From my previous posts, I bet many of you can tell that my family is pretty frugal and enjoys saving money anytime we can. Despite this, we usually do not get up early the day after Thanksgiving to get deals on Christmas presents.
This year, my brother and his family were up for Thanksgiving and, with three children under the age of 7, he and my sister-in-law had items picked out that were on sale Thanksgiving night. I don’t get to spend as much time with Kyle as I would like so I decided to go along with them after we finished eating our dessert. Since I was only going along to spend time with my brother, I did not feel any pressure to get that perfect gift which made this experience a little more enjoyable for me.
We started off at Toys-R-us. They had a long line of people waiting outside and were only letting in a handful of people at a time. I thought this was a pretty smart way to prevent a lot of chaos inside the store. We did end up waiting in the check-out line over an hour but it was not too bad.
We then headed to Wal-Mart and you could easily tell the difference between the two stores. It looked like a hurricane had just struck. There were piles of clothes and other items just flung all over the floor.
Our last stop was Target and, even though the line was longer than I have ever seen it before, it flowed pretty smoothly. We were done around midnight and ready to head home.
Walking out of Target I saw something that prompted me to write this post. In the shopping plaza that Target is located in, there is also a Best Buy. Best Buy was set to open at midnight and the line to get in stretched over a quarter mile!
When I got home, I went on their website to see what type of deals they were offering. With that long of a line, I thought surely there must be once in a lifetime sales. There were some television sets and computers for sale but, from my point of view, there was nothing on sale that would have prompted me to stand in that line.
I am all for saving money but, even if Best Buy was handing out $100 bills to everyone in line, I don’t know if I would have been there. I may just be getting old but it just does not seem like a fun way to spend Thanksgiving night.
Another thing that really surprised me about the line and the crowded stores was the fact that I continue to read that many people are still struggling with money. How were they paying for these purchases when times remain so tough? I hope they were not putting them on a credit card but my guess is many are!
What do you think – is Black Friday (or Black Thanksgiving now) worth the hassle to save money?
About Danny Kofke