friday noir

Who forgets to talk about Black Friday on a personal finance blog? Me, apparently.

I shied away from talking about the sales before "the day", because you could've found that in every corner of the internet. The problem with that is then you forget the whole thing, as in this case.
While I had every intention of going to Wal-Mart for their 10 PM Thanksgiving night sale, I was thoroughly exhausted after cleaning and cooking all day (it was my first year having people over for Thanksgiving dinner), that I barely got through my glass of wine before passing out on the couch.

For me, Black Friday tends to be a day where I spend money on myself or the house. The best deals of the day were definitely at Macy's. I wasted a lot of time in morning looking for a new work suit when I really should've been in the home department. The morning specials were crazy good! I ended up getting a 4 quart stainless steel saute pan for $11 and I've used it at least ten times since then. I love it. I also picked up a 5-piece roasting set (pan, rack, baster, & lifting tongs) which was on sale for $20, then I had a 15% off coupon bringing the total price to $18. Unfortunately, the 15% off coupon only worked on regular sales and not the morning specials, so that was the only item I was able to get a deeper discount on.

It seemed like every time I was in the line waiting to check out, I would see something else I wanted (like the above roasting pan). On my second go-round of the home department, I scored a 53-piece flatware set for only $32 (regular price: $80). Obviously, The Hubs and I have every day flatware, but we only have service for four. It doesn't make a difference to us whether we eat dinner with a salad fork or a dinner fork, but in prepping for Thanksgiving dinner, I realized I didn't even have matching flatware for my family of five. Now I won't have to borrow my mom's silverware to have a dinner party. #grownup.

Lastly, my big purchase of the day was a Ninja Professional Blender. The Hubs and I have been looking for a nice blender since we got married. First, we had one of those "blend and go" little machines which smelled like melting plastic when you would run it and couldn't chop ice at all. Gross. Then we got a basic Kitchen Aide blender, which was better, but still didn't crush ice like we needed. My mother-in-law got us a Magic Bullet set she found at a yard sale, but still no dice on the ice. I called The Hubs and he gave his blessing on the Ninja purchase. I hoped I would be able to use a $10 off coupon as well, but, unfortunately, that didn't work. $90 later, we have a blender that can in fact "turn ice into snow" and I've been able to enjoy my green smoothies once more. Yipee! The rest of the mall was a bust that Friday, but that's what long weekend are for, right? I, for one, appreciated the extended Black Friday sales and was able to pick up some actual gifts on Saturday. Of course I took advantage of Cyber Monday sales as well.

All in all, I was able to wrap up (pun intended) most of Christmas shopping in one weekend. I have two more actual presents to get, then the rest of family has asked for cash.

How are you doing with your Christmas list? Have you gotten any good deals lately?