Official One-and-Only "What I Got" / "My BF Experience" Thread

[jenesparza]

When i went out today i really thought the crowd wasn't to bad... the lines were long long at macys but they had every register going so it didn't take as long. When I went to walmart It wasn't bad either (the crowd that was) but i went to a regular walmart not a supercenter walmart. The only thing that got me was I have been seeing on tv that they were suppost to be having more cashiers and all lanes open. the walmart i was at had 3 lanes open

the lines were super long and slow... hated that to because i did a lot of shopping there and wanted everything i got. maybe they all called in lol

[General MarioXx]

my walmart was insane this morning. i was around the pallet for the 32 inch emerson tv. luckily i got one, but there were a total of 42 of them. they were gone in less than half a minute along with the blu ray players and 42 inch rca tvs.

[dmintelsgt]

Arrived at JCPenny @ 0415 - out @0505 - lots of clothes for the kids, checkout lines sucked... 0515 @ Sears crowds were horrible and the store set up made for mass confusion, things were not where they should have been, wrong items in sale area, sales person inexperienced... I did two separate check outs there one for tools and then I went back for clothes... both times my credit card company put a hold on the transactions for security reasons - I had to call them and tell them "Hey, I'm Chirstmas shopping today!!!" Arrived at Target at 0730, not much interested me there so we were out by 0800. I did some price adjusting (over $120 back thanks to gottadeal!! ) at TRU around 0815, then picked up a couple of little things since the store was not crowded like I expected. Next I actually went to Circuit City and bought my daughter's stereo - in and out in 25 minutes! After that I was brave enough to go to the mall, got the VIP bag deal @ BBW. I made a stop at Michaels for my mom and then swung by Kohl's but it was insane so I left. Picked up some little webkins at Walgreens then headed to my mom's to drop off and take inventory. On the way home I hit another Target and got the electronic valet they were out of at the other store! :)

 

Home by 1230 and taking a nap by 1300!

 

All in all it was a successful BF!

[Sandi852]

My walmart was much busier than last year. I pulled in the parking lot at 5am and couldn't find a spot and people were parking people in. Yikes! I went over to Target and came back around 7:00 or so. It was still carzy with lines halfway to the back of the store. By the time I found what I needed, the lines had died down. I had a very friendly, helpful cashier which is very unusual. They seemed to be getting people out quickly. The electronics area was completely out of control. You could barely get in and once you were in, you couldn't get out.

[christina19111]

Uggh....We got to Walmart at 3:45 a.m. to get in line for the X-Box 360 Bundle with the free Guitar Hero and waited until 4:55 for the employee to unwrap the stacks. My husband was in line with his hand on the X-Box, and so many late comers came within the last few minutes so there were 2 groups thick of people waiting around the stack. As soon as the employee started to cut through the plastic, they all rushed the stack and pushed everyone who was waiting and up front to the floor and grabbed them all up. They only had 16 consoles available for all those people. It was awful. A cop was standing nearby and did nothing until the end. It was my husband and another woman who had each end of a console and the cop then stepped in and told my husband to drop it (which unfortunately he did) and then 3 other woman started fighting and screaming. It should have been handled ALOT better. I understand the "Spirit" of Black Friday, but I can't understand so many people acting like animals. There was a woman there since 9:30 Thanksgiving night waiting for one and before the employee opened the plastic he promised her one then he would step away. No go, she ended up crying with broken glasses and no 360. Just wanting to vent I guess!!!!

[50sjayne]

This is for therapy right....?

