exception of an expanded dessert table. For Thanksgiving we will have: Turkey Dressing Mashed Potatoes Gravy Corn Green Beans Candied Sweet Potatoes Deviled Eggs Broccoli Rice Casserole Mac & Cheese, but it’s not regular Mac & Cheese Rolls Charcuterie Board (we always have a relish tray with pickles, olives, sometimes veggies and some dip but this year my teenage nieces want To do a Charcuterie Board. When I asked what they were going to put on it, they said, pickles, olives, veggies, fruit…so, a RELISH TRAY..LOL!! Cranberry Sauce - jellied and homemade berry sauce Carrot Cake Pumpkin Pie with homemade whipped cream Chocolate Pie Butterscotch Pie Christmas will have cookies and candies added to the dessert table and everyone will get containers to take their favorites home with them..

That’s a hard one, I like so many of them. I enjoy watching the Christmas movies put out by all the channels each year, tons of hours of content to view. But all time favorites are probably Christmas Vacation, Christmas In Connecticut (Barbara Stanwyck version), The Christmas Card, and the old original Dr. Suess’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for but Dollar General has a Game Pass in their Black Friday ad. It is on sale from Thanksgiving Day through Saturday I think it was. And the best thing is that there is a Dollar General on every corner (LOL!) so one shouldn’t be too hard to find. They have a lot of other gift cards on sale then too. We always snag a Lowe’s card for 15% off and then use it for Black Friday shopping.