marimacc

I'm in a pretty busy area, but I've gone to Michaels only a half hour or so before it opened, both on Thursday evening, and Friday morning, and been one of the top three people in line with no problem. It just doesn't seem to be a lot of people's first choice, which works out great for me. :)

I'm pretty excited that a Hobby Lobby just opened close to me; I've never bothered to look for an ad for them in past years since they haven't been close. But now, I've been looking around, and I can't even find Hobby Lobby Black Friday ads from 2009 or earlier, let along anything from this year. Does anyone recall Hobby Lobby actually having Black Friday specials in years past?

Michael's, which is a craft store chain if you don't have it where you are. They generally have really good deals on Cricut items, which otherwise don't go on sale that often. I also like that, while they have good deals, they are NEVER jam packed, and I've actually been the first in line there before just by going an hour early. They also generally have opened for a few hours on Thanksgiving day in the evening, say starting at 5pm or 6pm, and I love getting some of the shopping out of the way then. Now, to be honest, most of the stuff I get there is for me, and not for presents, but we shoppers deserve treats too eh? The other place I've had decent luck on Black Friday is 5 Below, which if you don't have it, is a place where everything is $5 or less. I have many nieces and nephews (I think, 9 now?) and this is a GREAT place to get them all a little present without breaking the bank. Usually they'll have some extra good things on BF, such as LEGO sets, and Board games that you might normally spend $20 on, AND they always have a nice selection of calendars for the adults (crossword a day, Dilbert a day, things like that). This is also a place that doesn't usually have a huge pushy crowd waiting for the store to open, and they normally don't open until 8am or so, so you can sleep in a bit. :) I guess as I get older, and now I'll be pregnant during BF this year, I'd prefer not to push through the teeming hordes at the more popular stores like Target and Walmart and Best Buy, and honestly, a lot of the things they have, I can get online as well, often at midnight. So I hit the less popular stores, where I have a better chance of getting what I want quickly and getting out of there. My goal is to be home by 10am before the stores become absolute chaos, and I usually do make it home by then. :)

Apple seems pretty hardcore about NOT discounting items, even those that are now not the current model. I'm not really sure what they do with all that old stock, but I remember when the new iPhone came out, my current phone (3GS, 32GB), IMMEDIATELY became unavailable anywhere, even though it's still a perfectly good phone. I think Apple wants people to upgrade to the newest versions ASAP so they don't have to keep supporting the older version. That said, I agree with the people up there, the most they could do for apple stuff is to offer a gift card, or possibly deals like a free case or something.

Hey, I'm due in mid February too! :) First one, so I plan to try and buy as much online as possible. Last year one of my big things was to go to Michael's when it opened, and honestly, the crowd was not that bad there, and we were all pretty respectful. I remember that we were digging through Cricut cartridges, and if we found a "rare" one we didn't want, we'd announce it and put it on the top of the pile so someone else could have it, and there was no pushing and shoving; though there were only about, less than 10 of us waiting for that store to open. I'm also lucky that around here I have multiple Targets and other stores, so I can plan to go to the less crowded ones, but hopefully, like I said, I'll get most of the shopping done online.

I love Black Friday, but I don't even TRY to go to MOST of the big stores like WalMart, Kmart, or Best Buy anymore; they are a madhouse, and many of the items can be bought online anyhow. I have to say, I'm having more luck shopping on Thanksgiving, now that more stores are opening that day. Several years back, before Waccamaw went out of business, they had a Thanksgiving day sale, and on check out you got a scratch off card worth something like 20, 30, or 50 percent off. I got lucky and got the 50% off, horray! Lately, I've been having a lot of fun going to Michael's; got a Cricut machine a couple of years ago, and some Cricut carts last year; the people waiting in line at Michael's were much nicer and friendlier then other lines. I was in front of the line, and we all went down the list to see what we all wanted; we figured out nothing would be in short supply, so we all had an easy time getting what we wanted. My favorite thing about BF? Getting home before lunchtime, and putting on the noon news, and laughing at all the news stories about how jampacked everything is. Then usually, a nap, sometimes surrounded by all my purchases. :)

I saw quite a few at CostCo this weekend. Now, you had to buy the bundle with New Super Mario Bros and a nice case; it was I think $165 for the whole package. But that's pretty reasonable, and that's what I did to make sure I got the pink one I wanted.

I always go alone, for me, that's the most efficient way to go; have my list, only need to spend the exact amount of time in a store that I need to, can modify my list on the fly if necessary, and I'm usually done before noon.

