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:D Hmmm, maybe I'm the minority then. But I've avoided BF for years anyway. . . I hate the crowds.

 

Minority, perhaps, but not alone by any means. I prefer to stay home and be happy in my dinner induced haze. I did it once. I did not find it fun. I did make some lifelong friends in the checkout line at ToysRUs, though. :D

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Target announces midnight opening for Black Friday

 

Midnight? Who wants to spend the day eating and hanging out with family and then get up and have a marathon shopping session at midnight? No thanks.

:iagree:

 

The K-Mart by us was actually open all day last Thanksgiving. I feel sorry for the employees who have to work and don't get to spend the holiday with their families.

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While midnight does sound better than 4am, I wonder how early one would have to get in line with this earlier time? Hmmm. A friend of mine invited me to go out with her but if I have to leave my family at 8-9pm just to wait in line, I dunno. The 4am-ers are an interesting group who are DEDICATED to being there...but midnight? That just opens it up to wayyyy toooo many people! :lol:

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Ummmm... I did last year (except at Walmart, rather than Target). My best friend and I have been doing this for the past few years and it is actually quite fun!

 

 

Yep....color me crazy! My only problem is now that Target is opening at midnight, I need to figure out where I want to be (sigh)

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While midnight does sound better than 4am, I wonder how early one would have to get in line with this earlier time? Hmmm. A friend of mine invited me to go out with her but if I have to leave my family at 8-9pm just to wait in line, I dunno.

 

I think that's a big part of my beef with the whole thing. I consider Thanksgiving a 'family' holiday, and very often we have family that we only get to see on these major holidays because of travel, time off work, etc. With stores making moves like this, it's encroaching ever more on that family time. . . and as someone else pointed out, it's even harder on the people who will be forced to work on a holiday that have probably had off in the past.

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Target announces midnight opening for Black Friday

 

Midnight? Who wants to spend the day eating and hanging out with family and then get up and have a marathon shopping session at midnight? No thanks.

 

get up? we haven't even gone to bed yet ;). . . . have the marathon shopping, and then come home and go to bed.

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Target announces midnight opening for Black Friday

 

Midnight? Who wants to spend the day eating and hanging out with family and then get up and have a marathon shopping session at midnight? No thanks.

 

Who goes to bed before midnight? I'd rather do this than the 4 in the morning thing. Because then I would be in a coma and I am *not* getting up. But I'm still up and about at midnight. I would totally go shopping.

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So not worth it. I tried BF one year and so many things were gone by the time I got there (at opening). The deals are now spread throughout the year. The day after Christmas has better deals (although not the current goodies) w/a fraction of the crowds.

 

I'm doing most of my shopping w/Amazon Prime this year from the comfort of my home.

 

Laura

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:D Hmmm, maybe I'm the minority then. But I've avoided BF for years anyway. . . I hate the crowds.

 

Not only the crowds: I intensely dislike the frantic, gotta-buy, gotta-buy atmosphere.

 

I've shopped on Black Friday exactly twice, both times at a single store and for a specific item. The year the film Prince of Egypt was being released, my daughter was really looking forward to it. Wal-Mart -- a store I normally avoid -- had an exclusive set that included the soundtrack CD and a voucher for a ticket to see the movie. I lined up for that for her, because there were limited numbers available. Another year, it was a toy for my son at Toys R Us.

 

I hope to never do it again.

 

Of course, we also try to be mostly done shopping before then. So, it's a moot point.

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get up? we haven't even gone to bed yet ;). . . . have the marathon shopping, and then come home and go to bed.

 

I was thinking more in terms of hauling my turkey- and pie-stuffed self up off the sofa :lol:

 

There's something very wrong about spending the day being thankful for what we have and then running out in the middle of the night to fight over stuff that we probably don't need. I avoid Black Friday and have no desire to be shopping at midnight or at 6 am.

 

EXACTLY!

 

I usually have family in town that I don't get to see often, and DH has the whole weekend off, and there are just a lot of things I'd rather do than go out in the dead of night and fight crowds and people to buy stuff that I don't need anyway. I usually have 90% of my Christmas shopping done before T-day anyway, because the shopping situation is pretty much miserable from T-day to New Years :D

Edited by LemonPie
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There's something very wrong about spending the day being thankful for what we have and then running out in the middle of the night to fight over stuff that we probably don't need. I avoid Black Friday and have no desire to be shopping at midnight or at 6 am.

 

EXACTLY!

 

I usually have family in town that I don't get to see often, and DH has the whole weekend off, and there are just a lot of things I'd rather do than go out in the dead of night and fight crowds and people to buy stuff that I don't need anyway. I usually have 90% of my Christmas shopping done before T-day anyway, because the shopping situation is pretty much miserable from T-day to New Years :D

 

Some of us don't have family in town or our celebrations are over. My family retires early. They wouldn't even know that I left if I went at midnight. But, I think many would have a different approach if they had family visiting.

 

It does not negate our Thanksgiving Celebration and our gratitude because we are going out on BF to buy Christmas gifts for our loved ones. If we went on Saturday does that make us more grateful? :confused:

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I would rather have my fingernails pulled out one by one.

