Do you shop during the Thanksgiving weekend sales?

Oh, lordy, never ever ever. I used to work retail, and I still hate the general frenetic miasma of the holiday sales weekends. I am a bit in awe of anyone willing to brave the crowds. It doesn’t help that I am barely 5’ tall, and bustling crowds make me feel like a lost toddler.

Of course not.
Price normally 100$
Price on black friday: Great Discount! 150$ 100$

I don’t.
Used to, for a couple of years (on Black Friday).

@canidmajor ohmigosh! What a picture that puts in my mind…lost toddler! roflmao

@ragingloli Haha so true. That was all over Best Buy’s website. I did see some actually decent sales at a few clothing stores. A certain percentage off the entire store’s inventory is a good sale. But those were few and far between.

Nope. I observe Buy Nothing Day. And as Black Friday has been extended, so has the time that I don’t buy anything (groceries excepted, but I try to avoid grocery stores the week before Thanksgiving anyway.)

That said, no judgment on those who make a different decision.

We are kinda laying low this year with all the traveling we did recently. That was kinda our big holiday and frankly, we are ALL good with that because that was a once-in-a-lifetime kinda thing and we all enjoyed the crap out of it! Oh, yes it was so much fun wow. We are doing a little shopping here and there but just low key and that’s cool. My mind wanders back to Barcelona’s beaches and shopping there…I’m fine :)

Nope…this is a time for family, food, football, and fun….......after a quiet time of prayerful thanks.

Some of the answers in this thread reveal great cynicism. $100 off the Apple Store price is a genuine bargain not to be laughed at. It’s possible to find real bargains.

I read in Consumer Reports many years ago that this is not the time to buy a TV. The discounted models aren’t the same ones sold everyday. They have fewer features so are a suspect item.

If you’re a savvy shopper, you can find good deals. It’s no different than shopping for groceries on sale. You have to know the regular price to recognize what is a bargain.

No.

I patronize REI, so Black Friday is a Day To Get Outside.

This year we are giving each other experiences, not things. Lots of tickets to events and special dinners away from home.

Might have the interest but never had enough energy to pursue what could be good if not great bargains of stuff I fancied getting. I have friends who wake up at 4 am just to get in line at shopping malls and outlets. I would be snoring in bed till noon.

I used to shop til I dropped every Black Friday. Then I overloaded online for a good number of years. I now own nearly every gadget that I truly “need”, so Black Friday isn’t as important as it used to be!!! PLUS…most friends/family that I have been exchanging gifts with have turned into “cash swapping” over time. I ENJOY buying gifts & find that I’m NOT enjoying swapping cash. So, this year we’ve decided to keep our cash in our own hands & forego swapping cash.This year I didn’t have the “need” to shop, so I’ve passed up Black Friday & kept my money in my pocket!!!

On-line I bought a monochrome laser printer for my wife.

Early present on next Wednesday LOL!

Hellz no! I hate crowds. I hate circling the entire mall looking for a parking spot. I will go out of my way to avoid it. It sounds like you don’t have a culture in Hawaii that drives this sort of stuff. I can’t even go to non-xmas type stores in malls on T-giving weekend. The two close big malls near me have lines that start a MILE outside of their entrance. For one of them, it wrap onto the highway despite a two-lane turnoff. it’s so bad it obstructs even going BY that mall on the highway to some extent.

I would gladly pay a bit more money for the convenience of not being hassled. Within reason. I’m not talking about a $100 for a $20 toy for the kids or anything, but I’d pay more. And with online, I’m paying less. So the convenience of doing everything online is just too good.

Haven’t been to a brick a morter store for years, except Walmart and Dillions. And sure as hell not to a mall!

Yes, though not going to corporate stores, nor anywhere with crowds. I shopped online and got some deals on software, games, and gadgets. I went to the weekly grower’s market and grocery stores and bought normal things – they were about as busy as usual, or less.

