Two phrases that truly just made me shudder. Layaway and Black Friday at Walmart.

[Horse with no Name]

Oh my God! People are going to fight over this! I think I will sit home and drink that day!

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Oh no!

:rofl:

[shanti]

2. haven't been out on a black friday

in over 20 years. the thought of it makes me shudder too :(

[Fawke Em]

3. I try to get all my shopping done before Thanksgiving.

I can't stand those crowds.

[barbtries]

4. too broke to shop, no problem.

our whole family gets my youngest son's college education for Christmas! :)

[get the red out]

5. Can't stand those either

Sick of that kind of thing. I don't shop by the herd process. Black Friday is nothing but a crazy cattle drive. Wal Mart needs to invest in some Blue Heelers to keep it in order.

[SheilaT]

6. Layaway shouldn't make you shudder.

Back when most people did not have credit cards it was common to put items on layaway, pay something every week or month until it was paid off. There were usually no fees attached to layaway.

Count me among those who don't shop the day after Thanksgiving. And I haven't been to a Walmart in over ten years now. I remember when they bragged about their stock being mostly American made.

[woodsprite]

7. Actually, you can still get some good deals in the late afternoon/evening

of Black Friday, and you don't usually have to deal with the crowds and you get a fresh set of sales people. Those morning customers were done shopping by noon and went back home to get some sleep. Going later in the day gives the stores a chance to clean up all the destruction left behind from the morning (or Thanksgiving night's) rush.

My daughter wanted to go last year early early early, just to get a chance at a certain camera. I went with her, and it turned into a teaching moment. I let her hear it from the store clerk that they only had 1 of those items when the store opened, it sold to the first customer to their counter AND not all items advertised were at all stores (so she didn't get her 2nd or 3rd choice either).

[charlie and algernon]

9. yeah, I wouldn't dare go early, but I went in the evening one year

and was still able to get a really good package deal on a DSLR camera. It was at a Best Buy and it was still crowded, but no more so than any other Friday evening.

[Lucinda]

8. I know people who use both to take care of their family, however

I had the misfortune to spend a day shopping with my sister in my VERY touristy area one black Friday, and though we had fun chatting, the traffic and crazy people were frightening enough that I will never attempt it again. :)

[rjj621]

10. Go to Walmart, pull up a chair

Have a drink, some popcorn and watch the train wreck before you. It will be like the abundance of bad reality shows that cause brain cells to form cults and commit mass suicide.

[EC]

11. Read the small print on Walmarts layaway.

$15.00 fee + $5.00 per item.

[Xithras]

13. You're right about their being fees, but wrong about the numbers.

Walmart allows you to place multiple items on your layaway account at once, and applies a single $5 service fee when you do it. It's $5 per transaction, whether that transaction has one item or ten. They require that each individual item on the account have a value of at least $15, and you must have at least $50 worth of items to open a layaway account.

Depending on the numbers, this can either be a good deal or a total ripoff. If you layaway $250 worth of items in October and pay them off in December, that $5 fee will be far cheaper than any credit card. If you layaway $50 worth of items, putting your $10 down and "floating" the remaining $40 until you can pay them off a month later, that $5 fee works out to 12.5% of the "financed" purchase price, which is far more than you would have paid if you'd just put it on your Visa for 30 days. In fact, it's the equivalent of buying the items on a credit card with a 150% APR!

[Obamanaut]

12. If you are not going to participate, there is no reason to shudder. Instead, enjoy

some quiet time.