Black Friday

We very seldom leave the house on "Black Friday" but today we made an exception.

Half Price Books was having a 20% off everything sale from 7:00 a.m. to 10 a.m. The first 100 customers would get a shopping bag (recyclable) and a $5.00 coupon. We decided last night that we did not want to get up and try to be in the top 100 since we wanted to go to the big store in Dallas. Instead we got up and left the house at 8:00.

We arrived at the store at 8:45 and each went off in our own direction. I hit the quilting, mystery, Christian fiction, and fiction/literature area, while the oldest went for comics, dvd collections, sci-fi, and novelty items. The youngest is very picky and went for computer programming books, games, comics, and cartoon collections. The youngest was not very successful today, but the oldest found some cool things, and I was able to get a couple of books I had not been able to find in previous trips. We were done by 9:40 and were sitting trying to look up a book at the library before I purchased it when an employee came by and gave us each $5.00 coupons. Yeah! We then went to check out line, because you had to be in line before 10:00 to get the discount, and the line was very long.

While in line there was a group of people interviewing shoppers for publicity bites. They chose a woman a few feet in front of us, and then a woman a few feet behind us. My oldest said that they seemed to be targeting young, pretty women. I thought it was interesting because there were people there with shopping baskets full that they were not interviewing. Just as we almost made it to the check out counter, we were chosen for pictures, an interview, and sound bites. We were glad to pose (even though I hate to have my picture taken). We answered a few questions, all said 20% off at the same time, and gave it the thumbs up. It was fun. After signing the releases, we were all given $10.00 gift cards. YEAH!!!!

We all checked out separately so that we could use the $5.00 coupons, and the oldest went ahead and used his $10.00 gift card because he had purchased the most expensive items. We all left very happy and with some great bargains. I was even able to get a gift for a very hard to buy for person for less than $4.00.

On the way home we decided to hit Target for a sale I was interested in on an expansion pack for a board game. They did not have the expansion pack but they did have a different version than the one we have on sale so we bought that to combine with our game. We also picked up a couple of dvd's on sale. Batteries were buy 2 packs for $9.99 each and get a $5.00 gift card, what a great way to get ready for the holidays.

Then it was off to Joe's Italian Bistro for lunch and home.

Once we were home we played a couple of board games and watched one of the movies we purchased.

It has been a good Black Friday.

I did notice however that even at 8:00 a.m. when stores were still having so early bird specials going that the stores were not that crowded. There were plenty of parking spaces every where we went, and at all the places we passed, even at the mall. The boys and I took note, and we will have to make sure all of our favorite charities get their usual donation and extra, if we can, this year.