msomnipotent

I bought bikes from Meijer, TRU, and Walmart before. It is easiest to deal with Walmart if you can order online and pick up. Meijer is easy as long as you don't mind walking around with a bike. TRU's ticket system was a nightmare. It took about 2 hours to find someone to handle the ticket, find the bike, and check out. I haven't bothered shopping at TRU for a long while, though.

I went to our local Menards a few days ago, and half of their patio furniture area is Christmas. They have more Christmas decorations than Halloween at this point. I love Christmas, but it is 90 degrees out here. Come on!

About 20 family members, plus the friends and friends of friends that magically appear at dinner (I'm not complaining), my daughter's friends, and charities. My sister is a teacher in the inner city, and there are always a few kids that don't have coats or didn't get a Toys for Tots gift. Then there is Toys for Tots and the wish tree at my daughter's school. Thank God our families do grab bags for the adults.

I'm hoping my washer and dryer make it until BF. They are both LG. They have both loved throwing error codes at will since shortly after I bought them, and they are more expensive to fix than other brands. The dryer rollers were 3x the price of others, and that is with me fixing them myself. Having said that, they have been limping along for 6 years now after putting about $350 into repairing both but they still need work that I'm not willing to do. I'm looking at the Electrolux EFLS617SIW with gas dryer, or a Speed Queen. I would prefer the SQ, but I don't think my king sheets would fit in 3.1 cf. The professional reviews for the Electrolux rave about the cleaning ability, which is very important to me, but a surprising amount of personal reviews had ongoing problems with them. My mother and sister like their cheapie Maytags, and I'm tempted to just buy what they have and call it a day. The repairman said that washers/dryers are only meant to last 5 years. Since when did something that costs over $800 each become that disposable? Why is it so hard to pick out a decent washer??

Geez! So many of those toys are SO expensive! Is it the kids' wishlist or Toys R Us's wishlist, hoping you spend everything you own this year? I have heard about Luvabella. Supposed to be big, but she looks so creepy to me. I'm so glad that my daughter is too old for dolls. I wouldn't want that in the house.

I'm almost done. I bought a Kane Blackhawks jersey for my daughter when the old style went on clearance. I think the old ones looks so much better than the new ones anyway. I bought her a few bags of fossils and gemstones from an amusement park that had "gemstone mining" this summer, and I have made an offer on an antique pendant that I'm waiting to hear back on. If that falls through, I plan on getting her a new kayak if there is a sale. I bought a couple of the Fingerlings and mermaid shaped blankets for my nieces. If I can find a decent price on one or two portable DVD players, I will get those as well for them. Their birthdays are January and Feb. I got a Craftsman tool chest for my nephew and I'm waiting to get a gift card from credit card points so I can buy him a few tools for free. The older nieces and nephews are getting money. I'm really just waiting for the adults grabs bag. I usually just get one gift for the family instead of exchanging gifts with my husband, since he never buys me one anyway. This year will probably be a tv. Our current one is 13 years old.

Well, I gave the fingerling to my niece and all 4 kids in the room were very underwhelmed. I'm disappointed. I'm thinking the Beat Bugs might be big this year.

I just put gift ideas on a wishlist at Amazon and use a price tracker to determine what price to buy at. I keep my eyes open all year, because price drops happen. I just bought a tool chest today for $30 for my nephew's gift, just because it was on sale and I had a $10 coupon. I very much doubt it will be cheaper closer to Christmas, but I logged on here to check last years ads to be sure. I have noticed the past 2 years that everything I wanted to buy was cheaper the week before BF and then again a few days after BF. Know your prices! I think the most important rule is to start saving up cash/credit card points/gift cards now so you have it when you need it.

There have been deals for at least the past two years that I know of. I bought from Radio Shack one year and Walmart last year. They were both $69, but new.

I wound up trading my Hatchimal for a lawn mower right before Christmas. I thought my daughter would love it, but no. I heard a lot of them never hatched, so I hope the person I traded with didn't have problems. I had to look up the fingerlings, too. I can see those being popular. I think I will try to buy one for my niece's birthday next week and avoid the hassle.

I received mine. Thanks!

I talked to one of my Walmart contacts, and she said they are expecting a grand total of 8 Hatchimals for BF at her store. I preordered one for my daughter before I knew what they were. She doesn't play with her Furby, so I am selling this once I get around to it. Or I might wait to see if the person my daughter picks off the school giving tree wants one. I would feel really bad if I sold it and then I couldn't get the one gift they wanted.

I still can't access my messages. Sad face.

