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Black Friday 2011

jon — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:08:49 +0000

Wal*Mart traffic

Another Black Friday has come and gone, and we have some stories to tell. The in-person Black Friday shopping was disappointing, but we got some sweet deals online (I’ll talk about those at the end of this post). We wanted to buy some things from Wal*Mart, but apparently so did everybody else. The freeway was completely backed up from everybody wanting to go Wal*Mart. We were stuck in traffic for almost two hours. By the time we finally got off the freeway, we decided to just skip it. We were already an hour late for the store opening, there wasn’t a single parking space in sight, and we didn’t want to interfere with the rest of our Black Friday plan.

Crazy line for Best Buy--this picture is taken from the middle of the line

Our next stop was Best Buy. There must have been at least 1500 people in line. We were half an hour early and the line wrapped halfway around the building, through the parking lot, and all the way to the back of the Home Depot nearby. Again, we decided to ditch this plan and go on to our next store.

We went to Target where the line wrapped completely around the building and ended just about where the entrance was. We decided to stick this one out. Angela got a $15 leather jacket, some holiday tees, and cheap DVDs **cough**New Moon**cough**. I didn’t want to be left out so I got some washcloths.

Black Friday equipment

At Kohl’s, we used a 15% off everything coupon to get a thermometer already at 50% off, slippers at almost 70% off, and some more clothes. We finished up at 1am and then headed over to Sears. Since Sears didn’t open until 4am, we took a quick nap. Wow, did it get cold! We were prepared with hand warmers, beanies, blankets, and gloves, but we were still freezing. I guess we’re getting weak in our old age.

When Sears finally opened, we got a free Christmas ornament, a jacket for $29 that normally sells for $150, and a snow man tie to go with my red pants!

Black Friday 2011 Loot

At Sports Authority, we got $20 of free gift cards. I got a new jacket and Angela got some snow pants for when we learn to snowboard this winter.

At Michael’s we got free Godiva chocolate bars, 70% off ribbon, plus we had a 25% off stackable coupon. At Joann we got a bunch of yarn.

Half Price Books gives out free $5 gift cards every year. We used a gift card from last year, our gift cards from this year, and a 40% off coupon to get a book for only $3 that retails new for $50.

The stores’ opening on Thanksgiving day really hosed us! It was way overcrowded and all the stores opened at the same times. Hopefully they don’t do that next year.

Angela's new laptop

Our pre Black Friday and online deals on the other hand were great! Angela got a new laptop for $270 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for $4. We got a $200 xbox+Kinect, a $100 router for $50, and a Sony Blu-ray player with Google TV for $100 (normally $200). Also, I just ordered Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for our xbox for $7.

Fall time deals

jon — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 05:25:27 +0000

Another surplus sale! Lake Washington School District had a surplus sale, so naturally we had to go. We woke up at 6am and stood in the cold for an hour, but it was worth it! We ended up getting a fairly new projector for $25, a big box of tessellation tiles and blocks for $5, and a long reach stapler for $1.

If shopping were a sport…

jon — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:35:18 +0000

Our Black Friday loot!

It’s that time of the year again–deal time!! We decided to do a warm-up run before Black Friday just to brush up on our skills. Then we did our infamous Black Friday series; and we even added some more deals that we don’t normally do: food! We actually didn’t have anything we really wanted to get on Black Friday, so our main motivation was to maintain our reputation and to entertain our blog readers. Or because we’re crazy.

Target Warm up
We went to Target a few days before Thanksgiving, just to scope out the store’s floorplan and to get some early buys. We ended up getting four pairs of jeans for $9 (50% off), 12 packages of various sorts of candy for about $1 each, and 20 pairs of socks for $18!!!

Warm up purchases at Target

Waiting in the Walmart line at the back of the store

First Black Friday stop: Walmart
Walmart lets you enter the store early (but you can only make your purchases after midnight), so it wasn’t too insane. I went straight for the end of the line, which happened to be in the nethermost corner of the store. Meanwhile Angela went to scavenge a boatload of DVDs (including the Bourne series, the Lord of the Rings series, I am Legend, and others) for $2 each, a $50 sewing machine (50% off), and a $20 safe (60% off). They were all out of carts so we had to carry all of our loot. We waited in line to check out for about an hour and a half. But it was okay, because there was plenty of Justin Bieber paraphernalia all over to keep us occupied.

Front of the line at Kohl's!

Waiting in the rain for an hour at Kohl’s
We were rained on for most of the 1.5 hours we waited in front of Kohl’s. But at least we were fifth in line! We got a slow cooker and a wallet and we were the very first people to check out.

Maneuvering through the swarms at Target
As expected, there were swarms of people buzzing throughout Target. I think Target was the least organized store of the day. There was a line to check out, but no employees or even signs to indicate which side was the entrance. As a result, tons of people were unknowingly (and some knowingly) cutting in line (we almost did too, until we realized that there was a line). After checking out, the exit doors were locked. When we asked an employee, she said it wasn’t an exit; so we had to walk across the store to go to the other doors. As we passed by the original doors, we noticed that they had opened them and were then allowing people to exit.

