So...Black Friday and gifts this year

[DammitJanet]

Anyone want to admit they are going out on Black Friday? I am going to head out on Thursday night because everything I want will be available from 6-7 at walmart of Thursday.

Im hoping I can manage to snag everything I want. I do like Walmart's new policy of giving anyone who is in line between 6 and 7 a wristband so if they run out, they will make sure and ship you the item before Xmas.

My biggies this year are a 32 inch LED TV for $98, the newest Furby for $29 and another Nabi 2 tablet to resell on eBay after this whole Black Friday is over with. They have the Nabi 2 for $99 and it normally sells for between $180 and $200.

They also have a couple of household items I want like a stand mixer, a griddle and one of those personal blender things to make shakes. There are also a few other toys I want to snag. I have the map of my local Walmart and have figured out just where I need to be to get the items. Im taking Billy and Tony with me to stand in the lines to get their wristbands. If I get everything I want it will be about 200 bucks. Getting everything is a big maybe though. Normally some stuff gets grabbed up.

So, anyone else going too?

 

[LittleDudesMom]

I've actually finished my Christmas shopping, but easy child, her best friend and I are going to head to the outlet mall in Williamsburg tomorrow night about 9 only to hit the Donney & Bourke store since everything (including their florentine leather) is 1/2 off! I'm looking for a new leather wallet and easy child and her bestie are looking for leather handbags. It's more of just an adventure. We are meeting at my house at 8, making some coffee and then hitting the road for the hour drive.

Fingers crossed you get everything on your list Janet!

Sharon

 

[KTMom91]

Sharon, I'm so jealous! You have a Dooney & Burke store close by? I love their stuff!

I admit that Hubby (who is still being difficult about it) and I are going out Thursday night, hitting Target first. If he keeps complaining that may be the only store I get to. If Miss KT was here, we'd be making a night of it, hitting several stores including Starbucks for a peppermint mocha, and maybe IHOP if we got hungry. Maybe they'll be able to come home next Thanksgiving and I can get my shop on in style.

 

[PatriotsGirl]

I am not sure yet. Money has been so tight with difficult child and Connor added to the household. husband redeemed his amex points for amex gift cards for the kids this year. Both would just like clothes but don't want me picking them out, of course. So, we will hit the outlet stores the day after Christmas so they can have their shopping sprees.
husband and I need new pots and pans badly. If I can find a deal on those, we may get them. husband also wants a generator for the camper in case we lose power in the winter. So we are waiting to browse through the ads in the morning to decide.

 

[GoingNorth]

I don't do Black Friday. Chanukah starts the first day of the Thanksgiving holiday. I did my shopping from the comfort my own home. Mostly we do gift cards, which is kind of funny as each year she sends me a Kohl's gift card and I send her a Carson's card for her birthday.

Amazon gift cards for the younger set, a fruit basket for my elderly neighbor, plus some doggy treats for his dog and I'm all set.

 

[svengandhi]

No, I am not going out shopping. I am not getting anyone any presents this year. I pay college tuition for daughter and difficult child, let oldest boy live here rent free, support easy child and babyboy and H. It's enough. None of them, except maybe daughter, deserves anything so for her I will pay for her on line teaching license tests. I have finally been driven to grinchdom.

 

[Hound dog]

Even if I had the funds, I don't, as usual, have the time.

This is my only weekend off for the next 3. I'll be working up to 180 hrs over the next 3 wks. HOLY MOLY! It's awful when I look at it that way. omg! We just were informed they're probably adding another weekend.

Time has become my enemy.

I had planned to make most of my gifts. Uh, it's not looking like that is going to happen. So if I have to last minute run out and buy I'm going to be mighty irritated.

Tomorrow is cleaning and possibly shopping for food items I don't have on hand for our dinner, which is friday because easy child works thanksgiving. Friday is our dinner. Saturday I'm putting in the dining room floor. Sunday I'm either decorating the house or collapsing......I have yet to decide.

I'm not whining over the overtime hours. I lose 3 days pay this week........which this weekend's overtime helped compensate for. And end of december I lose 2 wks while the plant is shut down for cleaning. The overtime will cover the money loss there with some extra. But man o' man is it making my holidays rough this year.

 

[jal]

Hound- I know you went through a temp co to get this job, but since you do work there and they are doing a voluntary shut down you should be getting a pink slip to collect unemployment during the time off. Both now and at Xmas. Co I used to work for did that for the factory workers and many of those came to us through a temp agency.

