So, who’s reading this after a morning of shopping? Was it worth it?
I’m at work today, and on my way out of the building, I ran into a bunch of my neighbors, coming in after their morning shopping extravaganza. It was just before 7am, and they had been out since before midnight! They did have a lot of bags in their arms, and seemed tired, but happy.
I went Black Friday shopping once. A few years ago, I ate Thanksgiving dinner with a friend and her family. Part of their tradition was to go to the outlet malls at midnight, then to Target at 6am. Thankfully, it was just for the adventure of the shopping, not to fight their way to the super cheap tvs. It was an adventure for sure, but I don’t know that I’ll be doing that again. Problem number one was that we fell asleep after dinner, which meant getting back up for midnight shopping. Then we fell asleep again, and had to get up for 6am shopping. That was painful.
I will say though, there were some great deals to be had. I bought some clothes that I still wear, and some great dishes that are in constant use in my kitchen.
This year, my Black Friday shopping will all be online. Well, at lunch, I might hit up some of the stores near my office to see what’s left. While the super deals might not be available, there might be something that’s been on my list for a while available on sale.
Did you go Black Friday shopping? Did you camp out? Was it fun, or awful?
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Back when I was in HS, I went to an outlet around 4 AM with my cousin and friends and I got sick. I remember on the drive back home, I threw up in the car. Then two years ago I did Black Friday. Nothing crazy like standing in line, but did go to a store around 7 AM and it was madness. Promised myself never to do it again. But today, I did go at around 2 PM to buy a printer (which I needed) and that was it. I always want to brave up and do it to save money, but when I really think about it, I probably would spend more money than necessary on buying STUFF that I don’t need. So with a little bit of self-analyzing I am OK with Black Friday.