As I write, it’s Black Friday and my head is spinning.
My email box is being flooded with all kinds of sales from dozens of advertisers. Do you remember when Thanksgiving Day, the newspaper was packed with ads?
That was another aspect of Thanksgiving that was so much fun.
Food prep, stuffing our bellies, taking that turkey nap, and then grabbing the advertisements to plan whatever sale items you could try to grab on Black Friday.
Black Friday items in the retail world were very scarce. Usually the store would have a very limited amount of sales items that they would sell out rather quickly. I think the strategy was to put some items on a Black Friday sales list as some ridiculously low price just to get people in the door. It was commonly done and it worked.
Remember when stores would open at midnight on Black Friday? It wasn’t too long ago, but the pandemic pretty much changed the face of so many things we used to do and opening store doors at midnight, at least for now, is a thing of the past.
The other thing that might be over is a retail outlet being open on Thanksgiving. I think it’s a good thing they close for the holiday. Nobody should have to work on Thanksgiving, which is kind of cruel.
I get some places need to be open like a drug stores or convenient marts such as Turkey Hill, for example, but retail stores? No, not really.
It seems retailers are all caught up with getting sales items out there with the digital age.
I usually have a problem with planning Black Friday sales – I seem to want to look for sale items that I could by for myself.
For example, I need more external storage space for my computer. As you can imagine, I take several thousand photos during the course of a year and I literally store all of them. That takes up a lot of space on my hard drives.
Needless-to-say, you can snag a lot of great prices on Black Friday for technology and instead of focusing in on looking for items to purchase for Christmas for my family, I’m looking at a nice juicy steak dangling in front of me in the way of a hard drive at a very reasonable cost. What to do? It’s a tough call.
I need tools, I need camera equipment, I need a shed, I could use a new piece of furniture, in other words, I can use a lot but again, Black Friday is set up for purchasing gift items.
But it’s so tempting when you get a text message from a retailer or an email with another fantastic deal.
Speaking of Christmas gifting, I know we are bordering inflation and we are coming out of a major pandemic when manufactured items were hard to find and when they were found, they were stuck on a freighter ship parked out at sea waiting to get unloaded, but yet, I probably spent more on Christmas last year then I ever did before.
In the last several years, my family has been talking about curbing the purchasing or possibly putting a dollar amount on the spending. I’m sure a lot of families have implemented that procedure over time. Well, maybe it’s our turn to look into that.
So this year is the year we will give it a shot and I know it’s hard to hold back, especially if you see something that is perfectly suited for a loved one.
Even with the amount we pretty much settled on, I’m sure one of us will go over that amount. It will be a challenge, but honestly, the number we chose is still a generous number.
For me, when Black Friday rolls around, I’m not even thinking of gift items for my loved ones. That doesn’t happen for at least two more weeks past Thanksgiving.
I’m not a last minute shopper by any means, but some times I do push the envelope.
I hate to admit it, but I do a lot of shopping online. It’s not that I’m lazy and don’t want to drive around to pick up gifts, but I don’t seem to have as much time to do it.
The second things is, mayhem and chaos are not my thing and I know some people that actually love to be out with thousands of other fighting to get the perfect gift item.
Some people I know would actually go to New York City for Christmas shopping – sorry, but no way.
I’m not a New York City person to begin with, so hopping on a bus or worse yet, driving my car to the Big Apple is not something I’d do for sure.
I hope a lot of people were able to get out for Small Business Saturday to shop locally. I know that the City of Pittston has a lot of opportunities for retail and other shops and gyms that consumers would have had a chance to get a good bargain.
Thanksgiving is over, Black Friday is behind us, and tomorrow is Cyber Monday, another chance for a Christmas bargain … or not, we will see, I’m very confused.
Quote of the week
“Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.” – Jackie Robinson
Thought of the week
“There’s no life without humor. It can make the wonderful moments of life truly glorious, and the tragic moments bearable.” Rufus Wainwright
Bumper stick
“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” – Voltaire
