(First, let me apologize for returning a day later than I promised. Since starting this site, I have not really taken a vacation from it and that includes posting articles while I was on vacation in Denver in August. I just really need a break.)
After participating in the Black Friday shopping in years past, I’ve decided to avoid the madness for the most part this year. The Friday after Thanksgiving could be a lot of good things for people, but many choose to spend it in stores. I made the decision to shop at one store for a few minutes (for some boots that I was going to buy anyway) purposely away from any Wal-Mart, Target, or shopping mall. I spent an hour away from home for this trip. We spent the day together as a family since my husband had the entire week off from work. I consider the fact that I’m not concerned about any sales one of the rewards of our year-round thrift and frugality. If you’ve been saving money all year long by buying in bulk, cooking at home, making opportunistic purchases, and of course putting aside some money, staying home on a day when retailers are trying to entice you doesn’t hurt much. Here are some of the things I did instead of shopping:
- Cooked breakfast together and taught my 13 year old twin daughters the finer points of fried eggs
- Colored with my son
- Spent time in the backyard with our young son
- Turned over my compost heap
- Cooked and ate lunch at home as a family
- Took a long bath
- Took our kids to their grandmother’s house for a sleepover
- Ate a wonderful dinner with my husband here: The Wedge
- Saw this movie with my husband
- Visited our friends’ new hair salon
One of the things that really got me thinking about Black Friday was the name of it. Sure, it sounds sort of ominous since it’s “black.” However, it’s pure business terminology for retailers. The “black” is an accounting term. Many retailers have been in the “red” most of the year and in accounting lingo they enter the “black” after Thanksgiving. This is much like most of us are working the first several months of the year solely to pay taxes. More people participated in Black Friday last year than voted in the Presidential election. Read more about Black Friday here and you may understand my conviction to avoid it. The trick is to lure customers to their stores with the promise of $3 toasters, $5 flash drives, and underpriced novels to get them to purchase other things that generate great profit margins. I just decided that I’ll pass. I’ll go to these same stores after New Year’s!