len_mullen

Make a list of everything you want to buy. For each item on your list, compile a list of all available products. Research the individual products removing any that do not meet your quality requirements. Look up the products on the deal sites and note the best recent price. Watch the deal sites and flyers for prices at or near the best recent price. Once you get within 30 days of BF, buy your goods when their price falls below the highest price you will pay. Return/rebuy or price adjust right to the holidays. This will help you avoid impulse purchases and buyer's remorse, ensure you get all the gifts you want, and net you the lowest possible price. Happy shopping!

There are three phases to the shopping season... - must have items - my shopping list - opportunities If one of the people on my list wants something special, I buy it at the first reasonable opportunity. You can always price adjust or return/rebuy. I start working my shopping list 30 days before the BF ads come out -- again for return/rebuy opportunities. As the holidays approach, I buy good deals even if I do not have a present to buy. My oldest son has a February birthday. A lot of times, his birthday presents are purchases of opportunity during the Christmas season.

No. There are a lot of benefits to using a credit card -- cash back, extended warranties, etc. The real problem is you are undisciplined. Fix that. I like lists. Make a list in the calm of your home, take it with you, and don't buy anything on the list. If you succumb to impulse, return the items once you calm down.

I shop alone, yeah With nobody else I shop alone, yeah With nobody else You know when I bust down doors I prefer to be by myself One year I shopped with my sister. We started at Kohls. Standing at the front of the store, with all my loot bagged up, I saw her pushing a cart past. It was still empty. She waved that 'one minute' finger at me as she headed to the back of the store. We still shop at the same time...in different cars.

Not unless you are printing your own cash. Bad guys have used rogue ATM machines to collect account and PIN data. Crooks use cameras to capture the information on the screen and follow your keystrokes. Muggers wait for people to leave the ATM. Just hang on to your receipts and make sure all the charges on your accounts are for purchases you made. Your CC company will not hold you responsible for any loss due to a breach.

Used to load up on computer stuff at Staples. They really don't do the whole free thing as much these days. I got a generator one BF. I would argue that was for my wife, though, because I can go a week without a shower and warm beer is OK by me.

Harbor Freight 10/16

How have their predictions been the last three years? Seems to me they were wildly optimistic. I sense the same here. There are a lot of negative forces at play... - people are sick. No one wants to be in crowds of sick people and no one wants to go out when they are sick. - economy still sucks for many. - there's nothing to shop for. nothing is going to get people out to put their hands on product. I expect sales to be reported as up then adjusted down all the way to the new year.

I would visit your school and see what they recommend. It would be nice if she worked with a device which will be part of her education going forward. They may even have software and information to help you help her.

I'm in the same situation. I may jump early with the at&t double data deals. I wish people would post more information about carriers and plans in this thread. Please include zip codes.

I'm not sure I go out at all and I'm pretty sure I'll never stop going out completely. Online and B&M have so blurred that it's tough to characterize a purchase as one or the other. If I go into Staples and order something at the kiosk is that B&M or online? I almost always place my Wal-mart and Home Depot orders online these days. Is it still an online purchase if I pick the merchandise up at the store an hour later? Black Friday, as a shopping season, is even more blurry as merchants push their promotions to early November. I've gotten some BFish deals over this summer. I still go to the stores and I like to go to the stores on BF. I don't wait in lines and often do not buy anything at all. It's just fun to be out there. This year may be about new smart phones. This is something I will likely decide by the end of October (AT&T double data promo). For me, this is the part of BF I enjoy the most -- chatting about nothing, reliving historic campaigns, anticipating this years deals. It's 99% social. I check in around Labor Day, hang out until Christmas, then go away. I write a haiku, debate 1080p, and (sometimes) win a t-shirt. It's a lot of fun. When I was a kid, there was a season to Christmas. We went back to school in September with our new clothes and lunch boxes, the days got short and the leaves began to fall, Saturday morning cartoons began to fill with commercials for toys, the Wish Book came in the mail, the decorations came out, the adults got really sneaky, then Santa came. As an adult, Christmas is just shopping to get done before December 25th. I enjoy BF because it re-creates that season of anticipation. This year, we will go to my in-laws for thanksgiving dinner. I'll drive past the early lines on my way home. When I get home, I'll visit the forums one more time and take one more look at my list. Then I will set my alarm and go to bed. At some point, I will venture forth on BF to grab a bargain and survey the damage. Then I will retreat to my nest and see how everyone else did.