In the mailer I got: "Get a free beaded bag with purchase of $50 or more in stores and online, only on Friday, November 25th". I think last year they had a similar offer, maybe for a pin? The flyer itself has no special sales, and just the usual coupon, but at least they are doing something.

I'd love to get some of that fleece; but it does take so darn long to check out there when you need fabric cut; not sure I can spare the time on BF.

Anyone else suprised that we haven't heard from Big Lots yet this year? I think last year they had a Friday sale, AND a thanksgiving day sale, I was kind of hoping they were doing that again this year.

Hmmm...this does look different from last year. For instance, I don't remember a "tuck in" call last year, just the wake up calls. Secondly, the choices of callers listed is much smaller; there's Brad Paisley, who I have no idea who that is, grandma, boring guy, harp player and sheep. I don't remember these choices last year. For those of you goign to the Comp USA sale at midnight, you could use a "tuck in" call as a wake up call, since they do have tuck in calls until midnight.

I have gone in the past, and I didn't find it very crowded, I guess I just got lucky going to one in a small town. I used to love the Waccama Thanksgiving day sale, when they still had those stores.

Yeah, I have to say, I looked at the prices for some things, and figured they were an ok price, but EVERYTHING I looked at had at least one rebate, and sometimes 2. That's just ridiculous, and one of the reasons I rarely shop at Comp USA anymore. In my opinion it really really borders on deceptive advertising. Too bad, otherwise I could be in line for their store at midnight.

I used to spend Friday shuttling back and forth between my family. NO MORE! I was always so depressed that I missed the shopping. Now everyone knows that's my big day to shop, and that they need to RESPECT that! It's really my main hard core shopping day of the year.

Just wanted to say I agree with alimfp; having a bulky winter coast just gets in the way,and I get too hot too quickly once I get in the store; I wear a sweatshirt with another shirt if necessary, and pants with a lot of large pockets so I don't even have to bring a purse. The less things I have to keep track of, the better.

Generally I'm done and exhausted before noon. Usually I was up too late the night before, because I'm excited, so I generally get home, have some lunch, and fall asleep while watching the news reports on the store shopping madness!!!!!

I work 4 10 hour days, so I ALWAYS have BF off!

I agree with Staples being very well organized; I went to the one in the small town I spent Thanksgiving in; I got there probably close to 6am; there were a few people there, not too many, and most of the big sale items were prominently displayed on a big table at the front of the store; an associate came up to me and asked me what I was looking for; we picked it up, and then she walked me to a cash register. Kinda weird in a way that they didn't seem to want to let me shop anymore, but I was literally out the door in less than five minutes. I got several things there last year, including the flat panel monitor. Walgreens as well worked out great. It wasn't AS easy to find stuff in there as it was in my Staples, but it was not very crowded, and I gues being smaller it was easier to find stuff. They also had some very good deals that weren't in the flyer, such that I ended up buying some stuff I didn't initially go in to purchase (which I think is the whole point of having these door busters, isn't it? To get you into the store to buy other items!). Last year I remember specifically buying the small lighted Christmas tree for something like $10, and the electric knife.

Just FYI if anyone else was interested, it's not a store wide sale, just select things. The things they had on sale were on pretty good sale; some of them were even half off, but nothing I had planned on getting was on sale. Which was stuff in the MALM line, and an Aneboda bedside table, and INVISK chairs. However, they did have a whole lot of cheap wrapping paper and metallic christmas tree balls, if anyone needs more of those.

thanks very much i-bystander!

Does anyone know what dates the IKEA sale is running this year? I think it starts after Christmas, but I haven't been able to find out any other info about it, such as how long it lasts. Also I'm wondering what prices are like, whether it's something like 10% off everything, or just some amount off of certain items. Thanks!

Yeah, I got the Kmart thanksgiving day, and big Lots Thanksgiving day, but not tomorrow's sales, I thought that was really weird.

Just got a Lane Bryant flyer. Doesn't really have any special sales in it, but says that on BF only, they are giving out a brooch with a purchase of $50 or more. It's the same brooch you get wehn you buy a $50 gift card, as pictured here: http://lanebryant.charmingshoppes.com/shopping/lb/giftcard_index.asp Not a great deal, but with so few free items this year, I thought I'd mention it.

Last time I went to a Thanksgiving day sale though, It was something like the store was only open 1pm to 8pm, or something like that. Admittedly, this was not a Kmart, but has Kmart opened for regular hours on Thanksgiving before, or with hours more like this?