I was in NYC for the past three days and didn’t do any shopping there, but while there I looked at the Lands End site on Black Friday. I bought a few things, and the total would have been about 300 dollars but I spent about 135 because of the sales. I bought a lightweight quilted jacket, a short coat, a sweater, a Christmas stocking for my daughter, and a few other things. I like Lands End because the quality is decent and their sizing is reliable, so when I buy my size, I know it’s going to fit. Sometimes when I buy from other sites, certain items run large or run small and it’s hard to predict, and then I have to deal with a return. Anyway, I went on Lands End just looking for a quilted jacket and because the prices were good, I bought more. The coat would have been 90, it was 38. The other jacket would have been 60, it was 23. The stocking I got for about 15, which, for a needlepoint stocking, is a good price.

Prior to that, I bought a few things (before the Thanksgiving weekend) from Costco.com. They had great prices and in addition, if you bought 5 items, you got 25 dollars additional dollars off. That wasn’t Black Friday stuff, it was just pre-Thanksgiving shopping.

In the past year, I told friends who used to be really big on exchanging gifts that I no longer want to exchange, for a few reasons. I have less people to buy gifts for, less stress, and less need to shop in store and on line.

I never was one to go shopping on Black Friday. I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. I have friends that used to shop all night, and different stores had deals at certain times of the night (from late Thanksgiving day to Black Friday morning). They were hard core shoppers. I was never so enthused about crowds and traffic.

A long time ago, when stores were the only way to buy things – before Amazon, before buying online was possible, I used ads in the paper newspaper and ventured out a couple of times. Stores were impossibly crowded; they only had a limited number of the advertised items, and everyone, customers and employees, was frazzled beyond reason.
That experience soured me. The mental effort was not worth the money I saved. It was not even close so I decided to ignore it all and stay home.

@Hawaii_Jake your comments are making me rethink and reevaluate. Things have clearly changed. Stores are no longer crowded to bursting. Stores need my patronage to survive.
I might try it again – if I can think of something I need.

Evidently the Saturday after Thanksgiving is a day for shopping at small, locally owned stores. I went to a delightful neighborhood where there are lots of restaurants and stores and my favorite coffee shop. It was teeming with people. A gift shop I really like was full of people. I bought some cheeky gay Christmas cards that made me laugh. After these years of seeing few people out, it felt good to see happy people shopping.

@Hawaii_Jake I want to go out shopping with You! You make the experience sound pleasant!

Apparently shopping was very quiet here on Black Friday. Here is an article about it. We visited 2 Walmarts on opposite coasts and were surprised by how few shoppers we saw

(They went to Walmarts in Irvine, CA and Rochester, NY.)

I have a confession to make. I’m not proud of it but I bought 2 things online yesterday. I wanted a “Left-Center-Right” dice game ($8–10) and a replacement Kill-A-Watt electricity monitor ($30–40). Before driving 10 miles to Lowes I checked their website. Nope.
I did go out anyway and drove to WalMart to buy the LCR game. Nope.
So… I went home and ordered both from Amazon – and helped propel Jeff Bezos another micrometer into space.
Am I going to got to hell?

@LuckyGuy Yes, definitely, but I’ll be there to greet you. I order from Amazon sometimes, too. I try not to, but I get fixated and if I can’t find something brick and mortar, I cave.
Bring snacks.

@canidmajor I’ll bring the snacks and you can bring the drinks.

The thing is, I actually made an effort to go brick and mortar. I even drive to the store consuming about a gallon of gasoline and maybe a half hour of my time. I still ended up going to the dark side and having the devil deliver it to my door on Dec 2.

Oh, I get it! I sometimes wonder how much bigger my carbon footprint is by trekking all over. Oh well, a nice chilled Prosecco should go down well, don’t you think? ;-)

The Prosecco will go well with slightly warmed Brie and crackers.

I wonder if an Amazon cardboard box has a bigger CO2 footprint than 15 miles of driving. i suppose I could do an analysis using Argonne National Lab’s GREET program.

OTOH, I know walking and window shopping in Hawaii with @Hawaii_Jake would be a pleasure.

I bought a new rotary cheese grater, because one of the cylinders on my cheap old one got dented to the point of unusability.

@LuckyGuy I check Lowe’s and Walmart to see if they have the item in stock and where it is located.

This old SNL skit is how I remembered Black Friday sales events.
Apparently things have changed.

I shopped cyber Monday this year, bought my son a suit for job interviews at 30% off.