Rayny

I guess that would depend on how you'd answer this question. True or False All's fair in love and war?

To be honest, if I were in charge, there would be no price matching at my store on BF. I just don't think BF falls under the category of your typical everyday sale, so it would be easy for stores to simply refuse their policy for that day. Having said that, if the store allows it, and you can benefit from it, you're not breaking any policies by utilizing it, so I say, "Go For It!" If the store didn't want to match prices, IMO, they just wouldn't participate.

For video systems and games, the manufacturer sets the price. Sometimes you might get a gift card if you spend X amount of money in a store (Circuit City and Best Buy do this quite a bit), and at times, Toys R Us, might toss in a side deal (including games, extra controller, or what not) but beyond these types of deals (maybe eBay if you get lucky and if you would chance it there), I doubt you'll find any other great offers. You might get a slight deal at Sam's Club (maybe even similar type stores but we have none in our area, so I can't confirm it), but I really think that's the best you'll get.

All brand names aren't necessarily better quality. Before I make a larger purchase (and that's pretty much any electronic purchase) I always do my homework before buying. Once I know what I want, I then spend lots of time hunting down the best price for that item. At times, the item I want won't go on sale at all, so I'm forced to pay the retail (video games and systems anyone?). I'm not happy about it though. LOL If you convince me I got a deal, I'm happy. Even with video games, you can get extras tossed in, and I do look for those types of sales, or sometimes maybe even extra gift certificates to BB or CC. One thing I won't do though is, buy a TV from Sears. I don't care if they'd charge me 200 less than the best price I found elsewhere. It's not their fault (we've bought several manufacturer's TVs over the years at Sears), but each and every one had problems within the first year. I am just jinxed where they're concerned and I won't buy another one from there ever again.

I know it was more, but I like that 7 foot Saratoga Spruce one from Lowe's ($199). It's recommended that you should have 100 lights per foot on your tree, and this one has 700 lights. I'd imagine it's a get what you pay for sorta thing. This one looks nice and full too. We always have a real tree, but I just might break down and get one this year.

I'll take Boscov's to Macy's any day of the week. Boscov's run great sales, so if you've got one in your area, go often and only pick up items you feel are good buys. Clearance sales start early and are marked down quite hefty too. I NEVER buy any clothing from Kmart, Target, Walmart, and I always pay less at stores like Boscov's, Macy's, Penney's, Bloomingdale's, other stores in the mall, etc.... I wish the same could be said about PacSun, Hollister, & American Eagle. These are the ones my kids LOVE. If you enjoy the bigger department stores, Boscov's will soon join your list of stores to visit often.

I wish we had a Kohls locally. I need a new coat. I'll be checking all the stores in the coming days though. I hope I can find something I like. We do have a couple Fashion Bugs, so I'll definitely be checking that out. Congrats on the deals!

Forget this post. I just seen the date on the article I linked to. Sorry about that if anyone had read that link.

I guess it depends on what you're looking for. Personally, there is NOTHING that I'd camp out for. I didn't even go out for Black Friday because I could never handle the crowd. I do enjoy reading about other people's finds though, and I especially like reading about the various sales going on besides Black Friday. I also loved the web deals being posted.

I'll leave the Christmas villiage up and the outside lights till after the New Year too. I could leave the villiage up year round and never get tired of it. The rest of the family might have a problem with that though!

I think you'd better leave it up, UNLESS of course, you feel like sleeping in the dog house! Ours came down 2 days ago on the 27th though. I was tired of looking at it. It was also getting pretty dry.

We keep ours set to around 71-72. We like it 70, but to get it to 70, we have to set it up a bit. The kitchen can get a little cool with it set at that though, but that's okay, we don't spend a lot of time out there. Our house is nice, but it has a funny layout. The entire upstairs is electric heat (changing it over in the summer - we just moved here this past July) and we keep the heaters set to low up there. Electric is pretty high in our area. At night we turn it back to 65 though.

Congrats!! I'm sure your kids will LOVE you Xmas morning. We'd already spent way too much money, so getting one was not an option for us, but yesterday when we were standing in Circuit City, an announcement came over the intercom that they'd just got their Xbox 360's in and if anyone wanted one, they were to head to such and such a spot. I was a little upset because if I'd have known in advance that it was possible to get one, we wouldn't have bought some of the things we'd gotten earlier. Oh well, we'll get one at the beginning of the year. I'm glad to hear that a couple of you were able to get your hands on one though!

I agree that they are good prices. I did visit our local Kmart yesterday and while our store is very clean and the help is super friendly, I HATE the way they have everything behind glass. I mean, it's piled on top of each other and you can't begin to see inside any of their cases. I love looking thru their DVD's. 2 to 3 full shelves (behind glass of course) lined up side by side, so you have to cock your head and do your best to read what they have. Of course, no prices are ever listed either, so if you do want something, you have to have a clerk, open it to check the price. I did get 2 DVD's for a good price yesterday, but they were in the bargain bins that were out. I just didn't have the patience for the rest of it.

