Shopping Day

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is known to retailers as BLACK FRIDAY (because they are hoping that their sales for the day will put them "in the black"). I like to refer to it as (reverent hush...) SHOPPING DAY! My husband believes that this is my BIG holiday of the year. I get as excited about this day as some people do over their birthday or Christmas.

It starts with the anticipation the night before Thanksgiving (or Shopping Day Eve Eve) - just waiting for those ads that I know will be waiting for me when I wake up the next morning. Thanksgiving morning, before I have my shower or coffee or pull the turkey out of the refrigerator, I race downstairs and grab the paper - sorting the ads into "junk" and "places I HAVE to hit first on Friday". After Thanksgiving dinner I really get serious. I look over each individual ad, remove any special coupons that I will need the next day, and make my list. The list includes the store, what they have that I 'm looking for, whether or not there are any coupons, and the specific hours the special deals are for. Next I re-do the list and put everything in chronological order. I need to figure out when I need to be at each store, but I also need to make the best use of my time. I have to consider whether an item is going to be in limited supply and I have to map out my planned route. Not on an actual map, of course. THAT would be crazy. :-)

This morning I was up and out the door early enough that I was parking at my first stop at 6:30. If that sounds bad, know that I met some people who had started their shopping before 4:oo! And I thought I was tired....

Of course to some people this sounds like a lot of trouble to go through, but if everything goes well there will be at least one deal that will make it all worthwhile. This morning it was the earrings I am now wearing. They were originally $42. They were on sale for $25, and today all the sale items were an additional 50% off. That made them $12.50. Oh, and I had a coupon for $10 off any one item. Yes, that's right. My lovely earrings that exactly match my sweater cost me $2.50 - and if that's not worth getting up early for I don't know what is!

So, Happy Shopping Day to you and yours. I hope it was as lovely for you as it was for me.