Daughter was on a college radio station from 12-4 am so we were up listening and taping for her. Got worried about the Norton 360's (at Office Max) when I couldn't put them in my shopping cart anymore at 1 am- I wanted to just order them online earlier but wanted the free shipping and couldn't find anything to add to order then husband made me clear the table for him as he was having a hissy, so I just left them until later.Grr. Radio Shack and Office Max are in the same parking lot, Radio Shack opened at 6- Offic eMax 7. I left the house around 2, sat in my car listened to daughter until 4 am- was pretty much alone until 5 am or so, but I was worried about the Nortons. Went and stood in line was first at Radio Shack, people quickly got out of their car and joined me, I got my Go phone, no prob. Went right over to Office Max, was 4th in line, 2 people cut in line, went in and was told the Nortons were in the front, couldn't find them, another employee told me they were up there, no dice-- within 5 minutes I found them, and the 10 other people who got there ahead of me-- there were only 3 in the store. Unbelievable. Got everything else I wanted except the digital coin counter at Bed Bath and Beyond. Shopko was nuts as there is only 1 store here now, got there after Office Max, got some coffee, used the bathroom, and left because the lines were over an hour wait. Looped back later, got everything I wanted, including some New Balance tennies I love for $26- less than 1/2 price, the highlight of my day. Also got a musical light set thingy on clearance at Costco which I LOVE- you just hook it up to your lights to set them to music. I don't do Walmart for reasons of morality. Oh yes-- Target did NOT price adjust.

 

**Just wanted to add after crashing for a few hours at home, showering and eating I went back out with husband 'cause he was looking for deals on a hard drive for his ancient computer he refuses to let go of and snagged a Norton 360 for $30 at Best Buy :-) Will wait to see what kind of deal I can get on line for a second. Also got some photo paper at Staples 40% off-- felt much better about the day after getting my Norton in hand lol.

 

***Was reading someone elses post and realized I forgot Circuit City- got 2 packs of cdr's and a few movies online with the free shipping and after Bed Bath and Beyond hit Cirsuit city on foot because daughter's boyfriend said they could use some dvdr's and they had three spindles left of the 100 packs, so I grabbed one. Wanted to look through the movies manually because there were no full lists online and didn't see anything I wanted so that was it ;-)

Edited November 29, 2008 by 50sjayne
forgot stuff

[Monstermile]

I went to WM after work (around 5pm EST) and there were still plenty of doorbuster items available at the 5-11 price. While I was looking around a page came over the intercom stating they still had a bunch of items including WII's and the $97 Garmin available at S2S. Went back there and there was a mountain of GPS, Wii's, Blu Ray players, digi cams, etc that were doorbusters. Walking through the store there was still a full pallet of HP printers, two pallets of video rockers, and plenty of TV's. My wife works at the DC and she heard that a few of the Blitz trucks never even left the DC until this morning. That might have something to do with the high availability of items.

[Scott]

That is too good.

 

I got some chuckles from wearing mine around today. I didn't stand in line anywhere though.

[rchristiansen]

I don't go at the crack of dawn anymore. Last year I went I got to our Walmart at 7AM and they still had all of the toys I wanted. So this year I went with my 6 year old daughter at 7AM and it was very pleasant.

 

Not much different than a normal Saturday afternoon at a Walmart. We had a fun Mommy-Daughter shopping morning. We got a few toys for gifts and loaded up on the $2 & $6 DVDs. We then headed to Kohl's and got some a few more toys for gifts as well as our Church's Angel Tree donations. We also took a break to go out for breakfast at Perkins. We walked around Best Buy for a while, picked up a Panera gift card for the teacher and then left a little after 11AM.

 

But then I got home only to read this article! "Strong-arm robbery reported at Delafield Target": http://www.jsonline.com/news/35219914.html YIKES! That's all in the same shopping area where we were shopping all morning!

[blkfridaylvr]

Reposted from photo forum (my bad:))

 

The stores must be closer to the black then the red after today...I spent $300...$250 on others It was a great Black Friday...all gifts bought and WRAPPED! Beautiful weather and coffees and cocoas made the day even better. Can't wait until next year!

 

My early 2009 resolution is to become an all-year long viewer of this awesome site. Thanks to all who put work into this site.

