Black Friday Madness

The long weekend that started this holiday season has passed by and now the holiday madness has begun. Most people had a nice 4 day weekend which I was able to utilize very effectively on cleaning and getting all my holiday shopping done! I am very impressed with myself that for the first time in history I have ALL my holiday shopping done the first weekend after Thanksgiving. Impressive right?

As I’m sure everyone knows this weekend was Black Friday. A day that is filled with crazy people lining up in front of stores at 3am for a deal, people willing to fight over children’s toys and totally loose human courtesy to get what they THINK is a good deal.

Friday morning I was off from work and decided go buy some decorations for the apartment since now I live on my own. I wanted to decorate the inside and the outside of the apartment to give us a nice warm holiday feeling. First I went to the Christmas Tree Shop where I bought most of my decorations. Christmas Tree Shop is a really great store where you can get decent quality things for a VERY cheap price. I have never seen a store beat prices of competitors like the Christmas Tree Shop does. The store itself isn’t the best when it comes to customer service or everything being beautifully on shelves but hey you have to sacrifice somewhere for a good price.

After the Christmas Tree Shop I said oh what the heck lets go to Walmart and see if they have any ornaments for our first Christmas tree. When I got to the store they had all this equipment outside of the store to control lines and customer flow but lucky for me most of the crowds were already gone when I got there. The store was a disaster! Nothing was in its right place, people were scrambling for any leftovers of electronics, nothing was marked with the right price so needless to say I got frustrated and left empty handed.

On my way back home I thought back on the prices of things and realized how silly people are on Black Friday. You think you are getting a deal on things but in reality you are not. If you are a smart, clever shopper you know that you can get everything cheaper online these days. Shopping on places like Amazon or E-bay saves you a lot of money if you know how to shop well. For example I am getting my dad a GPS for Christmas. At Walmart the item was $193 but on Amazon it sold for $153.

If you want to be an event smarter shopper I would recommend not only shopping online but to also look for savings coupons on websites such as Dealigg, FatWallet or CouponCorner. There you type in the store that you are sopping at and it gives you all the coupon codes you need to save on certain items. It’s really that simple.

In conclusion on my Black Friday ranting, please do your researches before you buy. Everyone loves savings and if you can save $20 on each gift you guy this season more power to you. You can get yourself something nice with your savings so that you have something more to show off to your friends than grandma’s sweaters! Happy holiday shopping!