Black Friday

Are you heading out on Black Friday? What are your plans for the day?

I will be out sometime that day, but I have no idea when or where. I have two Black Friday strategies and it depends on which family I am celebrating Thanksgiving with that year.

This year I will be at my in-laws for Thanksgiving. They live an hour and a half away in a very small town and we are the closest shopping hub. Sometime Thanksgiving night or Friday morning, everyone heads to our house. I've learned that the years I spend with my husband's side of the family that my strategy is to go with the flow. I make no plans and do not read the ads ahead of time as I will get frustrated. Luckily, I am almost done Christmas shopping this year so there is nothing that I need to rush out and get.

My strategy when I'm celebrating with my family is different. My parents live minutes from my house so my mom and I get up at the crack of dawn and hit the mall. We have found over the years that the mall has some incredible buys early in the morning, but no one is there because they are at places like Best Buy and Target. We get some great buys without fighting the crowds. By mid-morning we are done and head to any other stores away from the mall we want to hit. We try to be done by noon and then meet all the guys for lunch. Sometimes we go back out early evening once the crowds have died down a bit. A few times I have fought the crowds at the big box stores but I rarely need the items they have on sale.

My husband did get out one year at 4:30 am to buy a TV at Best Buy. We knew what we wanted and our price range at this fit perfectly. We quickly learned we should have researched the brand first. After hours of trying to get a universal remote to work, we discovered it is rare to get one to work with this brand. Then, a few of the pixels went out. Then, the picture started getting a bit fuzzy. We took the TV back and vowed never to buy a Black Friday item by price alone - we will research brands before we head out.