crashcartjockey

I started Black Friday shopping back when I was in the Army in the mid-90's. Every year the PX would open Toyland early on a Saturday morning and I would take my kids to get ideas for Christmas. My first year out of the service (1997) I saw the ads on Thanksgiving day and decided I would get up a little early and hit some of the 5am and 6am openings. Most of the stores had only 20-30 people standing outside when the doors opened, but the deals were phenomenal. I have noticed that over the past 10 years most of the deals on Black Friday are for junk. Lower quality electronics, clothing, tools, etc. The fire I used to have is almost gone. I'll still go out, usually a few hours after the stores have been open to see what's still available. I miss the standing in line at 3am. I miss chatting with people that were similar to yourself. Looking to have some fun & get some great deals. No fights. No shooting or macing each other. Just power shopping.

1994 was my first time getting up early to go shopping. Ft Polk, LA. 1997 was the first time I went to the mall and hit numerous stores in a short amount of time for "power shopping." 2003, was the first time I brought my new wife (then girlfriend) and she has been hooked since. I have to admit though, the fun has really worn off. I enjoyed the days of being out at 3 am for the great deals. Going out at 6pm or 8pm doesn't carry the same "fun" and the deals aren't as good anymore.

When I first started doing this it was at the Post Exchange store at Fort Polk, LA in 1994. I brought my then wife and our two kids. It opened at 7 am and there was about 10 people in line. After I got out of the Army in 1997, I went solo for about 5 years. In 2003 I brought my new wife for her first time. In 2008, my 17 year old daughter joined us and has been hooked since.

My wife and I are not quite sure what we will do this year since we have no plans to go out shopping this year. I have been getting up early for the better part of the last 20 years. My wife started only in the last 10. Last year was really no fun with so many stores opening before midnight on thanksgiving night. I truly enjoyed the 5 am store openings. Especially here in Minnesota. The true die hard money savers were out. For me, it has nothing to do with spending time with family. I have worked in a hospital for almost 30 years and most of those years I worked on Thanksgiving. I just enjoyed the actual deals from a 4 am or 5 am opening versus the "deals" they are putting out when you don't have to work for it.

This weekend I get to go out to put up the lights on the outside of the house before it gets either: A. Too cold or windy outside, or B. Starts snowing. However, it isn't offically Christmas at our house until my fiancee and my daughter put up the tree and decorate the inside of the house, which is the weekend AFTER Thanksgiving. She decorates the inside and I get the outside. Of course, my job isn't complete until she approves of the job I did.

About 15 years ago, my then 9 year old son with Asperger's asked for a cow. His mother and I, found him a stuffed cow, which still sits on his headboard next to his teddy bear. And every year since someone (sometimes all of us) have managed to work a cow into his gift. The best so far was the year we picked up a bunch of matching small stuffed cows, and stuck one with each gift he got.

Actually, my son works for Penney's. He is one of the people that puts together all of the signage for the store, then starting on Wednesday evening after the store closes, they (about 5 people) go through the store and put out all of the sales signs. In his store, it usually takes them 10-12 hours. He usually gets home around 6-8 am on Thanksgiving morning. He gets paid time and a half for all time worked after Midnnight. Same as me, and I work in a hospital. Now I can't quote pay situations for all stores, but JC Penneys does pay time and a half for the major holidays.

While I understand that stores are doing to earlier and earlier openings to be the first to removed the money from our wallets and this year with all of the Midnight starts, it will cause shoppers to make a real choice on where to spend their money. Because Most Target people are also Kohl's shoppers. People will have to make an all or nothing choice between them. And if, and at this point in time, it is still only an IF, walmart should decide to start their sale at Midnight as well, the stores will who has the most devotion, or best sales. There won't be any setting plans to hit Toys R Us at Midnight, then Old Navy at 1, Target at 3, Kohls at 4 and Walmart at 5 like last year. Personally, I don't like it. I've been Black Friday shopping since 1988 and the reason people got the good deals at 6 am was because they showed up to stand in line at 4 or 5 am. And only the folks that got there at Midnight or 1 am got the fantastic price on a computer or TV. The ability to stay awake, stay in line and stay warm were the cost and the prize was the deals. Midnight deals allow people to eat, watch football, send everyone home, then head to the store.

It's not that they "deliberately" manufactured so few of them. It's just the demand for them was greater than expected. It was like this when the PS2 first came out. Also the N64 and the GameCube as well. But there are a number of systems that high price tags and few game choices equate to low sales. Truly nintendo doesn't benefit in any way if there are shortages of Wii's or WiiFit's available. I'll admit that I have been able to get my hands on a few extra Wii's a couple years ago and made quite a nice profit off of them.

With the current economy and people having credit cards canceled, or their APR increased, layaway is a good thing. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Wal-Mart bringing it back in the coming months, in time for next holiday shopping season. They'll use it to pull those customers they lost to KMart back.

Sorry, but my girlfriend dragged me into a Joann's on a BF a few years back. I swear that they had no more help working than on any other day. There we stood waiting in line for 45 minutes to get fabric cut, then another line to checkout. We spent more time in Joann's that morning that we had in the 5 stores previous combined. It's a good thing I love her, or I would have had to kill her for missing out on a whole bunch of deals.

Someplace just north of Minneapolis, in more than one of the surrounding suburbs. More than likely, I will cover 6-7 different cities and put on somewhere around 100-150 miles that day crossing and recrossing my path starting sometime before 4am and ending sometime after 5 or 6 pm.

I start compiling my list of Wants vs. Needs as the ads come out. I usually don't put together the final plan until thanksgiving day. And it looks like this year will be even more difficult since it seems that ads are not rolling out as early. All of the stores want to be "The Big Sale Store" this year and get the most butts in the door.

My son works for JC Penney and he says they are still planning to do the Disney snow globe thing again this year.

About 3 or 4 years ago I was waiting in line outside of Walmart. I had got to the store about 5am (it opened at 6 that year). The line was long and ran down one side of the store and was heading the length of the parking lot. I was about halfway down the lot. But the line only went one direction away from the doors, since the store had used grocery carts chained together to block the other direction. About 5:30 everything changed. A few people decided that the line was too long for them so they decided to move the carts that had been chained and stated a second line. Of course, the people who had been standing in line the longest tried to explain that the store had done this to improve flow into the store. This didn't deter the people form moving the carts anyway. Eventually that line began to grow and grow as well. And as you can imagine, the folks who had been in long for hours were now getting rather heated as was the discussion about where people should be getting into the line at. About 5:55, it reached its peak. Discussing had long since moved on to shouting and screaming. Before most of us knew it, the fists began to go. The brawl lasted up until the doors opened and of course, the doors got blocked up by people and what Walmart had tried to prevent, happened because a few people were too important to wait like everyone else.