 

[Hound dog]

Thank you jal. Yes, I know. I plan to use it too.

But the overtime will help that pinch while I'm doing the waiting period. I don't have anything to pinch, so I am not going to kick a gift horse in the mouth.

I'm a little surprised, though. This is normally our dead period. Overtime doesn't normally start until sometime in January when we start filling spring orders. I dunno why but I have a strong sneaky suspicion this is the companies way of helping us temp employees survive those days off without it hurting us.....as well as having a little extra maybe for the holidays. I dunno, maybe it is the Elf in me. I do know we were bought out, but don't know by whom as it's being kept top secret. I do know that orders that didn't exist a couple of weeks ago suddenly developed into needing several million candles by January right after we saw people surveying the plant. So maybe it is the new owners way of helping the temps out. Regardless, I'm grateful.

Just messes with my holiday schedule something horrible.

 

[BusynMember]

Jumper and I are going out right after dinner...lol! We don't live in a high population city, but it can still get plenty crowded during peak times, but if I don't want to shop alone, these are good days for me. Plus it's bonding time for Jumper and me. Black Friday? I'm going to brave the cold (and it's cold!!!) to try to get to Menards to get an electric fireplace that is on sale for $59. It's not a gift. It's for me...I love them...lol. Well, husband and Jumper will like it too. It's really cute. Later, I'm going to a bigger city with my husband, who has this one day off.

Although I'm not spending a lot of money on the adult kids, because we are pretty broke this year, I am looking for maternity stuff for Julie and stocking stuffers.

 

[1905]

Hound, I know you make candles at work. Can you answer this? Is there a difference between brands besides the smell? Some are so expensive and some are not. Do you make the more expensive ones the same way as the cheap ones? What is the exact difference? I love the brand with a "Y". Which oneves the most bang for the buck? TIA!

 

[Hound dog]

There is no difference that I can tell from ones we make for walmart and ones we make for the designers, except perhaps the glass is a bit more fragile and the fragrance of some of them. You're basically paying for the name. Except perhaps for Calvin Klein as his seem to smell like most of his fragrances......which actually make me sick. lol (his fragrances are expensive too)

A candle is a candle regardless of how it is packaged. Ours are made by hand mostly if you don't count the conveyer belt and the hoppers filling the jars with liquid wax. At those temps, I certainly am glad a person is not doing it.

The favorite candle we make? Entermanns (sp?) baked goods candles. OMG They are heaven on earth and I swear I gain 10 lbs with each order we make. I fantasized over spice cake for a week! lol No joke. Smell just like your favorite baked good from them. Wonderful. No idea of how much they cost but they tell me they're sold at walmart.

I am a slugger. I "make" the candles. I've done walmart, Entermann's, JC Penny's (no idea of brand they go under because I'm not on the packing side for these), various others, Calvin Klein and Airwick.....not the "oh I wanna freshen the house kind" but some super outrageous expensive kind that causes the bosses to breathe down your neck 10 times worse than with CK. Not just anyone gets to make that last one.

Wax is the same. Wick is the same. Burns the same way. Know what I mean??

 

[Hound dog]

Now to totally look like a two faced fool with my first post here.........

A few hours ago I went to wallie world with easy child for bread, swear to God, and was none too happy about it either. Took Travis along.

Walked out of the store with:

An HP tablet for Kayla with 2 yr full warranty for 89.00 (her only gift from Nana, she wanted it super bad and her Mom stepped on and broke the one she won at bible school, uncle Travis could not fix it)

Spiderman bed sets for Alex and Evan. Bedspreads, sheets, and a nice tote bag that they came in. 24.99 (now their room will match & both are crazy for spiderman)

2 spiderman stuffed dolls. One for Alex and one for Brandon who has also been bitten with the spiderman bug. 12.00 ea (they are huge)

A teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bed set for Darrin. 24.99

A huge stuffed Mickey Mouse for Connor who is Mickey obsessed. 10.00

doctor McStuffins doll (big one) for Aubrey for 15.00.

Rifle case for easy child's husband for 20.00.

Food chopper (automatic revereware) for me for 5.00.

I will be heading out to kmart at 6am with easy child to pick up some Jake and the Neverland Pirates things for Brandon and Connor.......and to see if they may have something else for Aubrey and something for Oliver.