[JeffPerk]

I have been a vetern Wal Mart shopper for 16 years, including the last 10 @ my local Supercenter. I have seen crazy times but toady seemed more packed than usual. Obviously the economy has caused this environment. I got everything on my list except the Iron Man Blue Ray, that was gone before 5 am. Now I wasn't there for the TV's, blue ray players, computers, etc, but I did get the TV stand (my new 40" Sony I got @ Sears F&F sale, cheaper than any prices today looks awesome on it) & the kids jeans & some toys. I got stuff, my wife got stuff & we were out of there by 520. I went back later around Noon & they didn't have much, a couple of the RCA 42", some of the $4 appliances, some $2 movies, but they were cleaned out.

[parteejen]

I was in the check out line BY 5:00am and I didn't get out of the store intil 6:15. It was CRAZY there.

[theboyzmom]

I got great reponses to my shirt too!!! I had people asking me where items were and did I know if this was the right item that was on sale, etc....honestly I never even thought that they might have thought I was 'official'

 

I'm laughing here!!!!!!!

 

One guy in the line behind me at the cash register yelled rather loudly, "Ok, WHAT doorbusters did you get that I missed???" he was really funny and as I turned around so they could see the front of my shirt, I told them all about our home away from home on the net :)

[bsutton1]

Me and my mom left at 7am. We stopped at WalMart for an hour. This was around 8am and it wasn't too crowded. I guess all the crazies had left. I was able to get the Megallan 1412 GPS they had for $147. We got some other stuff for some other people too. Then we went to premier outlet in Smithfield. We got there a little after 10am. It was pretty crowded but not too crowded. The shopping center opened at midnight.. so most of the big crowds had already come. We got some gifts for some family members.

That's pretty much my black friday.

[yuyi64]

Is it pointless to wake up at 4am?

It is if the reason for it is to go to Walmart!

[leefamily23]

My morning started off not so good. I left my house at 3am to go get my sister and start our morning. Within 1 mile of my home I had a car pretty much riding my bumper. They had their "brights" on, or so I thought and I was getting really annoyed, as their lights were hurting my eye's and I was trying very hard to watch for deer. Anyhow, this went on for nearly 10 miles when that car turned on their "lights"-- yep a cop. He pulled me over and called for assistance.......long story short, his headlights were very bright and killing my eye's. He said I crossed the right white line 3 times and he pulled me over for suspsected DUI---ummmm... I might drink once a year at best (and never drive). After nearly 15 minutes he let me go......he never heard of black friday and was really being pissy w/ me about the fact the I was really just coming from home and heading out shopping at 3am.........I was very, very upset!

 

 

Anyhow, we arrived at JCPenney's at about 3:55am, went in and got our snowglobes. My sister got some clothing and a toy. We were out of there by 4:15am.

 

Headed to Walmart- this was a zoo. We expected it, but it was waaayyyyy worse than normal. We got in line at 4:30 am and we were more than 1/2 way around the store. There were 3 local police cars w/ 6 local cops keeping order in the line. Our Wm filled to capacity and we had to wait about 1/4 of the way to the doors for about an additional 20 minutes. My sister nor I were in the market for the TV's, but they still had plenty of them by that time. We still got everything we wanted buy expcept 1 thing. I ended up w/ 4 of the (2) DvD's, an $8 coat for me, Lightsaber (10),RC ATV (10), and Mens PJ Pants (3 prs). My sister got the nerf gun, pixos starter kit, 2 wii games for $16.88, Vtech baby item (in ad- don't remember what this was). 2pk Batman figures, and she pm'd several toys from the TRU ad. We were in line for 1hr and 20 minutes. The checkouts were terrible, the lines just did not move at all.

 

We went to BK for breakfast and headed to TRU. When we got there we got lucky and got a parking spot right away. However, people in side were saying they'd been in line at that point for nearly an 1hr and still were not to check out.- we decided we didn't need anything there that bad. We wanted to hit so more stores and did not want to wait another 1-2 hrs in line yet.

 

We went to Justice for Girls- I actually spent an hr in the car here doozing, because I was soooo tired. My sister got my neice 3 full outfits and 1 pr of PJs for $88.00.

