Once upon a time, I would go shopping on Black Friday. The first year was 1998 with my mom. I wrote about it in a blog post 2 years ago – weeks after my mother passed away.
I don’t do Black Friday shopping anymore. Not the kind that requires camping out at stores or getting up at silly hours of the morning, anyway. If I do go, it’s during the day, well after the “doorbuster” crowds have dissipated. In the years since my mother died, I just don’t find the fun in it anymore. Plus, I am fortunate enough that I don’t need anything that requires me to look for those super-low prices. If I buy something, it’s because I want it, not because I need it. And, yes, I realize that I’m in a very privileged position. And, yes, I count my blessings.
Being my mother’s daughter, however, I know how to find and take advantage of good sales. I just happen to do that online now.
Amazon.com is my crack. I’m an Amazon Prime member. I do love that fast shipping. It comes in handy when I need something quickly and I can’t find it at a store. (Or when getting it at the store is far too expensive.) I’ll be honest with you, Amazon.com has some great Black Friday deals. Deals that last longer than just one day or one weekend.
I also use AmazonSmile. This is a program through Amazon.com that supports a charity of my choice. Of course, my charity of choice is the Golden Crown Literary Society. I shop like I would normally do, and Amazon donates 0.5% of what I spend to the GCLS. It doesn’t cost me a thing and the GCLS benefits. (If you’d like to help the GCLS, just go to smile.amazon.com and search for Golden Crown Literary Society. Then do all of your purchasing there.)
Now, I have a lot of friends who are authors and publishers. While they do get royalties from Amazon sales, it’s clearly nothing like what they receive when people purchase directly from the publisher. So, I encourage people to buy books directly from the publishers’ websites or at local bookstores. But there’s so much more to Amazon.com. Just this week I purchased a motion sensor security light, vanilla extract, 3 movies, 2 CDs, and a steamer. I didn’t purchase a single book and was still able to help the GCLS.
But, I digress.
I did go out today. This evening, actually. I went to the animal shelter to look at some cats. I’m still considering adopting another cat, so I wanted to go spend some time with them. I left my money at home so I wouldn’t be tempted to bring one home with me tonight. I’ll go back next week and do some more visiting and exploring.
I didn’t go near a single store.
Tomorrow will be the big test. I have to go to Walmart. Granted, I will be in the grocery section and the really big doorbuster deals are over. But this is Walmart we’re talking about. I have no doubt that it till be a bit crazy. So, I will try to go early enough that there won’t be gobs and gobs of people.
I’ll let you know how that works out.
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Frivolous Views 
Once upon a time, I would go shopping on Black Friday. The first year was 1998 with my mom. I wrote about it in a blog post 2 years ago – weeks after my mother passed away.
I don’t do Black Friday shopping anymore. Not the kind that requires camping out at stores or getting up at silly hours of the morning, anyway. If I do go, it’s during the day, well after the “doorbuster” crowds have dissipated. In the years since my mother died, I just don’t find the fun in it anymore. Plus, I am fortunate enough that I don’t need anything that requires me to look for those super-low prices. If I buy something, it’s because I want it, not because I need it. And, yes, I realize that I’m in a very privileged position. And, yes, I count my blessings.
Being my mother’s daughter, however, I know how to find and take advantage of good sales. I just happen to do that online now.
Amazon.com is my crack. I’m an Amazon Prime member. I do love that fast shipping. It comes in handy when I need something quickly and I can’t find it at a store. (Or when getting it at the store is far too expensive.) I’ll be honest with you, Amazon.com has some great Black Friday deals. Deals that last longer than just one day or one weekend.
I also use AmazonSmile. This is a program through Amazon.com that supports a charity of my choice. Of course, my charity of choice is the Golden Crown Literary Society. I shop like I would normally do, and Amazon donates 0.5% of what I spend to the GCLS. It doesn’t cost me a thing and the GCLS benefits. (If you’d like to help the GCLS, just go to smile.amazon.com and search for Golden Crown Literary Society. Then do all of your purchasing there.)
Now, I have a lot of friends who are authors and publishers. While they do get royalties from Amazon sales, it’s clearly nothing like what they receive when people purchase directly from the publisher. So, I encourage people to buy books directly from the publishers’ websites or at local bookstores. But there’s so much more to Amazon.com. Just this week I purchased a motion sensor security light, vanilla extract, 3 movies, 2 CDs, and a steamer. I didn’t purchase a single book and was still able to help the GCLS.
But, I digress.
I did go out today. This evening, actually. I went to the animal shelter to look at some cats. I’m still considering adopting another cat, so I wanted to go spend some time with them. I left my money at home so I wouldn’t be tempted to bring one home with me tonight. I’ll go back next week and do some more visiting and exploring.
I didn’t go near a single store.
Tomorrow will be the big test. I have to go to Walmart. Granted, I will be in the grocery section and the really big doorbuster deals are over. But this is Walmart we’re talking about. I have no doubt that it till be a bit crazy. So, I will try to go early enough that there won’t be gobs and gobs of people.
I’ll let you know how that works out.
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