Why are there all these people waiting at Sports Authority?!

Surprise deal at Sports Authority
I wanted a $10 exercise ball at Sports Authority. Since we didn’t anticipate exercise balls being a hot item, we planned on taking a nap in the parking lot. When we got there, we noticed an unexpectedly long line to get in. So we did what any normal person would do: forget about sleeping and get in the line before it got any longer! After we got in line, we found out that the first 85 people would get gift cards for $10-500 (randomly distributed). What a sweet deal! Free money! Angela and I both got the $10 cards. So I essentially got my exercise ball for free, and Angela got a swimming suit that ended up being a total of 58% off.

Wild times at Michael's!

Boogles of ribbon at Michael’s
I was too afraid of the crazy crafters to even go in to Michael’s, so Angela braved it alone against the 6 other people who were in line at opening. It’s okay because I had to defend our loot against the ferocious mice who wanted our movies. We got a bunch of ribbon at 78% off.

A casual stroll at Old Navy
Since we went to Old Navy hours after they opened, it was pretty empty. We bought jeans, pajama pants, and camis for 50-80% off. Piece of cake.

Quick freebie at Half Price Books
As we do every year, we line up at Half Price Books and they gave us each a $5 gift card. We didn’t bother to look at the books since we can use the gift cards another day, and we have much more important things to do!

Winding down at Jo-Ann
By 7am, everything was starting to die down. We went to Jo-Ann to get a spatula at 50% off and a gingerbread house making kit.

After Jo-Ann, we were pretty tired and were done for the day. We headed home and went straight to sleep. When we woke up, I noticed people were posting on Facebook about their shopping. WHAT!?!? People are still out there!? We had to get in some more deals, so we decided to do food.

Finishing off the day with Baja Fresh and Slurpees
We got a buy one, get one free deal at Baja Fresh. Woohoo! I love burritos! $7 for two big burritos and all the chips and salsa we could want. Then we headed over to 7-11 to get free Slurpees.

Baja Fresh buy one, get one

Free Slurpees!

Out on the town~

angela — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:47:12 +0000

A few weeks ago Jon’s cousin was in town visiting us. We had a lot of fun seeing the sites of Seattle with her! Friday morning, we had a big homemade breakfast then, headed to Seattle to RIDE THE DUCKS! It was a lot more fun than we thought it’d be and was a great way to see the major attractions. Our tourguide was great, I felt like we were in a Disneyland parade or something because the music was blaring and we were waving and everyone on the street was waving back. On the tour we got to see Pike’s Place, Pioneer Square, Fremont, Gasworks Park and a bunch of other sites on land and sea. After the tour we headed to Pike’s Place and after some running around found Pike’s Place Chowder. Their Seafood Bisque was amazing, totally worth the wait!!! We also saw the gum wall which we’d never seen before (disgusting!!!). After wandering the market for a bit we headed to the Seattle Aquarium. We got a chance to feed some sea urchins, which was a lot of fun. The highlight of the day was going on an Argosy Cruise to Tillicum Village on Blake Island. I saw mixed reviews for the cruise online, but I have no idea what the bad reviewers were talking about, it was awesome!!! The boat ride there was about 40 minutes and they gave the history of the Native American tribes from the area and how they helped the settlers that first came to Seattle. Once we got to Blake Island the dancers performed a welcoming dance while we ate these yummy clams in a garlic broth. The best thing was once we were done with the clams we got to throw the shells down on the ground and smash them. The whole path leading up to the long house was crushed clam shells, how cute! Once we got into the long house we got to see how Native Americans cooked salmon around a fire, we got to explore a little too. Then the big event SALMON BUFFET! All of the food was great actually, but the salmon was the best I’ve ever eaten. After dinner there was a really nice dance show which told some Native American stories. The stage was really elaborate , the costumes were great, and the production was just really well put together. After the show was over we got a chance to roam the beach and explore the island a bit too. The sunset was gorgeous! The best thing about the whole thing was that we got the whole thing half off because of our Prime Card!!!!!

Saturday we wrapped up the weekend. First we had dim sum in the International District, then we lined up to tour a stealth ship that was harbored in Seattle for Seafair. The ship was very impressive and the service men and women on the ship were very helpful and friendly. The ship is called the Greenbay. Towards the end of the tour they had an abulence and tank that you could get in and see the inside of. They also had demos of how to use a missle launcher and a machine gun. I was too scared to hold either, but Jon was more than willing to volunteer. It was a fun outing and really interesting. We also got to tour a Canadian mine sweeper boat which was smaller, but still pretty neat to see.

Birthday madness

jon — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:01:13 +0000

Our loot from the REI garage sale

It was my birthday last week. I’m 26 and I’m really feeling the effects. Despite my quickly aging body, we were able to go out and do some fun stuff.

REI had a “garage sale” with tons of heavily discounted items. We got there half an hour early and there was already a huge line. Once they started letting people in, it was a mad house! Unfortunately since it was our first time, we weren’t able to find anything worth grabbing. But then people started throwing back the stuff they had grabbed but didn’t want. That’s when we raked in our kill! Yea yea, call us vultures–you’ll be laughing until you see the deals we got!