 

The wives of my two first cousins talked me into this once when I was visiting them in Charlotte. It was chaos, claustrophobic, and a bit sad.

 

I would rather stay home, sleep in, start a roaring fire and have cinnamon buns and hot chocolate while playing board games with my kids and dh.

 

I must be a bit of a fuddy duddy, but I would rather pay the couple of extra bucks just to avoid the chaos.

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Some of us don't have family in town or our celebrations are over. My family retires early. They wouldn't even know that I left if I went at midnight. But, I think many would have a different approach if they had family visiting.

 

It does not negate our Thanksgiving Celebration and our gratitude because we are going out on BF to buy Christmas gifts for our loved ones. If we went on Saturday does that make us more grateful? :confused:

 

:iagree: We never have family visiting for Thanksgiving so I usually don't even cook. We watch the parade, eat out and hang out. It's not a big deal if I go shopping later.

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There's something very wrong about spending the day being thankful for what we have and then running out in the middle of the night to fight over stuff that we probably don't need. I avoid Black Friday and have no desire to be shopping at midnight or at 6 am.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

 

People getting trampled to death over a sale on an Xbox? Fistfights over a TV? Black Friday is the perfect example of the rampant materialism that plagues us. No thanks.

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ToysRUS did this last year. My SIL and I were in line at 10pm.

 

It actually worked out really nicely- our family tradition is to spend the evening of Thanksgiving perusing the sales ads together and making a game plan. So, we are up anyway, the kids and dads go to bed, and we go shopping. As a night owl, I'd much rather shop during the night than get up after only a few hours of sleep and try to get to the stores early. Last year, I was home by 6am and slept in while my husband got up with the kids.

 

As far as the charges of Consumerism and Materialism, I'm going to pass the bean dip. :D Black Friday gives my bargain-hunting-heart a thrill, and I actually get a lot of non-holiday shopping done then as well, since kids clothes and other staples are at their lowest prices that day as well, not just "junk we don't need." We also tend to save up for any big electronics purchases for our family and will buy that day if the right deal comes along. It's actually the one day of the year I darken the doors of most of these stores, so personally I don't see how it's any worse to shop that day as opposed to any other. For me, it's a lot of fun but, shrug, to each their own!

Whoops! Guess I didn't just pass the bean dip.

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Some of us don't have family in town or our celebrations are over. My family retires early. They wouldn't even know that I left if I went at midnight. But, I think many would have a different approach if they had family visiting.

 

It does not negate our Thanksgiving Celebration and our gratitude because we are going out on BF to buy Christmas gifts for our loved ones. If we went on Saturday does that make us more grateful? :confused:

 

Fair enough :) And I do get that the BF deals help enormously with things like Christmas when you're on a tight budget!

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Some of us don't have family in town or our celebrations are over. My family retires early. They wouldn't even know that I left if I went at midnight. But, I think many would have a different approach if they had family visiting.

 

It does not negate our Thanksgiving Celebration and our gratitude because we are going out on BF to buy Christmas gifts for our loved ones. If we went on Saturday does that make us more grateful? :confused:

 

:iagree: We never have family visiting for Thanksgiving so I usually don't even cook. We watch the parade, eat out and hang out. It's not a big deal if I go shopping later.

 

For what it's worth, we don't have guests for Thanksgiving, either. But we enjoy spending the time intentionally together, and we have our own traditions for the holidays that we've worked hard to establish.

 

I don't know. For me, it's the crazed atmosphere of Black Friday that makes the difference for me.

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I totally would do midnight then I can get home and be done with it. I'm not a morning person but am a night owl lol. Plus dh has to work the day after most likely so I can get my shopping done and then be home and sleep while he gets ready for work and goes.

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We usually stop by Target and Joanns. I watch Joanns sale prices constantly and nothing beats their Black Friday sales. I usually need to get my fabric for Christmas presents then to be able to afford making big flannel throws and fun fleece stuff. We might get a few DVDs for adult relatives from Target. I've picked up cheap appliances for college kids that I know will need them.

 

We probably won't be going this year. We are traveling the morning and evening of Thanksgiving, and my husband needs to work the next day. I'm making smaller gifts and I have some fabric hanging around from last year. I'll still keep an eye on Amazon though.

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I think Midnight is actually better than doing the 5 am thing. I usually go at 5:00 am on Black Friday. I don't want to, but my budget means I need some of those good deals.

 

Anyway, the mad rush at 5:00 am can be crazy. When it is staggered overnight there isn't that crazy rush in the morning. (I found this out at Walmart last year)

 

And who knows, my mom and I might rather go at midnight and sleep in the next day instead of getting up in the middle of the night after a full day.

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DH and I have a Thanksgiving tradition that we started when we dating and lived 1000 miles from our closest family.... We eat Thanksgiving dinner at a Chinese buffet. After we had kids, we added them to the tradition. After the inlaws moved here, we added them to the tradition. So shopping on BF in no way interferes with the tradition. It is part of the tradition!