 

We then headed to the mall. There I went to Pacsun and got my son 1 l/s shirt, a fleece hoodie, and a pair of clearance DC shorts for $34.xx (probably the best actual deal I got all day). My sister went to Gamestop and dropped a nice fortune on the Wii, games, and accessories. She then went to Sears and bought 2 huges bags of clothing for her husband and her self.

 

I dropped my sister off at TRU then, and I went across the street to Lane Bryant. They had a B1G1 sale plus I had a coupon and gift cards. I shopped for awhile and got to the register to realize I brought the wrong gift cards. The women was really nice, and she put my items on hold for me. I later went back here and got my pr of jeans, 2 sweaters and 3 shirts for $68.xx-- that was a HUGE bargain for me!!!

 

At TRU my sister was in and out and succeded in getting 1/2 of what she wanted- and she picked up the Vtech learning laptop for $19.99 for me.

 

We got to Target then around 11am- between the 2 of us we got- Xbox Halo 3 (30), 9 movies (various prices), Coffee maker (14.99), Griddle (15), keyboard (69), the digital camcorder (69), and a 2G memory card (8.88).

 

We were in and out here within 45 minutes.

 

After that I dropped her off at home, and I went home. Dh and I then unloaded the car, and went immediately back out. We went to Petsmart for some essentials we needed, then back to Lane Bryant for me to pick up my items. We then headed to our storage unit got out our Christmas items.

 

Home for the day at 4pm- in bed by 4:15 and slept until 9:15 pm. I'm now typing this, eating left overs and catching up here...........

 

All in all-- the crowds here were much worse at certain stores than usual. While others were much lower at stores that typically have long lines. Walmart had a nice supply this year of doorbusters on hand. There were no must-haves for us this year that were on sale. This year it was more about the tradition of going than the sales. I'm hoping the next 2 weeks bring lots of good online deals, because I'm going to need them.

Edited November 29, 2008 by leefamily23

[theboyzmom]

my sil picked me up at 3:30am and we headed to Walmart...it was more busy than we have EVER seen! The pallets were all out and unwrapped, and people all over trying to keep their hands on stuff, employees walking by would grab stuff out of their hands and carts and push their hands off the stuff on the pallets.

 

At 4:45 everyone decided they waited long enough and the area my sil was in was CRAZY! She said people started fighting and some lady got pushed down...and this was no where near electronics!

 

I'm so glad I went for fun, if I HAD to get my shopping done in that craziness, I don't think I could do it

 

oh ya, we couldn't get all the stuff we wanted (and we had 3 people spread out in various areas)...came back at 8am and the store was messy, but you couldn't tell it was BF...no pallets out, nothing left

[arf110106]

For my first Black Friday every I'd say it went off without a hitch!

 

My first stop was Walmart. I decided to go to a 24 hr store in a smaller town (my friend said last year it wasn't at crazy) boy was she wrong! We got there at 4:30 and the parking lot was already full!! I was glad that they had maps, I got turned around a few times but I did find EVERYTHING I wanted. Also even though it was a madhouse, people were really nice. I asked a few people where they found things and they were happy to help me. Also if an isle was too crowded some were nice enough to grab stuff for people. I'd say it was a great experience.

 

After Walmart we hit the mall for a few things and then headed home.

 

Great day!!!

[Marcster]

Newegg.com:

• Asus 19" monitor for $90.00 after rebate.
• HIS Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 video card for $39.99 after rebate.
• Two of the Kingston 8GB Micro SDHC Flash Cards for $17.99 each.
• 8GB Diesel Flash Drive for $8 after rebate.

Meritline.com:

• AZiO Micro USB 2.0 Bluetooth Adapter (to synch my cell phones to the computer and bluetooth stereo headphones) - $2.99 after rebate
• Universal USB car & travel charger combo (to allow me to recharge my MP3 player in an ac jack) for $5.85

Amazon.com:

• $2 DVDs: Spider-Man 1, Spider-Man 2, Rocky Balboa.
• $20 Wii Charge Station
• $7.95 Wii Nunchuk Cord Free Wireless Adaptor

Then we actually went somewhere...

