Black Friday

When we lived in Arizona, I would go shopping on Black Friday with my cousin(s), sister, mother, whoever.  It wasn't the wake up at 3am to go stand in line by 4am for a store that opened at 5am to race other shoppers to *hopefully* snag at least one of the five laptops that were on sale.  When we were in San Diego for Thanksgiving a couple years ago, I actually woke up at 5am (by myself) to try & get to an office depot by 6am (which was when they opened, no standing in line for this girl) to snag a laptop for my mother.  Thankfully, I arrived & parked just as they opened the doors & there was probably only 15-20 shoppers who had been waiting.  So as soon as I parked, I bolted from the car, into the store, straight for the first sales person I saw to point out the laptop which I had circled 5 times with a black sharpie in the sales ad.  When the salesperson returned from checking to see if the laptop was still in stock, I was handed a tag & told I could pick the laptop up from the cashier.  YAY!  My first Black Friday mission completed.  After that I decided to head to the mall & target.......  I mean, I was already awake, so why not?   

Last year I don't remember buying much online, I couldn't do any shopping in the stores because we don't really have any here.  I think I bought a wireless printer which was one of my Christmas gifts from Kolt.  

But now, a year after we moved to Alaska, & with months of online shopping experience, I decided to go Black Friday shopping online.  But *only* for the things we either have been needing or expensive items we were planning to get in the near future & only if we could get a good deal on them.  So a week before Thanksgiving I started researching the Black Friday sales ads, made my list of items to get & which store to buy them at, & of course, discussed the planned purchases with Kolt to make sure WE both agreed that it was a deal we couldn't pass up.  I think I did a great job with the money we saved, not getting out of control with the shopping bug, & I was able to purchase almost everything on my list.  So here it is:  My Black Friday bragging.

First off let me start by saying Kohls, Best Buy, & Target are my go-to stores, so those were obvious places of interest, but also the great thing about online shopping is that I can compare prices a lot easier with other stores to make sure I am getting the lowest price.  I also like to check the ads to make sure that the Black Friday Sale price is actually a good deal, not just $2 off -or- to make sure that a regular every day sale price isn't actually lower than the Black Friday Sale price (Kohls had a few items that were actually cheaper when they went on a regular sale than they were at the Black Friday Sale price.)

Everything we bought at Kohls was not only on sale, but they also sent me a 15% off coupon to use for Black Friday & we earned $15 Kohls cash for every $50 spent.  So.... we bought a kitchen knife block set, a cooking skillet/pan, a cardigan for Brinleigh to wear over her Christmas dress, & a pair of jeans & leggings for myself (because I still can't fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes & planned on buying them when we came home in December).  I ended up buying $390 worth of items for only $204 & earned $60 Kohls cash, with Free Shipping.  The Kohls cash will be used for items I planned on buying but were not marked down any lower for Black Friday than the normal sale price.

We also decided that living in Alaska is a once (maybe twice) in a lifetime opportunity for us & the scenery here is just too beautiful to not be able to take great pictures of.  We have point & shoot digital cameras & our iphones, but we wanted a NICE professional type camera.  Not to mention that all of our friends with kids always talk about how it is extremely nice having such an awesome camera to capture memories with.  After seeing some of the cameras our friends & family use, & hours of research on my part, we found a camera that we wanted.  The original plan was to buy it with our income tax return money, however, it was on sale for Black Friday.  It is normally $819.99 & was on sale for $499.99 (Free Shipping) so we just couldn't pass it up.

  

We have been planning on buying Brinleigh's high chair soon, since she likes to be in the dining room when we eat & the kitchen when we are cooking/baking.  We usually just put her in the bumbo seat on the table or the counter but we can't be more than a few feet away from her when she is in that seat.  We were going to wait until after Christmas since we won't be home for most of December & it would save us some money to go to Arizona with, BUT, it was on sale at Babies R' Us for Black Friday.  It is normally $59.99 + shipping, however, it was advertised on sale for $27.49.  When I went to purchase it though, it ended up being $39.99.  Brinleigh will also be starting on solid foods in the next few months so we bought some dishes, utensils & bibs, which were buy one get one free on specific brands.  So what originally would have cost us $25, we only paid $13 for & got free shipping. AND The Ruey family paid for the Babies R' Us purchase because they wanted to get Brinleigh a baby/Christmas gift.       

So there it is,  My Black Friday deals of 2012.  All made from the comfort of my couch & not to mention Kohls sales started online on Wednesday, Best Buy sales started Thanksgiving day & therefore, Babies R' Us was the only shopping I had to do today.  Other than my Babies R' Us Black Friday purchase, I spent the day with Kolt & Brinleigh.  Kolt made a delicious breakfast, we all got ready & walked around downtown to look at some of the stores that were having sales.  Then we decided to stop at the grocery store to pick up some stuff to make our own pizza's for dinner.  After dinner, I took a short nap with Brinleigh while she off & on watched "How to train a dragon" with Kolt.  It was a GREAT day!