Black Friday Shopping

Last Friday, Hubs and I did the 4am shopping thing. Neither of us had ever done this, and did we have fun!

First of all, let me say that I don't think I'll ever be one of those that camps out for hours waiting to get in. There were people literally camping in front of Best Buy starting Wednesday. The line had started in front of Target by 5pm on Thursday. No way. While my patience is usually pretty good, I don't think I could handle hours waiting in line.

We arrived at Kohl's at 3:50am. There were probably 150-200 people in line ahead of us, but everyone was very nice. When the doors opened at 4am, there wasn't any pushing - most people followed along in line. We were able to score everything on our list in about 25 minutes. However, by then, the checkout line was all the way down the depth of the store, and about a quarter way the length. From the time we got in line to the time we walked out to the car was 45 minutes.

After Kohl's, we grabbed some breakfast through a drive-thru, and headed to Staples. There was waited in line about 20 minutes, and there were maybe 75 people ahead of us. Doors opened at 6am, and once inside, we hit the jackpot. We were able to get everything that was on our list. Having learned a lesson at Kohl's, we got in the checkout line within 15 minutes, and then took turns waiting while the other continued to shop. That system worked really well and will be used again! The one bad thing about Staples was that there were line jumpers. People who weren't in line just walked in. I wish the store would have done a better job letting the line in first.

After Staples, our final stop was going to be Menards. They also opened at 6am, so we knew our chances were slim to find the things on our list. We drove by at 6:45am, and there wasn't a single parking spot available. Cars were waiting in line to park! We decided to call it a day there and just skip Menards all together, as we were very happy with all our purchases.

After being home for a few hours, I headed back out - this time to Walgreens and CVS. I had Lubriderm coupons and wanted to use them up before the monthly Register Reward ended on Saturday. I think I shopped at five different Walgreens, doing fairly well. Still had a little of the cashier attitude (had my most unfavorite cashier at one location - you know the type, the one to avoid like the plague, but NO one else was around so I had to go to her lane) but overall it was good. I was able to score lots of things for the mom & dad stash box. In fact, box number 2 was started! I can't wait to deliver the goodies to them.