 

DH and I get up early on T-giving and hit the Early Bird sales at KMart and Sears. Then we head home and watch the Macy's parade. We grab the family and have a late lunch at the Chinese buffet. We spend some time going over the BF sales and making a list of where we are going and why. The kids spend the night at the inlaws and we head out for the BF sales at some point, depending on where we are going. When we get back (typically before noon), we head to the inlaws and spend the day helping to prep our traditional T-giving dinner which we eat on Friday night.

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I'm curious about the online deals. Do they usually start at the same time as the in store sales? I'm interested in saving money, but not the crowds. :)

 

I tend to watch www.bfads.net - they keep up with what's going to be on sale, post the circulars in advance and post about rumors for last minute deals. They also note what time each store will release the sale items online versus in store. I go through the circulars online, see who has what, note where to get what I want and then set up my schedule to shop online and get done as fast as I can to be done with it. This year I have a lot already done for Christmas, but do have some select things I'm looking for specifically on Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) since they tend to go to the lowest price on those days.

 

Now some things aren't available online - usually "door busters" - but I've found that most of those aren't (to me) worth the savings of $5-10 to make it worth going out to get, especially when I factored in tax and shipping costs versus getting out and spending time and gas + tax.

 

Last year Amazon price-matched a lot of the door busters, so while they don't have an ad, it might help to keep some things in your cart to watch if the price goes down. Also, last year Amazon ran some incredible timed deals that were definitely worth watching for IMO since they beat many of the best prices in the circulars.

 

ETA: Fat Wallet has a good "best current deals" tab that lists what are the best price deals online throughout the day (all year) - on black friday it's a good resource for the last minute, unadvertised deals that are going on online!

 

Wal-Mart also does some pretty crazy things online with Wii (and other system) games, so if you're looking for those, they often run a 2 or 3 for 1 deal for a limited time online that won't be in stores!

Edited by Tigger
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For what it's worth, we don't have guests for Thanksgiving, either. But we enjoy spending the time intentionally together, and we have our own traditions for the holidays that we've worked hard to establish.

 

I don't know. For me, it's the crazed atmosphere of Black Friday that makes the difference for me.

 

But that's just it. This is a part of our tradition. And it is an event that DH and I greatly enjoy. We honestly have a lot of fun and get all the shopping finished on BF. We go out for breakfast, go home, and wrap gifts. It's just the time that we get our shopping done. And I have DH's full and undivided attention to help me. I don't shop earlier than BF because that just istn't my style and I prefer to not go out the other days because DH usually can't go.

 

I have a few friends that enjoy this time with their mom or sisters. (if I had a sister...)

 

I'm fine if people don't want to participate. I would rather less people show-up. :lol: But not all people that go out on BF are ungrateful, materialistic, greedy, and anti-tradition. Those stories that hit the news have not been our experience in the mid-size cities we shop at where people have been friendly.

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But that's just it. This is a part of our tradition. And it is an event that DH and I greatly enjoy. We honestly have a lot of fun and get all the shopping finished on BF. We go out for breakfast, go home, and wrap gifts. It's just the time that we get our shopping done. And I have DH's full and undivided attention to help me. I don't shop earlier than BF because that just istn't my style and I prefer to not go out the other days because DH usually can't go.

 

I have a few friends that enjoy this time with their mom or sisters. (if I had a sister...)

 

I'm fine if people don't want to participate. I would rather less people show-up. :lol: But not all people that go out on BF are ungrateful, materialistic, greedy, and anti-tradition. Those stories that hit the news have not been our experience in the mid-size cities we shop at where people have been friendly.

 

Now I might could go shopping with dh, but the ILs are ALWAYS here and I'm not shopping with MIL!

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I stopped going out on Black Friday when the stores started allowing purchases online of the same things advertised in the stores! It's easier and faster with just a few clicks, then off to bed!

 

I didn't know you could do this. Thanks for the tip!

 

 

I tend to watch www.bfads.net - they keep up with what's going to be on sale, post the circulars in advance and post about rumors for last minute deals. They also note what time each store will release the sale items online versus in store. I go through the circulars online, see who has what, note where to get what I want and then set up my schedule to shop online and get done as fast as I can to be done with it. This year I have a lot already done for Christmas, but do have some select things I'm looking for specifically on Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) since they tend to go to the lowest price on those days.

 

Now some things aren't available online - usually "door busters" - but I've found that most of those aren't (to me) worth the savings of $5-10 to make it worth going out to get, especially when I factored in tax and shipping costs versus getting out and spending time and gas + tax.

 

Last year Amazon price-matched a lot of the door busters, so while they don't have an ad, it might help to keep some things in your cart to watch if the price goes down. Also, last year Amazon ran some incredible timed deals that were definitely worth watching for IMO since they beat many of the best prices in the circulars.

 

ETA: Fat Wallet has a good "best current deals" tab that lists what are the best price deals online throughout the day (all year) - on black friday it's a good resource for the last minute, unadvertised deals that are going on online!

 

Wal-Mart also does some pretty crazy things online with Wii (and other system) games, so if you're looking for those, they often run a 2 or 3 for 1 deal for a limited time online that won't be in stores!

 

Thanks for sharing all this info :) .

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