Will you go shopping on Thanksgiving or Black Friday?

No. I hate crowds, although I did go once on Black Friday but later in the day. Everyone was home resting and the mall was empty.

I’m planning on doing Cyber Monday shopping.

I’m allergic to crowds for the most part. I’m giving gift cards this year. Let them brave the crowds for their own gifts.

No. I don’t really like the concept of Black Friday shopping. Give thanks for what you have one day, and then the next, go out shopping for more stuff. Just seems silly to me, but I get how it’s kind of a tradition thing for others.

Nope – never have, never will.

No shopping at all over the whole weekend, not even online. I spend the time cooking, hanging with friends and loved ones, maybe meeting for a meal and a drink on Sat or Sun with some buddies, reading, watching movies at home, walking outside weather permitting, but yeah, no shopping.

Not on Thanksgiving, unless it’s a booze run.

We’ve been saving up for a big gift for the youngling, and I’ve got a strategic Black Friday plan. It involves going to one store that is less than 5 miles from my house, getting the Big Thing and two other Smaller Things, at a significant discount, collecting two complimentary gift cards and a coupon for 20% off a future purchase, and returning home for leftover turkey sandwiches.

This will be the first time I’ve ever bought a holiday gift on Black Friday. Usually I use the day to get necessary household goods at a discount.

I’m with the Penguin on this one.

Ah! Com’on! Just once?

No never! Hardly ever!

Yeah. I get it. I’ll see you at the housewares.

On turkey day, it will be family, not all, but lotsa love present and absent.
Food; cook, eat, digest napping, eat, nap digesting, eat.
Visiting will take place when not napping.

Black Friday my daughter will be here, and we love the adventure together, so yeah, we will be out, hoping to find great bargains on stuff we have been putting off.
I look forward to shopping places I have never been or not in quite a while.

Nope! Not on Thanksgiving. And I have already committed to #OPTOUTSIDE for Black Friday! Probably go for a hike on Mt Tam.

Shopping is not what I’m thinking about during a holiday weekend. I never have and I’m not about to start. I’m going to stay home and binge watch a television series or watch movies.

Donald Trump is disappointed in all of you.

Not me. He’s disappointed in me cuz I have better hair.

I have better hair.
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I’m bald.

Yes, yes you do.

Usually I don’t. I’m not sure about this year. I’m with my husband in a hotel and probably after a boring Thanksgiving alone we might have cabin fever and go to the mall. I’m still trying to decide whether to eat out or not.

I’m hoping maybe we drive to see some of my friends instead (2.5 hours away) we’ll see.

No. I’m not into masochism.

Thanksgiving we’ll either be eating or on the road.

One Black Friday Walmart had a DoorBuster deal that I thought looked pretty good. I got up early-ish and raced to Walmart. They had a pallet of the crap, sitting in the middle of the floor, still shrink-wrapped. Big yawn.
The only other time I tried BF, I got to Big Lots at about 10 a.m. and got the last one (it was electronics). Some woman came in after me really wanting the same item. I had the store call the store in the next town over. That store had one, so I had them hold it for me, and gave the one I had to the woman that came in behind me.

About the only chains I regularly retail shop any more are Walmart, Aldi, Dollar Tree, and the regional groceries.
Menard’s. I have a Menard’s fetish.
Sam’s Club. I have this instinct that I can eat enough free samples to cover the membership fee. :-)

Nevah.

I have a confession to make. I don’t shop sales. If I need something, I go to a store I like and check the prices of similar items, or I check the price on Amazon. I pay the lowest price.

However, I’ve never waited for an item to go on sale. If I need it, I buy it.

Good God, no. Never have, never will.

All my shopping for Christmas is already done.

Hell no! Amazon, quite likely. haha

Why @Hawaii_Jake!
Why would one need to go shopping?
Santa Claus brings you presents and gifties and candy canes, and coal!
Right?
??????????

I wouldn’t, because the whole idea of shopping with a bunch of crazed lunatics who are rushing and pushing and shoving is not my idea of a fun shopping outing. Also getting up real early in the morning to do something that dreadful makes it even worse. I shouldn’t need to go to the store on Thanksgiving day either, because I plan to get all of my stuff for our dinner this weekend.

Also, because I finished most of my holiday shopping in February, on Amazon.

Don’t have any plans for shopping BF.

The only time I ever did 2 yrs. ago was when they had the tablet I wanted on sale for $50 less only until the end of Fri. For that it was worth it to me.

So, I waited until around 8 PM or so (they closed at 10 PM) and went to Best Buy to get it.

The roads were clear and uncontested and the store itself was kinda full (but im sure it was packed earlier) so since I knew exactly what I wanted, it really wasn’t that bad. And well worth the savings.

But unless there’s something similar that I know about ahead of time, I don’t see any reason to fight the crowds and the traffic.

I don’t even know if I need to buy any Christmas gifts this year. If I go out on Black Friday it won’t really be about the sales or Christmas shopping. I might buy some things for myself. I need work out clothing.

Since stores started staying open on Thanksgiving and doing week-long sales, the mad rush of black Friday has really died down.

Unless it’s a console-war year, it’s almost like any other shopping day, with maybe a few more people. I don’t really notice, as I tend to ignore people in general.