It's been six years since I bought my first HDTV -- almost to the day. That's how long I have been carrying that chart around. We had just purchased a PS3 and it looked like crap on my 36" Sony Wega. That 'deal' popped up and I jumped on it, set the delivery date for six weeks away, and started researching HDTVs. The HTIB is pretty dated, but the tv is still amazing. As for the chart, take it with a grain of salt. What it says is that if you put a 50" 720p next to a 50" 1080p tv, all other things being equal, you can distinguish one from the other at six feet. That does not mean the 720p set does not look great at six feet. My kids always pulled chairs within four feet of the tv to play games (no retention after five years of game play).

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg212/hondar_2008/resolution_chart.jpg

RT came with Office. It was kind of like buying Office and getting a free tablet to run it on. Not my cup of tea, but attractive to a lot of people. Jumping to a more capable Surface meant a huge leap in price PLUS loss of Office. The 'laptop' I purchased was nearly the equal of the Surface Pro, cost less, and included Office. Not sure how you beat that.

http://www.frys.com/product/8018614#detailed

It's always open house. It's easy to see why plasmas are going away. Plasmas are the beta max of the flat screen era. Beautiful image, but heavy, reflective, and expensive to build/ship. It's too early to get into plasma vs 4k, but people shopping for a TV should spend some time looking at TV screens before BF. Nothing like an informed buyer. For the record, the reason I am looking for an LED for my pool room is that they can survive an occasional cue ball hit. I don't see that happening, but I could never be comfortable with 12 ft^2 of glass so close to a billiard ball.

Today is a good day to shop for a laptop on Staples.com. 1) http://www.staples.com/coupons has $150 off computers regularly $499 or more (38812) 2) http://www.staples.com/coupons has $150 off clearance computers (93281) 3) http://www.staples.com/coupons has 25% back in rewards These are all in store (the rewards is only in store). If you are Discover Card user who happens to take your rewards in Staples gift cards, you can use up to five of those on this purchase. Since they are 'same as cash' they have no impact on discounts or rewards. These $25 gift cards cost $20 in rewards, so that is another $25 off.

I'd like a GD hoodie as well. I prefer a pullover to a zip hoodie. Maybe Brad should put up a poll to gauge interest at some price points and another to pick among available designs. For any BF garb, I always want the back to say, "If you can read this, I probably got your door buster!" I'm pretty content to pimp the web site on the front... http://www.yourgamesource.com/images/flash_banner_pictures/Black_Friday_Good_Deals.jpg

Still don't get the appeal of a Chromebook. Or an RT tab for that matter. Are we doing football helmet Avatars this year? Or are you guys covering up for a tumultuous BF season?

I know EXACTLY what you mean. It's not as easy to remove the keyboard as with the Surface's magnetic cover, but you aren't going to break it. There is a button at the top of the keyboard. Press that and pull the display off. Push the display down on the keyboard to reattach. It's a two handed operation, but it's an intuitive two handed operation.

Yeah. It's routinely $349.99 and I applied a $100 off. They run these things a lot on SUNDAYS for some reason. If this sounds like a computer you could love, add it to your cart and try all the $-off coupons every Sunday morning.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a 64g Asus T100 from Staples for $250. This *may* be the perfect PC and is, at least, worthy of your consideration. For starters, it's very portable. It weighs just over two pounds and the battery lasts for eleven hours! It's also very powerful. The quad core atom processor idles at 1.3ghz but soars to 1.9ghz when an application demands more processing power. Despite this, it is fanless which makes it silent and less vulnerable to heat/lint related failures. Wow! Huh? It just keeps getting better. It runs FULL windows 8.1 which means I can run all my old legacy apps -- even the ones that run on DOS. This is very important to me. It has connectors for usb 2, usb 3, hdmi, an SD card, and bluetooth. That means when I use it at home, I can run a real mouse, keyboard, and display. The screen itself is a touch screen and the keyboard detaches so this thing can work as a tablet as well. Finally, it comes with a full license for Office 2013 which retails for $140 all by itself. http://www.staples.com/Asus-T100TA-C1-GR-2-in-1-101-Laptop/product_574373

this is just k-mart making fun of themselves for running Christmas ads in September. Black Friday sales will come even earlier this year and they want everyone to know their layaway is open for business. The implication is that you can layaway stuff now for Christmas. Merry Birthday everyone!

I'm looking for me too. I bought the 42" plasma (just got my cash back notification, so $144 OOP) and am hoping to apply the $125 eGift card to an LED for my pool room. I have a wall that would be ideal for a 60-70" screen. I have a couple 32" LCDs that would look nice in two corners. My wife thinks I'm a little nuts, but not completely. We used to spend a lot of time playing pool and we all agree that it would be much more safe and economical to not have to drive home after a Sunday of football, billiards, and everything that goes with that.