Black Friday 2017

My Black Friday 2017 shopping was practical. Most of the items I purchased were bare necessities. One item was a wanted item. The shopping day was good timing and was bad luck.

I shopped at Rite-Aid buying four 2-liters of Coke for $.98 at 7:12am. The As Seen On TV flashlights were a no-go. The next store was Pep Boys buying two sets of Castrol motor oil and Purolator oil filter with mail-in rebate at 7:36am.

The next two stores were department stores. I purchased Isotoner slippers, Earth Therapeutics bath sponges, and an Earth Therapeutics foot care gift set which included cream, pumice stone, and massager at Kohl's at 8:25am. I waited 15 minutes in line. I purchased two packs of Nike socks at Macy's at 9:21am. The parking lot at the shopping mall was like a normal weekend shopping day. There were plenty of parking spaces. Crowds were normal, too. Unfortunately, Macy's point of sale systems were partially down. I couldn't use my gift card. I tried to cash out my gift card at Customer Service. The systems continued to be down. I was frustrated.

I shopped online at Walgreens.com. I found out drugstore.com merged with Walgreens. There was a buy two, get one free Vanicream soap sale. I purchased 18 bars of soap at 12:07pm. I saved 33%. Next, I shopped online for new desktop speakers which were my wanted item. My old desktop speakers broke. I choose the Logitech Z313 2.1 speakers. Amazon sold the speakers for $25. I shopped at Fry's for which Fry's price matched Amazon's price from $50 to $25 at the cash register. Shopping at Fry's was the first time I shopped a Black Friday in the afternoon. I lined up at 2pm. I checked out at 3:30pm. The Fry's experience convinced me the best time to shop at stores with short lines is between 7am-10am.

Finally, the Macy's point of sale system gave me worries about my Target gift card becoming invalid. I purchased New Skin and Orajel mouth sore gel for the family first-aid kit at 3:54pm.

Black Fridays achieved the status quo years ago in my opinion. I shop on Black Fridays to purchase bare necessities which includes stocking up on bare necessities, to buy new durable goods, to upgrade existing durable goods, and to buy DVDs on my wish list. Black Fridays are good shopping days for appliances, clothes, new TVs, desktop parts, and towels. If I can wait for the Black Friday, then I wait.

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