 

Renewed 2 of our three cell phones at RadioShack at the mall at 11:30 am. Parking lot was packed -- we had to park way, way, way, way, way out!

 

I had called RadioShack on Wednesday to scope out when we should get there. The manager I spoke to said that both the the Propel and the Matrix would be on sale for $49.99 and that I didn't need to show up to after 11 am.

 

Turns out that the Matrix was not included in the mail (she said it was, I didn't). She honored the price anyway. I got the second to last blue Matrix (the only color they have received to date) and my wife got a red/black Propel.

 

We got MediaNet on both -- and we have to keep the texting plan on for one month to qualify for the $49.99 price on my wife's phone. I may not end up keeping MediaNet on my phone and I know we won't keep texting.

 

I don't even know who to text with.

 

Then we went to some 7-store mini-chain women's clothing store in the mall. They had "live models" which was kinda cool - you don't see that every day. My wife bought a purse.

 

Then we hit a diner for lunch.

 

My wife wanted to go out to Philadelphia Premium Outlets. That was a complete bust -- it was so crazy we knew we'd never find a parking space - there were just vehicles circling the lot like sharks.

 

We just left and came home. I've been playing with my new phone. I ordered some accessories for our new phones on eBay.

[queenofshopping]

Also even though it was a madhouse, people were really nice. I asked a few people where they found things and they were happy to help me. Also if an isle was too crowded some were nice enough to grab stuff for people. I'd say it was a great experience.

Yay for nice fellow shoppers! One tends to only hear about the badness, but things like this happened to me too! :)

[cinder]

I got to our Walmart at 8:30 am, and it looked like a typical Saturday. Lots of stuff left and I didn't even have to wait in line.

[theboyzmom]

Our walmart was CRAZY busy today!!!! We got there around 3:30 and almost couldn't find a parking space...we didn't get everything on our lists (even with 3 people getting stuff)

 

came back around 8am and there was NOTHING left of the blitz items...not even a crappy $4 appliance

[sallnori]

I got a nintendo ds for 99.99 at HEB. YEAHHHHHH!!!

[The Mfn Man]

I was at home sippin some drinks and I had to take some of my visiting friends back to their parents house so I did and I looked at the clock and it was about midnight so I said what the hell and just went to Wal-Mart cause I figured people would be lining up already but I was the 1st one there and people showed up about 10 mins later I think about 6 total but they were really nice and we talked the whole time well every tv 42" and above were all in the site to store section and when 5 Oclock came I just checked out and when i was walking to the front door to get my car cause we were told that we could go shopping and pick up our tv when we leave since they figured you may have wanted more than one thing I saw a tv stand with a swivel that for $94 before my employee discount I thought that it was a steal so i grabbed one went to the register and checked out and no one was standing at any registers because everyone was still running around trying to find deals so I checked out it took me 5 hours of waiting but I was out of their 15 mins after five and with all the discounts from being an employee I saved more than $500 retail on a 50 inch Samsung Plasma and the stand after Wal-Mart I was dog tired so I ate at Shoney's and went home and went to sleep like a thumb sucking child All in All great Black Friday.(Sorry no Periods or Commas)

[Tallgntlmn]

Walked into Best Buy around 1:45pm. Ended up getting the 32" Dynex for $399. You know, the doorbuster? Hey, I have no idea how good or bad it is. My mom needed a TV and this one will get the job done. It's replacing a TV that is at least 16 years old.

 

On that note, this particular Best Buy (Lindbergh location, ATL) appeared to have a good bit of doorbusters or ticketed items still available around 2pm on Black Friday. I would have never expected to get one of the ticketed items that late in the day.

[duluthsnow]

Very dissapointing BF. First year I didn't camp out because nothing exceptional worth waiting for. Bought a few online items from BB, Amazon and Buy.com. I guess next year we can eat turkey ON Thanksgiving like everyone else.

 

I think retailers will complain that shoppers didn't want to part with their cash. My theory is that retailers are failing marketing 101 and will have to do much better to get the online community back into the stores.

 

See ya next year (or not)!