I even snatched up a lap top for 388.00. I walked around with it. I thought about it. I talked it over with easy child. I thought about it some more. I showed it to my computer genius Travis, who didn't help much at first when he said it was an awesome deal. I told myself I had no one to buy it for, it was still out of my budget. While I thought to myself that I could resell it still cheaper than list and make a good profit. Talked myself out of that with Travis' help when he reminded me I have a house payment in about a week. Gave it back to Travis and told him to go give it back to the sale's lady. lol That was awfully hard to walk away from lemme tell you. But I don't like laptops, so I'd not use it myself.

Most of my xmas is now bought. I need to get something for Travis, easy child, Katie's husband and Nichole's husband (already know what I"m getting him), another something for Darrin, something for Oliver, Connor and Brandon........oh, shoot Evan too. I might get lucky and walk out of kmart with my shopping finished in the morning. Oh, wait, take Darrin off the list........I already got his sling shot.

Travis got:

fry grandpappy 15.00 (for me, although he's been trying to get me to buy one for years now)
tablet case for kayla
3ds power cord for Darrin (he loses them like crazy and easy child got him the 3ds for xmas)
2 stuffed adorable dinosaurs for Oliver.

And yes.........I did not forget the bread. It just got a little squished. LOL

 

[tiredmommy]

I've been online shopping throughout the day. And Duckie and I are planning on hitting the strip of funky, artsy stores in the larger city nearby on Friday.

 

[SuZir]

I'm bit jealous. Certainly no sales or good deals before Christmas for us. Sales start a day after Boxing Day and till that they will rip everything they can from us. And even then not that good deals. Of course if we had a "Black Friday" I probably couldn't stand the crowds anyway.

I'm also jealous some of you have good deal of your Christmas shopping done. I haven't even started. I do know what I'm going to buy to few of my godchildren but other than that nill. Even my sons tell me that they don't actually need anything and they don't have any particular wants right now so they want money. And while husband plans to give them shopping money for the sales, I don't want to gift money for Christmas.

 

[KTMom91]

Hubby and I got back from Target, and I am now done with my Christmas shopping! He complained a bit, but was basically cooperative about helping me look for stuff for the grands. Along with the 4 1/2 foot tall stuffed giraffe, we got Maddie a Spiderman doll because she loves him and Spiderman band aids, and got Charlotte a Baby Einstein gift pack with six different toys in it. I also got Charlotte a stuffed Minnie Mouse.

We drew names this year for Hubby's family, and I got K (my daughter in law). Found a beautiful soft fuzzy turquoise colored blanket (on sale of course), and that was the last present I needed.

 

[BusynMember]

Last night, after eating, Jumper, her boyfriend and I went to WallyWorld. It was way before the sales were to start at 8pm. Lines were already forming inside the stores, although nothing was out yet. People were seated in the aisles, some on Laptops or ipads. I decided that after we looked around, we would go home. I had originally wanted Jumper to show me what fashions she liked for later buying and what type of makeup she wants, but the store's workers had rearranged the store for the lines and it was hard to navigate around plus some items were in different places.
After WallyWorld, we decided just to go home since the other stores were probably just as crazy. But...

today husband and I are driving off to a bigger city to do some actual buying, even though it's Black Friday. However, we are not going to try to get there at 6am and we are not sure what to buy. Depends on the sales offered in various stores. Wish us luck!!!!

 

[Hound dog]

Headed to kmart in a minute.

I've had a nap. lol

I'm chugging coffee and praying to find some awesome prices.

 

[BusynMember]

It was 6 degrees this morning as long lines formed OUTSIDE of stores. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I had gone out to get a paper (in warm car) to find the sales and felt morbidly fascinated by all the long lines of people out in the freezing cold.

When I got home, Sonic was ready for work and when I told him about what I'd seen, he grinned and said, "My friend told me about going to Walmart early one Black Friday. He saw some woman with a large screen TV in her shopping cart walking to her car and some man ran up to her, grabbed it, and ran. Nobody did anything to stop him. Bet she was so heartsick. She obviously bought it and, even on sale, it couldn't have been THAT cheap. People are seriously nutty about things like this. At least there were no beatings or killings around here...so far...lol.

On a more serious note, I don't understand how some people can get violent over a darn store item. Glad I don't live in a big city anymore, where it gets out of control with the amount of bodies and violence can happen.

 

[Hound dog]

I got some great deals at kmart too and only have M to buy for now.

And I know big city stores can get insane.............ours? Polite, fairly patient, people helping each other find things and figuring out prices. (there weren't enough ads to go around) Of course.......there were few items our stores actually sold out of too.

I thought I missed the giant batman for alex........stopped at walmart this morning and he was restocked and still on sale.