Black Friday

I am not a fan.  Well, i'm a fan of sales, but today has been a crazy day, i finished my shopping before 9a.  I did all my shopping on Amazon.com 

and i wish i could go into more detail on the great deals i snagged, but i can't for obvious reasons.  Although, i wish i had added more to my cart last night.  I did a lot of browsing and figuring out and only added something when i knew that's what i wanted.  However, i found that the selection had drastacly dropped.  For example, last night it says that thousands of DVDs were on sale starting at $4.99.  This morning it said hundreds.  Now it's over 200 starting at $4.99 and 122 available starting at $8.49.  I am happy with the selection though.  Besides the site being a little buggy, it was an overable enjoyable experience and i was happy to avoid the crowds...or so i thought.

I had actually already encountered crowds the night before.  We were out of milk so i stopped at Albertson's on my way home from work.  I had a hard time finding a spot, which should've been a red flag to go home.  I go inside and there are people everywhere, and i was looking for an ad and didn't find one (there was a coupon in it that if you buy four Kellog's cereal, you get a free gallon of milk).  So i go home and we just had ramen for dinner.  I couldn't deal with it.  I found the ad we got in the mail under my desk, where i placed it for "safe keeping."  Sure enough, i found the coupon in it, but it had expired yesterday.  We still need milk.  Today i stopped at Target on my way home from a bridal shower (i'll get back to this) and in the middle of shopping, Nathaniel calls and asks where i am (he's at work) because our landlord was at our place in response to a complaint about the hard water (nasty deposits on everything but they don't want to buy a water softener).  He asks if i even have a Target gift card...oops.  I put the milk back and left the cart.  I was parked pretty far away and had to go back through the mall.  I knew i should've put off Target until after i got home.  So that's twice i had to fight crowds for no reason.

Make that thrice.  Or two and a half times?  I stopped at Macy's this morning in between getting my hair cut and the bridal shower.  I was later getting to the salon than i had intended, but i got out at 11a so i was still making good time.  If i already had a gift, i would've been on time.  But i had put it off, so i stopped at Macy's in Fashion Island and all that took an hour just for a muffin pan.  The thing is, we have a Macy's right by us.  It's what i parked by when i went to Target.  I need to not put off things.  I was worried about money and was going to try to find something at Target that was similar to something on the registry, but all of a sudden it was today and i was without a gift.  So i ended up getting there 90min late.  I only stayed an hour because there were only two other girls i knew, so i left when they did.  I'm not good with people, be it large crowds or a roomful of women.

Yesterday we did snag some good deals though.  If you aren't familiar with CVS, they sometimes have deals where you get cash back on your store card for future purchases.  These are called Extra Care Bucks (ECB).  So bear with me as i be weird and post my purchases.  There is a point.  Oh and check out how long the receipt was!

$1.00 Hershey's Cookies 'N' Cream

$2.99 Aussie spray gel

$7.99 Schick Quattro

$2.99 Colgate Total Advance

$6.99 L'oreal lipgloss

$3.79 Sally Hansen Max Growth nail polish

$3.79 Sally Hansen Max Growth nail polish

$3.99 5hr Extra (energy) shot 2pk

$5.99 Covergirl Smoother 

$1.49 Gatorade 20oz

$0.05 Bottle Deposit

$1.49 Gatorade 20oz

$0.05 Bottle Deposit

$1.49 Gatorade 20oz

$0.05 Bottle Deposit

-1.00 coupon

-1.50 coupon

-2.00 coupon

-3.00 coupon

36.64 Subtotal

  2.99 Tax

39.63 Total

After subtracting the $32.22 in ECB's, the total spending was $7.41.  But wait, that's not all!  I'm taking back the Covergirl thing because Nathaniel got the wrong one (it was the pressed powder that had a deal and it's not something i'd use unless free) and one of the nail polishes (they are close in color to each other and i have plenty), because i had told him it was limit two, but i see from the receipt they only gave us ECB's for one.  So after i do that (and get back $10.54 including tax), the grand total will be $-3.13.  Yup, they paid us three bucks to take all that stuff!