They also do a credit check when you do the payment plan, and the rebates I have seen so far require you to stay on the plan for 24 months. I was all excited about Verizon's B1G1, and then I saw they require the payment plan. I'm planning on moving in a few months and don't want the hit on my credit, so I just bought the Moto G4 for $199 today. I don't need the latest and greatest, and anything is a step up from my glitchy S4. I'm hoping I didn't jump the gun, though.

Santa definitely has a budget. I blamed the elves. Elves need to get paid just like everyone else, or they couldn't afford to live at the North Pole. My daughter thought that the Salvation Army kettles were for Santa donations. And when she noticed that Santa and Mommy use the same wrapping paper, I said that we leave wrapping paper out for him to use so Santa doesn't have to use his own money on it.

Yeah, the Beats line does look cool but I hate the sound. My daughter loved her Beats solo, and then I made the mistake of letting her try my Audio Technica ATH-M50 S/LE. The face she made was priceless. And then when I realized that I lost control of my headphones, the face I made was priceless. I wonder what the difference is between the Solo 2 and the 3? The rose gold 2's are on sale at walmart.com for $214 right now.

I turned off the ad blocker, cleared the cache, checked if my computer needed any updates, and even restarted it but I'm still getting the same thing. My phone doesn't have an ad blocker and it still does the same thing. It could very well be something simple that I'm doing or not doing. I'm not very computer savvy. I just tried to open it in another tab and got, Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 97 bytes) in /home/deals/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php on line 2796 I have no idea what it means.

I haven't been able to access my messages. I have tried Chrome and Firefox and on my desktop and my phone. All I get is two arrows going in a circle forever. I'm not sure if the problem is on my end or not. Can someone help me?

Radio Shack has had a sale on Beats since 2013. Could even be later than that, but I only looked back to 2013. I bought a pair for my daughter in 2014. That was the one and only time I went shopping on Thanksgiving, but the sale was worth it.

I was first in line at a new Best Buy in the middle of nowhere one year. Totally not worth it. The employees let their friends in first, then a bunch of people just stormed the doors.

It is 125 gallons and a little too long to fit in our car, but we can probably jerry-rig something or try to borrow someone's van. I have been looking online because you get another $50 off if you order online and pick up in store, but the one I want isn't available to order online and the 2nd best is available online but not at any store within 100 miles of me. I'm keeping my eyes open so I can order and do the pickup myself, but so far no luck. I'm hoping Petsmart still does the 50% off large aquariums as they have been doing the last 2 years, or this is all for nothing!

It isn't the stores opening on Thursday for me. I come from a long line of blue collar workers, so at least a few of us were always missing for dinner every year. Even before Walmart opened for Thanksgiving, my sister still had to work there because someone has to stock the shelves before Black Friday. My father and I worked at a gas station, and the holidays were our busiest times. Same thing when I worked at a hospital, and my mom at a pharmacy. Nothing new for me. What ruined it for me was all the bad sales. Macy's last year was the final straw. I had several hundred dollars worth of bedding my cart before BF thinking that their prices would go down because of their advertised % off sales and coupons in their BF ad. Wrong! Everything in my cart was more expensive, so I just left it. They have cheaper sales before and after BF. Their coupon codes restrict a lot. It seems like instead of trying to draw people in, they are trying to squeeze every penny out of people that don't know any better.

I have reservations for a hotel in the middle of nowhere. My plan is to rely on the inlaws try to get the giant aquarium we need and do the rest online. I will see if this year's sales are worth it before I make any concrete plans, though. I was disappointed last year.

Handheld electronic games are still big for my family. The kids play them on the bus because they aren't allowed to have their phones turned on. The adults get the poker games. My daughter usually gets a silver dollar, some Eos, maybe some nail polish or a cute nail file, a pair of those fluffy slipper socks, and some Tics Tacs and gum. She is into makeup this year, so she will get some lip glosses, maybe a couple individual eye shadows, a gift certificate for a mommy/daughter mani/pedi day, 1 or 2 smelly votive candles, a few of those tiny vials of perfume, and probably 2 movie tickets. I might still include a silver dollar. It depends on the price of silver.

I bought a hockey jersey last year. They didn't go on sale, but I was able to use a coupon code to bring the price down, and used a shopping portal for cash back. Dick's coupon codes usually excluded the "real" hockey jerseys and the personalized ones most of the time, which was what I needed. Dick's eventually had a coupon code that worked, but it was really close to Christmas. Just as a PSA, if you need a personalized jersey of any sort, order them very early because it takes extra time. My mother wanted a Panarin jersey and whoever ironed his numbers on at the 1st store I ordered from scorched the jersey slightly. It took a week to get the jersey, then a few days shipping it back, and then they were several weeks behind on orders because of the Christmas rush. I had to look everywhere for a Panarin jersey in stock and managed to order one from Dick's with just a few days to spare. You might want to start ordering now.