Even WalMart has started using a wristband system, so the mad rush for certain items is no more. You get in line, you get a wristband. If you don’t have a wristband, you have to wait until all the wristband people get one first.

To fight traffic and to save a few bucks on stuff I don’t need? No thanks.

I’ve worked until late afternoon/ early evening on Thanksgiving for the last few years. That is so much easier than what Black Friday workers deal with at big box stores. Some stores are opening at 5–6 PM on Thanksgiving itself and staying open all night. We need to put an end to shit like that, and the only way that will happen is if people aren’t spending at those times.

@Haleth, I just read in Time magazine (Nov. 23 issue, page 17) that Home Depot, Nordstrom, H&M, Staples, and T.J. Maxx are all closing for Thanksgiving, and REI is closing on Black Friday too. Apparently people have been pushing back.

What I don’t understand, though, is why staying away isn’t the most effective pushback. No one forces people to go shopping just because a store is open.

@Jeruba I’m glad to hear stores are finally starting to cut back on hours during Thanksgiving and Black Friday. I have been saying for years employees need to just band together and say they won’t work.

My husband told me a couple of days ago an outdoorsmen, sporting goods, type store said they are closing for Thansgiving 4 day weekend so employees can be with family and that customers will not miss any sales; the sales will be running the days before and after.

@Jeruba: I think the issue is that the prices are irresistible to customers on Black Friday. I don’t go out shopping then, but people that I know tell me how they got this bargain and that bargain. Someone I used to work with, who is an avid shopper, told me a few years ago how she went out at midnight on Thanksgiving and the stores had different things on sale, hour by hour. She spent the night hopping back and forth between the big box stores. Walmart, Kohl’s, back to Walmart, etc. It sounded nuts and exhausting, but she was happy with what she got.

Well, this year we’re updating our video game console and replacing our Keurig which bit the dust after four years of faithful service.

At Target, on black Friday, the console will come with two games, at $50 less than the current base price of the console plus one game. One game my son is looking forward to will have a $15 gift card kickback. The Keurig will be $30 less than the 4-years-ago version of the same model, and includes another $15 gift card.

I’ll also get a 20% off total purchase coupon to use in December.

That’s worth waking up early, I think.

Correction: it was REI my husband was talking about. They aren’t closed all weekend, just Thursday and Friday.

Conversely, if the stores pay the employees handsomely to work the holiday, that’s extra income for low wage workers.

When I worked in the food factory, holiday pay was 2½ times normal pay, and you had to be pretty high up the food chain to get a spot.

Interesting point about pay. I am not sure if employees get extra pay for working the holiday. If the stores are not unionized, they may or may not have to. They sometimes get around pay issues by having rules like you have to work a certain number of hours per week in order to be paid extra for holidays.

One of my girlfriends was on that bandwagon that stores ask employees to volunteer to work midnight morning Black Friday so many people want the money and aren’t being forced. She’s a news anchor and believed the crap the media was reporting. She had commented on a Facebook post of mine where I was bitching about the ridiculous hours stores were demanding now. Needless to say we left it that we agree to disagree.

Fast forward one year and her oldest son was working for a big box retailer and she changed her tune fast. She saw the horrific toll that midnight to morning took on him, and then immediately following that horrific shift, the weeks of continuing long hours, heavy work demands, and exhaustion.

I’m in the Costco parking lot right now. It’s a madhouse. I’m parked, by the way, so nobody’s thinking I’m texting while driving. They have black Friday sales on now, so I figure I’m not going to want to come out on black Friday or Saturday or Sunday, so I’m here now getting it done.

@JLeslie : do you know if retail workers get extra money for working on holidays? I am thinking that technically?, if they work anytime after midnight Friday morning it’s not a holiday, anyway. Does anyone know if they get extra money for working Thanksgiving?

@jca It probably varies a lot by state and by store. If the store is unionized I would bet they get extra pay. Most stores I worked in employees did not get extra pay. Managers pretty much never get extra pay. We get comp days sometimes.

I don’t think there is any federal law to pay time and a half on holidays, or for late hours, but I could be wrong, or they could have changed. OT laws are for over 40 hours per week for non exempt workers.

I never worked in a store open for Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving midnight, that started after I left the biz, but I have worked in stores where staff had to come in two hours earlier for early openings, or stay two hours later than usual and there was no OT pay. Managers received nothing above their usual salaries let along OT, there is no OT or extra regular pay for managers even if you work 70 hours and two nights to midnight.

@jca So that’s it. I tried to go to Costco yesterday for some ordinary household stuff, and the line of cars heading into the parking lot was backed up all the way out to the side street, quite a long way. I figured that was an indicator of how long it was going to take to park and what the checkout lines were like, and I just turned off at the first opportunity and left.

I remember hearing a Jehovah’s Witness (a neighbor) once complaining about Christmas, and I naively said, “Why does Christmas bother you if you don’t observe it?” She looked at me like I was from Mars and said, “It does if I happen to want to go shopping for anything during the month of December.”

@Jeruba: I was in Costco both yesterday and today (Saturday and Sunday). Both days, the lines weren’t long at all. I think it’s because they had all the registers open. Saturday the parking lot wasn’t bad. Sunday the parking lot was a disaster.

I’m hoping it will be quieter on Monday.