How did you spend Black Friday ?

[frayne]

Never did understand the traditional Christmas shopping day being the day after Thanksgiving and avoid malls and big stores like the plague.

Spent my black Friday, cleaning gutters, mowing, getting the garage cleaned and organized for the winter. In addition to catching the LSU-Arkansas game.

How did the rest of you tightwads spend the tradition shopping day ?

 

[kz]

Stayed home, watched football and enjoyed the peace and quiet after hosting 20 people for Thanksgiving. No shopping whatsoever.

 

[grasshopper]

Had 1.5 inch of rain Thursday/Friday high of 62. I lit a fire anticipating brunch in the Arizona room. Poured some sparkling for Ms, G, it looked so good I had one too. About noon we decided that no one wanted to cook, so we had leftovers that our TD host packed for us. Spent the afternoon talking about our upcoming trip. Watched a couple of Joni Mitchell 70's video's. Never made dinner, off to La La Land.

 

[Walt34]

I've never understood the Black Friday shopping either. Nor does DW (thankfully!)

The Spenderina SIL went for a 9-hour marathon with her daughter. More and more it's turning into a contact sport. The behavior is admittedly beyond my comprehension.

 

[freebird5825]

Not shopping!

I finished up my turkey carcass soup storage, emptied the dishasher, refilled/ran it with the larger casseroles and pots/pans, went to lunch with a friend, and did volunteer table bussing at night.
Business was very slow at the club, only 70 people for dinner. That was more than anyone expected to show up. I was hoping to w*rk off some of the extra food I ate on Turkey Day.

 

[REWahoo]

Rescuing puppies and kittens from burning buildings, adopting starving orphans and gut-shooting annuity salesmen.

 

[East Texas]

We put in a "through the wall" fan to move heat generated by the wood stove in the living room to the adjacent bedroom. We had to make a quick run to Ace Hardware to get a few things for the installation so I guess that counts as shopping on Black Friday. Leftovers for lunch, a nice long nap, and warmed up leftover pizza for dinner.

 

[MichaelB]

Yesterday we went to my brother's house in the afternoon. The route takes us by a factory outlet shopping center. There was a 2.5 mile backup on the highway due to a 2 mile long line of cars getting off at that exit (and two accidents).

The good news is they did wait for us before eating

 

[Alan]

We spent most of it traveling back from visiting our daughter and SIL. We've never even considered going shopping on Black Friday.

 

[Moemg]

We spent it travelling back home after visting Savannah . I am not a black friday shopper unless it's online .

 

[Walt34]

Rescuing puppies and kittens from burning buildings, adopting starving orphans and gut-shooting annuity salesmen.

You da Man!

 

[NW-Bound]

After hosting Thanksgiving for 28 people, or was it 29 - and I was cooking too, along side DW - I spent quite a bit of time shopping on Friday. Yep, I deserved what I wanted to get.

I needed a certain thing, and went to all the usual places looking for it, such as Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, Costco, etc... Best Buy had something that would work for me, but I was late and it was sold out. Costco had the next runner up and at a very decent price, but it was not exactly what I had in mind, so I did not buy. I may have to do more shopping today.








Heh, hold your horses! I am talking about shopping online here.

About a week ago, my trustworthy laptop suddenly went "kaput". It was so sad. I paid $700 three years ago for this 4.5-lbs 13.3" laptop with a dual-core CPU. I had been happy with it, and was expecting to use it forever, and not having to replace it so soon. I strongly suspect that either the CPU or more likely the motherboard has gone bad. I have opened up and repaired a couple of laptops before, but am reluctant to fix this one. As I have no way of isolating the failure to either the CPU or motherboard, buying replacements for both would be nearly as expensive as getting a new laptop.

My requirements are simple. It must have a dual-core i3 CPU, 3 or 4GB of memory, a screen of 13.3" or 14", a built-in DVD, and a weight in the 4-lbs range or less. Oh, and it has to be $500 or less. If it weren't for price, one of the wonderful Sony Vaio's would make me very happy with the weight down in the 2-3 lbs. Toshiba also got some like that.

Found a suitable one on-line, and been seriously considering hitting the "buy" button. But I wonder if I can get a better deal by waiting a bit longer.

 

[Nova]

First time in a long time that I did not leave home in the wee hours of the morning to get that "limited to supply on hand" black Friday item. I must say it was rather liberating! I spent the day relaxing and feeling good about my LBYM day.

 

[ERD50]

Found a suitable one on-line, and been seriously considering hitting the "buy" button. But I wonder if I can get a better deal by waiting a bit longer.

google the camelizer - fantastic tool for stuff you can wait a while for the best price. I heard about it from someone on this forum, IIRC.

I bought a B&W laser for a family member last year ~ $100. Went to buy the same one this year for another family member and it was $180! The camel found it for $98 a few weeks later - I jumped on it and got it!

-ERD50

 

[foxfirev5]

I did a 4 wheel brake job on DW's car saving hundreds of $$. However she was inside purchasing Christmas gifts online. I believe I'm overall in the hole $$$.

 

[FIREd]

We didn't leave the house. Played "Rock Band" on the Wii, exercised, made some panini sandwiches for lunch with some leftover ham from Thanksgiving, assembled an emergency kit for DW's car, finished watching season 4 of "Breaking Bad", ate some more ham for supper, and finally spent a few hours browsing the internet (but no online shopping).