This is what we got (in no particular order): inflatable sleeping pad, two pairs of ski gloves, a pair of hiking boots, a pair of Nike shoes, a pair of sandal-shoes, and a pair of baby sandal-shoes. Let me give you an idea of the greatness of these deals. The particular line of gloves we got sells for $160. Ours were in perfect condition and only cost $34! And the boots? They normally sell for $185. The pair we got look like they’ve been used once and we paid $20 for them. What great deals! Watch out for my listings on eBay!

For dinner, Angela made a meatloaf cake. It tasted so good!

That evening, we had a bunch of friends over from our ward and it was a really good time. We had ice cream cake that said “Happy Birthday Princess” and I got to wear a pipe-cleaner tiara. Woot!

Bikes~

angela — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:43:59 +0000

Well, a couple of weeks ago Jon and I thought we’d step up our exercise game and get bikes so that we could save on gas $ and get a little bit of a work out at the same time. I know from the pictures they look pretty cool, by my bike was only $60 at Fred Meyer. Jon’s is a little higher end, but’s nothing Mr. Armstrong would be drolling over in envy. The first day that Jon and I went out biking was mildly traumatic, it was pouring rain and I hadn’t ridden a bike for at least 5 years. By the time we were on our way home I had a seriously bruised bottom and told Jon that I refused to ride anymore until we got a better seat for my bike. The next morning Jon bought me the most fabulous bike seat in the world! It’s like riding on a cloud! So now that we’ve got hot new wheels we’re riding them pretty much every where. *ding ding*

Cheese coming out of our ears

jon — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:35:02 +0000

When I was in college, there was a sweet deal on cheese so I got four pounds of it. While I was in the store, I ran into some friends and they said, “WOW! Look at all that cheese!” Here’s a picture:

Cheese I bought on sale in college

So we were grocery shopping yesterday and we saw a SWEET unadvertised deal on 8 ounce shredded cheese. They’re normally $5 per bag, but they were on sale for $1 each!!! So naturally, we bought 12 bags of it. We even cleared the store out of a couple of their flavors.

Our latest cheese deal! $1 per bag!!

Deals, deals, deals! Deals all over the floor!

jon — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:35:50 +0000

We had an uber-successful shopping season this year!

24 inches of pure High-def recipe enjoyment

About a week ago, we found a 24″ LCD full HD monitor for $170 with free shipping on the Dell Outlet website. Thanks to Twitter, I found a $20 coupon. So we got a humongous 24″ monitor for watching movies and viewing recipes while we’re cooking in the kitchen.

On Black Friday, we left for Old Navy at 2:20am. We bought 13 items including 50% off jeans. We got in the checkout line when there were four people in line and were out of the store in 20 minutes total. By the time we left the store, the checkout line had grown to about 30 people.

After Old Navy, I waited in line to get in to Target while Angela went to Kohl’s (which was already open) to buy a bunch of $3 board games and sweaters. Kohl’s gave us a $10 gift card for shopping there (woohoo!).

Our Black Friday treasures

Target was the best store of the day! As evidence, the line was about 1000 people long by the time the store opened. Since we knew that perfect execution would be critical at Target, we shmoozed with an employee and got a map of the store. We also found out that we didn’t have to waste time grabbing a cart at the entrance because there would be carts spread throughout the store. We planned our route and were able to beat the 50-100 people in front of us in line to the good stuff. We got one of the four piano keyboards they had stocked, a bunch of DVDs, and tons of clothes. As we were leaving the electronics area, there were swarms of shoppers like ants swarming around their kicked anthill. I wanted to snap a picture but was afraid of being trampled, so we fled screaming and clutching our prizes. Finally at checkout, they gave us a $10 gift card!

At Staples, I grabbed four $10 webcams that were normally $50. When people kept taking them, I had to try hard to resist not taking more. My heart sunk when an employee told me that they only allowed one webcam per customer. I decided to try to check out anyways and we were particularly nice to the employee. We found out that she was sick the past week and consequently missed all the Black Friday orientation meetings. And she let us buy our webcams! We also bought some other good stuff like speakers, a GPS, and 8GB USB drives.

We headed over to Half Price Books in hopes of randomly winning a $100 gift card. Unfortunately we didn’t win. But they did give us $10 in gift cards.

Ikea loot

After we finished out our critical early bird steals we headed to the mall and Angela went to JCPenney while I waited in the car. She got a bunch of $9 sweaters and Christmas gifts for the Moomers. After that we headed to Joann’s to pick a rubber stamp set for the giving tree at Angela’s office. We got all the stamps for over half off!

Black Friday was a success! We got every item that we wanted to get that day. But wait! That’s not the end of the good deals! On Saturday, we stopped by Ikea and found a hidden clearance section! We bought 14 plates for 99 cents each (normally $4.99 each). And rubber gloves for 10 cents each.

What a great year for deals!