Archive for the ‘Black Friday’ Category

My Black Friday Deals

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

This year was probably the best Black Friday I’ve had so far in terms of good deals. I didn’t do any brick-and-mortar shopping, but I did score some fun online deals:

Zazzle.com stamps

Here are my custom photo stamps from Zazzle. I love how they turned out and can’t wait to put them on my Christmas cards!

Bluetooth Audio Transport

This is my free-after-rebate Bluetooth Audio Transport. Jai loves electronic gadgets, so this will be a fun little holiday gift for him!

My final Black Friday deal utilized a Walmart gift card which I had won. I make a point of entering gift card giveaways whenever I can, and I’ve won all kinds of gift certificates since I became a “Sweeper” – which is a nice little supplement to my budget! Whenever I win a gift card, I set it aside until I have a major purchase or specific need. Last year, I won a $100 Walmart gift card on Blessings Abound, and I had been saving it until just the right thing came along. I ended up using it on Black Friday to buy a Garmin nuvi 295W 3.5″ Portable GPS:

Garmin nuvi 295W 3.5" Portable GPS

Jai is making some changes to his business cell phone plan, and one of the things he has considered dropping is the data plan. However, our hesitation with that was the fact that his phone uses the data plan to power a GPS, which has been invaluable to us in our travels. Getting a separate GPS to use in the car is not only easier to use and more convenient, but also gives Jai the option to drop the data plan on his phone. The Garmin nuvi was on sale for $99 on Black Friday, so I went ahead and purchased it with my gift card and got free shipping, as well as $2.97 cashback through ShopAtHome – although I see the price has dropped to $89 today, so it doesn’t seem like Black Friday is necessarily the cheapest day of the year to buy electronics!

GPS (And a funny face)

Here’s the GPS in our car (And Jai pulling a silly face in the rear view mirror!)

The GPS arrived yesterday and we’re really happy with it. It’s got an impressive array of features and is even better than the one we used previously on Jai’s cell phone. And for free, how can you go wrong?

Black Friday: What Are Your Plans?

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday right around the corner, many consumers are gearing up to shop ’til they drop. So what are your plans, readers? Are you going to be waiting in line during the wee hours to snag some bargains – or will you be sitting this one out?

Being Super Coupon Girl, it may surprise you to hear that I’ve never participated in any Black Friday shopping bonanzas. The reason for this is simply that I’ve never seen any Black Friday deals that would be of interest to me personally. Sure, if you’re already in the market for a flat screen TV, saving $100 on Black Friday is a great idea – but there don’t seem to be many deals on anything that I would be interested in, so I’ve never really bothered with it. Also, between winning contests and writing product reviews, I haven’t needed to buy Christmas or birthday presents in a long time, so that’s another reason why I don’t shop on Black Friday! (The funny part is that the presents which I get for free now are actually bigger-ticket items than I would have previously been able to give!)

Of course, I’ll be keeping an eye out for any exceptional deals that pop up over Black Friday and Cyber Monday – and if you want to scope out the deals on offer, you can check out the following resources:

So will you be braving the crowds this Friday – or just sleeping off the Turkey dinner?

Holiday Recap: Thanksgiving & Black Friday Shopping Trips

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

I had big shopping plans last week, but they were quickly abandoned during the holiday chaos!

Thanksgiving

Total spent: $9.67. NO COUPONS!!!
View receipt

Got:

1 gallon of milk
1 tub of whipped topping
1 dozen cage free eggs
3 foil pie pans

Wow. This one trip cost almost as much as my whole month’s budget for September! My original plan had been to hit up Walgreens, because they had some good overage deals going on that week. But with everything that was going on that day, I realized that there was no way that I’d have enough time to make the 30 minute drive to Walgreens, and still get back in time to make enough Pumpkin Pie for 13 people. So I axed that plan and just went to Safeway, since it’s so close to me, even though the sales there have been pretty nonexistent this past month. I needed the cool whip, eggs, and foil plates in order to make my pies – I only have one pie plate, and I was making three pies. I had originally planned to go to another store and buy a real pie plate, but the stores were so crammed that I ended up just grabbing some foil plates at Safeway so that I could go home! Also, we were out of milk, so I picked that up while I was there.

Grandma always hosts Thanksgiving at her house, so she cooked the main course and I brought the Pumpkin Pies for dessert:

I made my oil crust and used this recipe for homemade pumpkin pie filling. I still have a bunch of homemade pumpkin puree in my freezer from Halloween, so this worked out well.

Black Friday

I thought I’d have time for Walgreens on Friday, but it just wasn’t happening. However, I still wanted to pick up some things for dinner, so I just made this quick trip to Safeway:

Total spent: $10.16
Total before coupons: $13.66
View receipt

Got:

1 can of mushrooms – I wanted fresh mushrooms, but Safeway’s produce department was completely sold out of them. Weird!
2 Ragu pouches – on sale for $1, used two .50/1 coupons that I received in the mail. Free after doubles!
1 tub of Parmesan cheese
1 bottle of Coffee Mate – on sale for $3.79, used a $1/1 printable coupon, which doubled. (I was able to get another copy of this coupon by printing it from my laptop, in case you’re wondering how I got it.)
.81 pounds of bananas
.85 pounds of apples
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1 bag of sun dried tomatoes

If you look closely at my receipts for Thursday and Friday, you may notice that my gas rewards suddenly jumped up to 5. That’s because on Friday, there was a person standing in front of me in line who couldn’t find his club card. He tried to bring it up by punching in his phone number, but it didn’t work, so he just shrugged and said, “Oh well.” I asked if he wanted to use my card, so he did – he was very happy for the savings (you have to have a club card to get any of the sale prices, so you’d pay a lot more without one), and I got the credit towards my fuel discount, so everybody wins!

I had a houseful of guests all week, and I always have a blast making big meals – if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I love to cook! So here’s Friday’s dinner:

Spaghetti, salad, and homemade garlic bread. I made good use of my free pasta and pasta sauce, and added mushrooms, artichokes, green olives, onion, and garlic. For the salad, I used the red leaf lettuce, crispy onion toppings, sun dried tomatoes, and homemade croutons that I made using this recipe – these are SO good, you have to try them!

Black Friday

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Do any of you have big shopping plans for Black Friday? I was excited to see what kind of bargains I might be able to snag, but it seems pretty thin on the ground in my area. I’ve been looking at ad previews for the past few weeks, courtesy of sites like Hot Coupon World and The Official Black Friday Website, and so far I haven’t seen any sales that would be worth camping out all night for. At this point, I’m more interested to see what online sales pop up, both on Black Friday and “Cyber Monday”, which is the Monday following Thanksgiving.