I'm not a big shopper. I'm a big browser, I guess, but I don't really buy a lot of stuff. I do go out on Black Friday, but traditionally, I make it a day for myself and just buy a few little things. Today I gathered up my coupons, and went out at around 9:30. My day:
Starbucks: A Grande Peppermint Mocha, free, using my filled-up holiday drink sticker card (buy 5, get one free)
Ulta: A free mascara for my birthday. I also tried to convince the salesgirl that shampoo was on sale, when it clearly wasn't, because I knew I had seen it. Turned out, it was on sale at:
Beauty Brands: The shampoo I use, Matrix Biolage Color Care, was half price, a normally $19.99 liter bottle for $10.
Kohls: I had a 15% off coupon, plus a $10 "gift" coupon. I'd been wanting some stud earrings. I knew I couldn't afford diamonds, and most of the cheap cubic zirconium ones are too sparkly and fake looking, but I wanted to look again. I wanted some yellow gold ones. I was going to settle for a sterling silver pair, but found some 10K gold ones with white topaz stones. They're a little larger than I wanted, but very pretty. The original price was $125. They were on sale, then there was an extra 20% off, and with my 15% off plus my $10, they ended up being around $27, which I didn't think was bad.
Then I had lunch at Long John Silver's, using a coupon for a free fish sandwich. It was pretty good.
Then I went to Barnes & Noble. I had a 30% off coupon that was only good today. I had gone online and had them save a calendar for me, one that I get Bob every year (shhh), and I wanted to be sure to get it. So I got that, and I used the 30% off coupon for a small red Moleskine agenda to carry in my purse. I haven't given up on the big Daytimer--I still use it for work--but it's too big to carry around all day, and I like to have something small to write in if the urge strikes.
So then I went to Target, but first I stopped at Macy's. ShopKick was doing a big Black Friday push where you got 200 walk-in points at several locations, so I walked into Macy's and got 200 points, then went to Target, and with the 200 points there, plus the ones I already had, I had enough for a $4 coupon, which I used to buy a $5 DVD copy of "The Holiday."
And I went to WalMart to see if I could get a DVD that Bob wanted, but they didn't have it, so that was kind of a waste, except that I got another 200 ShopKick points. I also went to CVS to try to spend a $3 birthday coupon, but I didn't really need or want anything and was getting tired, so I went to Hen House to get a couple of things--bread, 7-Up, and tortilla chips, and came home.
I pretty much had a coupon for everything, and any actual money I spent came off of a gift card that I had been given in thanks for some work I did, so I didn't spend any real money at all. Pretty good day, actually.