We are done with X-mas shopping anyways.

 

[Nodak]

About a week ago, my trustworthy laptop suddenly went "kaput". It was so sad. I paid $700 three years ago for this 4.5-lbs 13.3" laptop with a dual-core CPU. I had been happy with it, and was expecting to use it forever, and not having to replace it so soon. I strongly suspect that either the CPU or more likely the motherboard has gone bad. I have opened up and repaired a couple of laptops before, but am reluctant to fix this one. As I have no way of isolating the failure to either the CPU or motherboard, buying replacements for both would be nearly as expensive as getting a new laptop.

My requirements are simple. It must have a dual-core i3 CPU, 3 or 4GB of memory, a screen of 13.3" or 14", a built-in DVD, and a weight in the 4-lbs range or less. Oh, and it has to be $500 or less. If it weren't for price, one of the wonderful Sony Vaio's would make me very happy with the weight down in the 2-3 lbs. Toshiba also got some like that.

Found a suitable one on-line, and been seriously considering hitting the "buy" button. But I wonder if I can get a better deal by waiting a bit longer.

My 4 year old laptop died about 3 weeks ago; I found a nice Toshiba at Best Buy for $449. It's an AMD quad core processor, 17 inch screen, 4G RAM, and 500G HDD. I don't know the exact weight but it's not bad.

 

[W2R]

Rescuing puppies and kittens from burning buildings, adopting starving orphans and gut-shooting annuity salesmen.

What a coincidence! Me too.

Actually, after taking F.'s Murano to the dealer for some expensive transmission repairs, we went to the gym, then lunch, then a pleasure drive, then the grocery store, and so on.

We stayed away from Black Friday sales and from the area's largest shopping mall, which is only a few blocks from his home. It didn't look that busy, though.

 

[obgyn65]

I went to buy additional vitamins, OTC pain meds and Monistat + Vagisil to take with me to Central America next week when we run the free clinic for a week.

How did the rest of you tightwads spend the tradition shopping day ?

 

[MichaelB]

So, the unanswered question: was this black friday "blacK', or "black enough".

Just to remind those still recovering from turkey hangover, black friday is so named because it is traditionally the day when the retail industry makes it's first profit for the year. If black friday sales aren't good enough, the retail industry will have poor financial results for the year, and the ripple effects can be significant - as retail is the largest source of new job creation in the US economy.

 

[Brett_Cameron]

DW noticed that the local wal-mart had a sale on an Xbox 360 bundle we were eying for DS-8, so I ventured out at 10 PM Thursday night. It was the first time in 25 years of the WM's existence that the parking lot was full with people circling the lot for parking spots. I parking in a nearby state and hiked to the store "just to see". They had pallets of the their "black Friday" crap in the aisles with most of it gone already. Amazingly, they had all of the registers manned. I had not thought that was possible! I did run into a couple of fellow ERer's and had some nice chats before I fled.

On the way home I noticed the police had a mobile command post set up in the empty parking lot of the mall waiting for the mall sales to start at midnight.

I shuddered and carefully drove home. I was passed once by a crazy speeding driver who undoubtedly left his cash at home and NEEDED to get it and get back to the store.

A few years ago I went to get some "black Friday" specials at Sears, fifty miles away. They were cheap and crap.

Bought the Xbox on-line on Friday.

 

[donheff]

Long bike ride on rural roads. Took another one today. The weather was nice but winter is on the way. Didn't go in any stores.

 

[NW-Bound]

My 4 year old laptop died about 3 weeks ago; I found a nice Toshiba at Best Buy for $449. It's an AMD quad core processor, 17 inch screen, 4G RAM, and 500G HDD. I don't know the exact weight but it's not bad.

Don't you hate it when you are forced to spend money to replace things that you already own, and have no reason to replace?

The quad-core laptop you bought probably has enough "horsepower" to rival desktops that are only a few years old. However, it is probably in the 6-7 lbs range, and power hungry too.

I already have several desktops with big screens for home use. This notebook I want to replace is for travel and portable use. The small size and light weight are not negotiable.

The 10" netbook I bought for my wife to use for travel is fine for Web surfing and emails, but too puny for my occasional need for portable computing for pay. I have found that the recently deceased dual-core with 13.3" screen worked out perfect for me.

And by the way, my dead notebook is also a Toshiba. Yet, on the Web, they say that Asus and Toshiba are the two most reliable laptop brands. Additionally, overall, about 1/3 of all laptops die in the first 3 years. That's really miserable.

google the camelizer - fantastic tool for stuff you can wait a while for the best price. I heard about it from someone on this forum, IIRC.

Thanks. Will check it out tonight. Just returning home now and resting from a dash out to several hardware stores. Purpose of trip: to get material to fulfill a recently handed down "honey do" list.

On the way home I noticed the police had a mobile command post set up in the empty parking lot of the mall waiting for the mall sales to start at midnight.

On the Web, there's a headline about a shopper using pepper spray on others. I guess spraying capsaicin is still a lot better than spraying lead!

 

[eytonxav]

My Fit Foods had a buy $40 worth of food for $20 deal online, so I took advantage of that, but avoided the stores altogether. Also enjoyed LSU puttin a woopin on them Razorbacks.

 

[frayne]

Rescuing puppies and kittens from burning buildings, adopting starving orphans and gut-shooting annuity salesmen.

Dat wood be a great sig line !