I am thrilled with the deal I got, but it sounds like you got one HECK of a deal. I wouldn't have been able to pass on that either. Recently (last month) though I did get a good deal on a 2nd computer from my brother in law. A Compaq Pentium 4, 512 ram, cd burner, dvd drive, etc...with a 17" CTR monitor, HP all in one desk jet printer, stand ($150 stand), chair ($80) chair, brand new ink for the printer, tossed in expensive colored card stock paper, photo paper, some type of linen paper (no clue what we'll use it for?) iron on transfer paper, Avery label making and labels, and tons of extras and he even had that couple hundred dollar voice recognition software, plus 2 paper cutters - one like those big ones you see in an art room in school, and another cutter that's smaller that will cut or perforate to you can tear it off.........all this for $600. I couldn't turn it down and now my kids have their own computer too. Oh yeah and he tossed in a dictaphone (he paid a couple hundred for it alone), but I have no idea what we'd ever use it for. He also included everything that was in his drawers, and that included those mini business paper clips, pens, pencils, post it notes and just TONS of different stuff in there. It was too good to pass up!

This man in our town is opening a sport's bar and he somehow ordered the wrong TVs from Sears. He ordered around 8, 20 inch TVs to set around the bar and then noticed he wouldn't need as many, but he would need bigger ones. So, he had some TVs he had to get rid of. We bought 2 of these TVs, for $100 total. http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=ELEC&pid=05749224000 Now, I'll grant you, these were not the TVs I wanted to get, but how can you turn a deal down like this? $50 for each one with no tax and shipping fees. My kids both have the old 19" TVs in their room now and they wanted bigger ones. Well, they got bigger ones by a whole inch. LOL I'm just super excited!

I've not wrapped a single present yet. I always buy so much that I HATE wrapping. It just seem to take so long and I can't force myself to do it till the last minute. Last year, I spent all day Christmas Eve wrapping! I will probably be the same this year.

It sounds like that CC needs a new head manager. If I were you, I'd be writing a letter to their home office. The way you were treated was pure and utter BS! That manager has absolutely no customer service skills and IMO, he needs to go.

We have both (Toys R US gave us a free copy of Hot Pursuit when we bought our 2nd Xbox) and I agree, Hot Pursuit doesn't compare with Underground. Ours are both on the Xbox though, but if it's the same across the platforms, my vote would go to Underground.

My daughter 13, loves the Harvest Moon games too. I don't know if your daughter has played Animal Crossing or not, but it's along the same lines as Harvest Moon (different game and concept), but I think she'd love it every bit as much. My daughter does not like Mario Kart at all. My husband and son do though. I just thought I'd toss that out there to the OP. It is a great game though, so I'm not trying to undermine it at all.

Check this site out. I hope the link gives the top 200 Gamecube games, that's what I searched for. Keep in mind, the reviews are subjective. http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simpleratings.asp I'd HIGHLY recommend Resident Evil 4 for hubby and Animal Crossing for the kids. Pikman games are really fun for the kids too. Heck, my husband loved it and me and my son watched him play 1 and 2. Edit: Beyond Good and Evil is a great game too and if you can find it, it'll be about $10.00. Edit again LOL: If someone likes a particular genre, you can change the ratings to only look for that genre under "Category."

Circuit City hands down. It seems they included a lot of things at lower prices, but not all low end merchandise.

I will definitely buy an Xbox 360, but I'm not willing to go thru any pains to get it ASAP. I bought a launch Xbox, and they had lots of problems with them. We had to have ours repaired (at a cost of course) and I think I'll just hang back for a bit to see if the bugs are going to turn up with this generation too. I haven't seen the specs for the Playstation, but I find it hard to believe it's going to blow the Xbox 360 out of the water. I'd be willing to eat those words if it turns out to be true though. We've had almost every gaming system (minus handhelds - though we've had a few of those too) since the original Nintendo (plus the Atari back in the day) and we'll probably buy all the next generation too. Personally though, the PS2 has turned out to be the biggest disappointment we've ever had. It's come in dead last for us this generation. The original Playstation however is an entirely different story. The one and only plus is that Rockstar releases the GTA games for it 1st.

We've always had real trees too. There really is no substitute, but.... we're thinking of going artificial this year too. My kids aren't sold on the idea yet though, but hubby and I are. We have hardwood floors, so it's not been as bad as they'd be for someone with carpeting though. That would be a nightmare.

The only things I've seen that have been impressive is writeable CDs and photo paper. I seen some Stanley things for $1.99 at Ace that I'd get too (not for Xmas though), but all of it's AFTER REBATE! Hardly worth going out for, IMO. I'm waiting on Circuit City, but if it's a bust, I will probably just stay home. I get better deals at other times of the year.