I love black Friday, to me it's like a personal challenge, love it. However I DO NOT like shopping on Thanksgiving night, whoever thought up that business should be beaten severely. We did go out because there were a few things I was interested in, I have four kids so I have to make the dollars stretch as far as possible.
We went to Walmart first and of course the store was already open but no one could check out until 10 pm. We walked in the door and it was a MADHOUSE! I'm NOT just kidding you there were SO many people in there it was a fire hazard, I don't know how they didn't get shut down that night. They had a sewing machine case on sale that I wanted so we (my husband and I) braved our way in and I got to the craft section, asked a worker where they would be. She said they were already gone, they only had 6 of them. Great. Well that was all that I was really hoping for, everything else I could get somewhere else so we tried to make our way out of there. We skirted the outer wall of the store and got back to the only door they were letting people use. Now I don't mind crowds at all, but seriously if something had gone wrong and all those people would have tried to get out that door at once, people would have died. So I'll admit this particular crowd was making me nervous. We made it out and I've never been so happy to leave a store. I will NEVER go there again on Thanksgiving night.
On to Target who opened at 12:00am. We got there early because we left Walmart so fast, there was a line but it wasn't bad, however I was NOT about to wait outside in line. I don't do well w/ cold, I have a medical condition that prevents me from just standing around in it. At our Target store there's a Steak N Shake in the same parking lot so we went there and got coffee and waited for the store to open. I don't want/need a big cheap TV (which there were plenty of still when we got inside, hence no need to wait in line) and I found everything I went there for. There was plenty of everything they had on sale, I should have just waited til morning and next year I will.
Went home, went to bed, planning to shop the next day. (1:30am)
6:01 got up, pulled on clothes, brushed my hair, grabbed a granola bar and headed out to pick up my Mom. Obviously most of the stores had already opened, so again, no standing in line. Went to Menards first, the parking lot was SO full we didn't even bother going in. Went to Michaels, it was pleasingly easy to shop, not very many people there and I got a BUNCH of ribbon for 70% off. Went to Meijer, went to JoAnn's, went to Kohl's(got Kohl's cash Yeah!), ended up back at Menards...got everything I wanted. Woohoo!
Came home and did some online shopping after seeing that ebates.comhad double cashback (so 10%!!) at BN.com. Commercial break here, If you're going to shop online I would HIGHLY encourage you to join ebates(link above) it's free and you get cash back on almost every store you'd shop at, I've gotten cash back several times now and it's awesome, deposits in whichever account you set up, no hassle, just a little surprise. Now I can patiently wait for Cyber Monday to get some other deals....ahhh.
I'd LOVE to hear what everyone else that went to Walmart has to say.
