AuntJamelle

Hobby Lobby stores have their Fall items on clearence right now. Half off I believe. You can verify by going to www.hobbylobby.com and clicking on the link for their weekly newspaper sales. Hopefully you have one of these stores somewhere near you. They are great and have great sales - especially on seasonal items! :)

I love having snow for Christmas. The past couple of years we have had some, if not alot, of snow. Usually it doesn't start to really snow here in northern Indiana until January or February. But we've been seeing signs of a early and hard winter here so we may get snow in December again this year too. I love it when it snows on Christmas Eve! That happened a couple of years ago and I was just enchanted! I'm like a kid about Christmas!

I will be going it alone for the first time this year and I'm a little aprehensive - but for the most part I'm just excited. I think I will be able to move fast and travel light! I plan to have a plan and thoroughly enjoy myself!

I totally enjoy BF! I may get hectic sometimes but theres just something about it! I love shopping anyway - but BF is the mother of all shopping days to me. I find it exciting! And I love the satisfaction of coming home with great deals to crow over!

I am planning on having between $500 and $600 saved up for possible spending on BF. Whether or not I spend all of that depends of course on the deals I find. Can't wait!

I have never taken advantage of websites like this before to look at the ads early. Hubby and I always looked at the paper together on Thanksgiving Day after eating too much turkey. :) I will not feel bad at all for looking at them early this year! I like to be prepared and thats exactly what this site will allow me to be.

I will wrap any gifts for DH as soon as I get home - that or just hide really, really well and wrap them ASAP. The majority of Thanksgiving weekends is spent decorating the house so I will probably put off wrapping my "haul" for a week. I just did my first round of wrapping this past weekend. I had a shopping bag FULL of books and DVDs, etc. and I wrapped them all! :) No bows or ribbon yet, I will put those on when Christmas gets closer, that way I can fit all the packages neatly back into the shopping bag and they won't get crushed. I keep all presents and two big Rubbermaid totes full of gift wrapping supplies in the spare room so its all there when I have a few minutes to grab it. I will wrap things in little spurts between now and Thanksgiving. Then I'll probably have a marathon session the second week of December.

Shower the night before - have my matching sweat pants and jacket laid out ready to go. I am also planning on wearing a T-shirt my in-laws gave me last year. It's a plain white shirt with a cartoon toad on the front wearing a Santa hat. The caption reads "I toadily love Christmas!" I do a simple ponytail but I will also do minimal makeup - I don't leave the house without foundation at least. Thats just me, though. I've never seen any news crews doing interviews, but with my luck, if I didn't do makeup, etc. etc. I would get stopped!

Won't affect my decision to go or my shopping! Prices have come down to about $2.77 here and have remained steady for about a week. I too am hoping that they will come down more before Thanksgiving gets here. All of the stores I plan to hit are in the same area and are only 3 miles or so from my home. I will be going for the great deals, of course, and if those don't appear to be on the horizon than I may not do as much shopping, but I'll still go.

I can't wait to start decorating for Christmas! But I will...:) Day after Thanksgiving the entire house will start it's transformation. 4 Christmas trees and two decorated mantles and lots and lots of garland are just part of the holiday "look" in our home. The outside of the house is more my husband's responsibility and he needs encouragement to do anything. So the Griswalds we are not - but we'll do something this year, just don't know what yet.

Leave about 4:45AM to get to first store by 5:00AM - we live very near a shopping hub. Last year we got home about 11AM. This year I plan to stay out no later than noon or so. But if the shopping adrenaline is pumping I may just stay out longer. More than likely I will be ready for the couch and a good nap by noon-thirty!

This isn't really a "secret" but it's a nice suggestion that's helped me out in years past... Pack a couple of sandwiches, etc. in a cooler lunch bag and store in car the night before (if you live in colder climate) or just remember to take with you that morning. That way, at whatever point during the morning/day you find that you are STARVING and can't take another step without food - you won't have to fight the lines at fast food places, etc. Just stuff down some food while driving to the next store!

I am planning on getting about 30% to 40% of my Christmas shoppping completed on BF this year. I already have about 50% done right now. That way I will only have minimal shopping left to accomplish during the early weeks of December. That's the plan anyway - we'll see what reality (and my paychecks) brings...

Debit card only here! Hubby has credit cards from before we got married but I haven't used credit cards for years! I am putting money in a special savings account between now and BF. A few days prior I will transfer it to checking and go hog wild with debit card! What's nice is our credit union gives us kickbacks on anything we buy with the debit if we run it through as credit. Nice little savings kickback that we get each year. In fact, I'm expecting $125 at the end of the month. Guess what I'm saving that money for? :)

Very good thread! I hadn't thought about this aspect of shopping! I've always gone with DH before and he just carried his wallet in his pocket. I have a lanyard I wear at work with my ID badge clipped on the end of it. I think I will use this to carry my license and debit card for the day. :) Will have to figure out how to carry keys and phone, and sunglasses. The outfit I was planning on wearing doesn't have pockets. Must ponder this...

I would be very surprised if I ever managed to make it through that day without buying at least one thing for myself and or the house. This year I know I'm going to be on the lookout for table linens. And if I see a good deal on clothes - look out!

I typically start my Christmas shopping in June - I watch for clearence items and slowly build my stash. I keep track of everything in a Word document so that I know exactly what I already have for each person. As far as BF goes, I am going to save $150 out of every check between now and the big day. That should give me a nice sum to work with. We'll see if reality cooperates with this plan. I have about 1/2 my shopping done at this point, but the remainder is mostly made up of higher dollar items. Exactly the kind of thing I want to save money on by shopping on BF!

Hubby and I usually go together and we take his Ford F1-50. Plenty of room in the extended cab or under the tunnel cover in the truck bed. This year I am going to be gonig alone for the first time, DH has to work, so I will just have my Nissan Altima. I need to get those snow tires out of the trunk!

DH usually wants to go check out sales after we are on our way home from Thanksgiving dinner at MIL's house. We eat around 1PM so its still fairly early. I am usually just ready for a nap or ready to go home and start putting up a Christmas tree! We typically stop in at KMart but the store near us has changed to a Sears Essentials store and I'm not quite sure what to expect from that. Will have to go and take a look soon!

Palm Zire 31, Men's Leather Coat, Men's Dress Shirts, Girl Clothes, Boy's Winter Coat...and plenty more! But those are the main things. :)