 

Jim

[cwrtlm]

My Wal-Mart was crazy but only item I saw that was totally gone were the Samsung cameras, probably 20 Kodak cameras left after noon, 7 or 8 of the big flat screen blitz items. I love going back around 8-10 and finding the blitz items on the ground or in the carts for restocking. If you loook hard enough you can find the items somwhere in the store. Overall in my area it seemed the super cheap stuff was going like crazy but the bigger ticket items are sitting around, I am hoping to pick a TV up after Christmas on sale!

[drmad7]

Walmart at Easton in Columbus was awful. I "stopped by" at 2am to do recon on the location of stuff I wanted. It was obvious to me that more people than usual were hanging out in the store than past years. Thank God I didn't want the 42" or 50" TVs! There were already about 20 people sitting around waiting for those! When I came back to the store at 4:30am, people were digging thru the kids pajamas, knocking them on the ground, and I saw people people walking around with doorbuster items in their baskets. The Walmart employees were on the the intercom telling folks that the items were not available until til 5am and it made no difference! They had some 46" TVs in the main aisle, and suddenly a guy grabbed one of them. As soon as he did that, EVERYBODY started grabbing them! The Walmart managers had to go the each person and take the TVs back (they had to get the store security AND the Columbus police to stand there at 5am as they handed the TVs out)! The crowd was at least twice as large as last year's. I decided that this is probably my last year getting up for this (at least at Walmart). I'll stick with the websites for next year. It was not as fun as it usually is.

[cherry33778]

The Supercenter I went to was nuts!!! The blu-ray players were gone in 60 sec, luckily I got one I went to my local one though and they had tons of dvds, printers, and Garmins, but the rest of the big tickets were long gone.

[slinkster65]

Went to Ace, Home Depot and Sports Authority today.

 

In and out fo Ace in 15 min (spent a little over $60, once rebate is back total of $45 spent):

 

-Stanley tool box for $10

-Stanley tripod flashlight for $10

-Stanley plier set for $10

-Large pet bed for $10

-2 packs fo the AAA batteries for $1ea

-Dremel acc. kit for I think $15

 

Went to Home Depot next, no lines, staff everywhere, no hassles or troubles whatsoever:

 

-2 packs of the 3pk maglites for $10ea

-A pack of 4 tape measures for $5

-Husky 125pc screwdriver set for $15

-Husky set of the smaller screwdrivers (for glasses and the really small screws) $5

-3pc aluminum Husky screwdriver set for $10

-Husky ratcheting screwdriver 12pc set for $5

-6 pack of Husky LED flashlights for $10

-Black and Decker ratcheting screwdriver for $10

-2 things of Christmas lights for the deck for $9ea

 

Can't really tell how much saved sicne they only ahve some of these deals around now. But overall spent just over $100 between 2 of us.

 

Sports Authority in andout in 20 min (saved $35, spent $68):

 

-Nice fleece blanket for $8

-North Face fleece pullover for $40

-Nike football $15

 

Also did shopping online at:

 

Finish Line (free shipping AND $10 coupon code so spent less than $70):

-Pair of New Balnce shoes for $55 (reg $130)

-Purdue hoodie for $20 (reg $40)

 

Aeropostale:

-Whole bunch of clothes for $140 free shipping (saved easily $150)

 

Best Buy (from last Sun):

-James Bond set 1 and 4 for $25ea but had gitcards and reward coupns so I paid $15 out of pocket with free shipping (basiclly saved $85 out of pocket!!)

 

So I have had a good week. All I am looking for now is a TV (32" most likely) if I find a deal worth it. And then maybe a couple other DVDs at some point. Also need to get an HDMI cable or 2 and maybe an upconvert DVD player if I get a tv.

 

This year we aren't really doing many presents sicne my parents are getting a new fridge and possibly dishwasher now, so that is MUCH more important than anything else I want.

 

Plus, my bday is in just about 2 weeks, so I already told them there were 3 or 4 DVDs that have come out in the past couple weeks and the next couple I want, and that is it.