Okay, so this post was recycled from last year, so prices and item examples are a little out of date. However, the post still exemplifies how I feel about Black Friday! I hope if any of my readers braved the sales, they were kind to everyone shopping around them. Most of my readers are religious (Christian, Muslim, etc.) so I hope they exemplified the graciousness of the chosen religion while shopping today.
My post from yesterday and the reply I have gotten has made me think about my biggest pet peeve/complaint about the holiday season and that is Black Friday. I find it very offensive that retailers would make their employees get up and get to work for a store to open at 5:00 AM. What daycare opens at that time? Hopefully none of the employees are single parents who rely on daycare.
But beyond that, for me personally, I find it offensive that a retailer would have a sale start at 5:00 AM and end it six hours later. Why must I get up at that time in order to find the items I want at these great prices? I am not a Wal-Mart fan at all, the company could go out of business and I wouldn't miss them, but they had computers at $398 for six hours on Friday morning. If I was in the market for a new desktop or laptop PC, these were GREAT models especially for the price. However, if I didn't get to Wal-Mart at least an hour before it opened to wait in line, I wouldn't have a chance at getting one of these computers. Hear what happened to the guy who cut in line in Florida?
That brings me to my next point. People who are perfectly sane every other day of the year become absolutely insane the day after Thanksgiving. People fight each other for parking spaces, for the last Tickle Me Elmo (or whatever the toy of the year is,) for spots in the check-out line, etc. What happens to these normal people that they become horrible, terrible people on this one day? Actually, this is the worst day of the shopping season for people to act so terribly, but it continues on through the holiday season. What material item in the world is worth turning into a raving lunatic over? Are we really so materialistic?
The individual who replied to me state she/he saved over $160 on one item. That is wonderful, but I didn't even spend the amount she saved on each of my children. They probably will have around $100-$150 spent on each of them (except the baby, she is getting one item under the tree and one item in her stocking.) This is what we are spending on them, they will have more spent on them by grandparents and others, but not by us. It is not that we are cheap, it isn't even because I went out of work early and money is much tighter.
We buy our children things they want throughout the year, not great big items, but toys or movies or CD's or whatever, that they may want. We have found that they so hugely appreciate things when the get them in small doses, they become massively overwhelmed when they have tons of presents showered on them at one time. I know as they get older presents become more expensive, which is the challenge I have with Drew, but since we don't allow video games that does seeem to help control costs. I about had a fit when I saw the new X-Box was $400, who the heck spends that kind of money on ONE item for a child?
Okay, to get back on topic of Black Friday. I can only vaguely remember going shopping on that day once, and that was with my mom when I was a teenager. I have never gone on my own and cannot imagine a deal so good that I would go at any point in the future. I bought a newspaper on Thanksgiving and looked through all the sale ads and, I must say, there really weren't any sales that tempted me to get out of my bed that early on a Friday morning. I don't like to be used, and that is what the retailers do when they offer these sales for such a short period of time. I like to be treated with respect as a consumer, so when retailers stop trying to "lure" me into their stores at unreasonable times of the day, I will be more apt to spend my money there.
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