The Black Friday two-day sales blitz is almost over. As always, there were some ridiculously cheap sales, with people camping out and long lines and packed parking lots and slow web pages. This year appeared to finally be the year of the equitable online Black Friday (with early Thursday) specials, matching the store prices, before the Cyber Monday kick.
I’m curious what my fellow consumers ran out to get in the past two days, especially the “too good to be true” deals.
My bargains:
Motorola H350 Bluetooth Headset, normally about $35-$50, depending on store or site . Staples had it for $15 (after a $5 rebate) instead of their normal $50, with ability to buy online instead of fighting for store stock. I bought that one online Friday morning.
James Bond Ultimate Collection. There are four volumes, which normally run between $55-70 apiece. Circuity City had them for $18 each, both in store and online. I was able to buy three volumes online, but one was backordered from the warehouses. Went to the store, and there were three copies of that one. So instead of $70 each, I got all four for $76.
I scored a Logitech Harmony 880 Universal remote for $149 at Best Buy, down from the retail $249, which I thought was pretty nifty. I think I got the last one in the store at about 1:30PM, so I didn’t even have to get up a 3AM.
That was the extent of my Black Friday shopping. I was on the lookout for a cheap Desktop PC or a bedroom sized LCD HDTV but all the doorbuster bargains were on store brand items that just aren’t worth the investment even at 60% the price.
I got a new cell phone for free – a nice black and gold Nokia 6555 at Best Buy, after signing a 2-year contract with AT&T. I got out of my existing Verizon contract without paying an early termination fee because I live in a “known trouble area” and get NO service at my apartment, but the nice girl at Best Buy was able to port my number over without a hitch. Ah, it’s nice to be able to talk on the phone at home, and not have calls constantly dropping. I also like the feel of this new phone better than my old Motorola RAZR, which I was never fond of. Anyone want to buy a slightly-used RAZR?
I didn’t get anything particularly awesome, but got some good deals on small stuff at Kohl’s for people. I wasn’t going to go yesterday, on principle (I’ve worked the day once before and it was hell) but mom wanted to go and I also don’t have a lot of money this year so it was nice to be able to stretch a dollar. $5 fleece blanket for the bf, $8 silver necklace charm for my aunt, $10 holiday sweatshirt for grandma and $17 silky PJs, $10 maglite for my brother, etc. Everything I bought was on sale except for the ornament I got for my dad at Hallmark. He bought a 2006 Harley street bob this year, and they had his exact bike as a Hallmark ornament. It was $15 but he’s gonna get a kick out of it. And I actually had a positive black Friday experience, mom and I got up at 6am and were at Macy’s by 6:45 and it was not crowded. No store minus Kohl’s was crowded, and even there it was still easy to shop and the long lines moved very fast at checkout. I started my shopping early in the week and after yesterday am mostly done. My job is closed a lot around the holidays so I wanted to get done while I still have money coming in.
It’s a great universal remote. I got it in August from Amazon on a killer discount (even less than $149), and it’s been flawless, with a new model TV, two components on HDMI, two on component, and previously one on old-style RCA. It handles all but one or two specialty features of the TV remote, and all but one or two of the Verizon FIOS remote.
I got this nifty new laptop. We strolled into Best Buy at about noon, and of course all their advertised sales were long gone, but we found a display model laptop which would probably sell for about $1100 new for $799. Other than a small scratch on the casing it’s perfect.
It’s the first computer I’ve ever had that wasn’t a hand-me-down from hubby – usually he upgrades and I get the old one. Unfortunately his last one completely died, so I’ve been computerless for over a year.
I got a 4GB USB jump drive for $17.99 at Staples. Most of the savings were instant, and then they had a $10 rebate to get the final price . I don’t even mind doing the rebate dance at other places, but Staples makes it sooooo easy online that I always look there first.
I didn’t even have to go anywhere. I got a Canon A570IS digital camera for between $30 and $70 less than any store in town is charging, by going to amazon ($151), and a 2-gig secure digital memory card for $16. (I remember when I bought the 128 mb SD card for $60.) They’ll be here on Tuesday. Woot!
Not really a bargain–more like a discount on a future purchase: I got paged on Friday and had to go in to power cycle a server. Since it was a “Holiday” call-out, I netted $150 for ten minutes’ work. Hmmmmmm…what should I spend it on?
IF you were really cool that server would have been a virtual server and rebooted by remoting into the underlying OS. AKA $150 from bed with a laptop in 10 min.
I got 4 $25 iTunes cards through Bestbuy.com for $65 - they were buy 3, get one free, and I had a $10 Rewards certificate, so I decided to use it for that - I don’t often let myself add funds to iTunes lately, so this should last me for a while.
Nothing too much for me. I did go to Circuit City and pick up some DVDs they had on sale. I wanted to get the NYPD Blue boxsets they were advertising for $12.99 each but when I got there they only had one season left. I also got Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Little Nicky, Syriana, and Transporter 2 for some really good prices.
I usually avoid the Black Friday thing, but I’ve been planning for several months to finally get a washer-dryer combo for my place, and Best Buy sucked me in with their offer of $200 off a (fairly basic) set. I was a bit apprehensive going there at 8AM as I had seen people setting up tents outside the front door at 1PM on Thursday :eek: but it wasn’t too painful. I scored a few $4.99 DVDs for relatives while I was there, and the guy in the appliance department rang’em up with the appliances, allowing me to neatly sidestep the 30-minute lines at checkout.
I leaned in the Office Max next door and found an 80 GB USB external hard drive for about $50, but had to return it later as my desktop computer refused to recognize it.
Back to not doing the Black Friday thing next year, I think.
I bought my parents the 550 for Xmas last year and they have loved it. They are a little intimidated by the whole modern home theater thing and the plasma, surround sound, dvd, cable receiver w/ drv set-up was a little daunting for them. The Harmony has smoothed that over in a heartbeat, so long as they don’t have to go through the process of resetting the settings. Computers are no treat for them either.
Expecting to complicate my own set-up over the holidays, so I’m glad to have the new toy.
