Black Friday: Worth it?

The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday as you all know and this year it really was. I heard news reports of people sleeping out waiting for the Black Friday deals starting on Monday and Tuesday. INSANE considering what was for sale. In a downturn economy I expected better deals but they were mediocre at best in most cases. I found some clothes and bought some materials for presents but nothing worth getting up early or camping out for. The HDTVs were not the top of the line but promotional models. Most of the clothing was just generic items. All of the game bundles were available at all of the stores and will continue to be available for the rest of the season. Plus there were NO bookstore Black Friday deals at any of the major bookstores near me (save Half Price which I still have yet to visit). Plus the fabric store had over an hour long wait just to cut fabric.... can you say ridiculous? I am glad I went and I did get some good deals but if retailers are hoping to make up for the bad ear with this weekend it ain't gonna happen on the deals they are offering. Good luck to all of my fellow shoppers and I hope you fared better than I did at times.

PS Michael's you need to offer your books and magazines (or at least the books) for your coupons. This is just ridiculous that I have to by pattern books for full price from you and I can get them cheaper somewhere else, if only they were in stock. Oh and stock safety eyes. Your a craft store, right?

Jackpot!

Today was the local library's monthly book sale, which is my favorite Saturday of the month usually but this month it was even better. Twice a year, in May and November, the library does a bag sale. In other words, a brown paper back of books/DVDs/CDs is only $5!!! I went with a list in hand and hoped for the best. Of course I did not get all of the books I wanted but I still came away with a huge stash of books, and so did Jason. We both filled our bags and with a totally of $10 we have feed our book buying addiction for the next little bit.

I am very happy about this for a few reasons. First, we are broke.. both being unemployed or underemployed we don't get to spend money on "luxury" items. So a book sale like this we could actually buy some things we wanted and not break the bank... in fact this was a our fun money for the month but it was well spent! Second, we got great finds we might not have bought if it weren't for the sale. They are not shown but we have started collecting some Young Adult books we loved as kids to have when our children, when we have them, will have books to read that we are familiar with. It is great to be planning ahead and yet we will have these books when we need a comfort book too! Thirdly (and lastly), we could buy some books we wanted to try out but might not get from the library (forget to order) or ever buy (not sure enough they are worth the money). I tried some new authors and Jason got some authors he hasn't read everything of yet.

All in all it was a great day. And on our anniversary no less... Yay for 3 months of wedded bliss and still going strong! I can't wait to curl up with these this winter. OH and the best find of all... an early, hard bound (not in the best shape but still) edition of Dracula!!! I know this is no one else's favorite but I do so love the book that started it all (in a sense). Happy reading!