Holiday shopping - Anyone start today?

LTS3

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Is anyone back from Black Friday shopping yet?
I'm not doing any shopping today. I looked at the store circulars yesterday and there really wasn't much that interested me
Plus the crowds at the mall are super crazy today 
Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday and I do plan on stocking up on more cat food 
A local independent pet store is giving $10 gift cards for every $50 purchase 
I can easily get 3 or 4 gift cards with the amount of food I purchase (for just 2 cats 
).

I haven't seen anything good for Cyber Monday yet. I just bought myself an iPod Nano with some reward points (total cost: zero
) and will probably need a new set of earphones since the Apple ones never fit in my odd shaped ears. I'm going to be on the look out for decent earphones.

I just have a few things to buy as presents this year. Most of them I can get at local stores. I plan to make homemade cookies as well.

If you're doing a lot of online shopping for presents, remember to use a web site that donates to a charity for every purchase made
Amazon Smile and GoodShop are the two big ones. Amazon Smile is for whatever can be bought on the Amazon web site while GoodShop lets you shop at many major retailers like Macy's and Toys R Us. More info here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/302347/amazon-smile

What's on your holiday present list?
 

Winchester

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We were out this morning to PetSmart to take advantage of the Tidy Cats litter sale and the sale on Friskies Buffet cans. But we came right back home afterward because we didn't want to deal with Jackie's madness. 6 pails of cat litter and 70 cans of food, for less than $60 with the coupons. Well worth it.

Most people line up at Best Buy for the bargains.

Cat people line up at PetSmart! 


They were hauling the cat litter pails out of there on huge mill trucks....people were buying pails by the dozens.

I did buy some American Girl stuff for our granddaughter on Amazon this morning.
 
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donutte

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Heck no! lol. I am thinking of going to Petsmart though to load up on 42-lb bags of kitty litter. My brother's stopping by tomorrow and he can bring it in then. I have two in there already (really worked great for the snow storm last weekend!) so can only get two more. Perhaps I'll go to the one up in Gurnee, I think it will be less crazy there. Everyone will be at Gurnee Mills instead.

I will be perusing the Amazon sales of course. That's my style of shopping!
 
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LTS3

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Most people line up at Best Buy for the bargains.

Cat people line up at PetSmart! 


They were hauling the cat litter pails out of there on huge mill trucks....people were buying pails by the dozens.


I need to add litter to my list of pet stuff to buy. I've only see the 42 lb bag of Scoop Away at BJs and there's never any coupons available.

I prefer to buy stuff online when possible. Much less stressful than dealing with packed stores
I do want to buy a pair of gloves as a gift but I need to go to an actual store to check it out. I can't tell from the store's web site if the gloves are thick and warm or if the gloves are one of those really thin stretchy cotton types.
 

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I bought 32'  tv and I am so excited the price almost half price 
 

denice

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No way, I hate shopping when the stores are crowded and the lines are long.  I actually get everything done before Thanksgiving.  I even mailed what needed mailed this past Monday.  I know things will get there a bit early but I don't want to face the line at the Post Office either.  I know both Petco and Petsmart have good deals on litter but I just couldn't face it.
 

ellag

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on-line shopping is the way to go and shipping is free just about everywhere so why would people want to go into the madness? every year we hear about someone getting trampled to death (nashville, tn) just to save a few dollars! crazy!!
 

macha 143

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Maybe I am the only one who never buy online lol

I don't trust myself buying stuff on line even though there are so many stuff that I like.

I always go to store if I need things, foods and all my cat needs.
 
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LTS3

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No way, I hate shopping when the stores are crowded and the lines are long.  I actually get everything done before Thanksgiving.  I even mailed what needed mailed this past Monday.  I know things will get there a bit early but I don't want to face the line at the Post Office either.  I know both Petco and Petsmart have good deals on litter but I just couldn't face it.
Ugh, the lines at the Post Office
It's horrible around mid-December. I try to get there right as the post office opens on Saturdays so there isn't a huge line. Sometimes I go to a post office several towns away because there is never a line there. It's so annoying when people carry their packages to the counter and then fill out the forms they need and hold up the line
I ony have one package to mail this year and cards I can just stick a stamp onto.
 

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I did my grocery shopping then decided to go back into Petsmart to see if they still had any of the Tidy Cats left. It was all gone. I found someone working by the fish tanks and asked if there was any in the back. He said he didn't think so but would look. We went by the back door and he said that they had the Instant Action and the 24/7. I asked for 3 of the Instant Action. He brought them out and they were the lightweight that was NOT on sale. I was about say thanks anyway when he said he'd give them to me for the sale price. I'm not crazy about the lightweight litters but for that price, I took them. We went up to the register and they rang up at $21.99 each or $65.97 for all 3. He did the price override and it dropped $42.00 to $23.97.
 

I told him that for me, the Tidy Cats sale was the black Friday deal of the year


To compare, Publix, our local grocery chain, has Tidy Cats jugs (14 lb each) 2 for $11. Here you get 35 lbs for $7.99 (or 17 lbs for the lightweight
)
 
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miagi's_mommy

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I didn't go out today...it was freezing -16* F this morning! I wanted to go to Petco to get the free grinch hat & the Max antler headband for my brother's dog but I didn't bother.

I ordered a plush for Christmas online it was a Black Friday deal sort of....it's one of my early Christmas gifts from my parents!  I'm excited to get it.

I probably won't start holiday shopping until next week..sometimes we do things at the last minute but I am sending my best friend something so have to send it out before the huge Christmas rush where everyone is at the post office! 
But I haven't even bought the contents yet. Hopefully it's warmer next week to go out!

I'm just buying presents for my mom, dad, brother, our pets, his dog & my best friend. I already gave a few ideas...but need theirs. We have no problems shopping at the last minute unless it's online!
 
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Winchester

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We may go out for a while this morning as we have some errands we have to run and some banking to do. I want to get Jackie a large Kong for when she's in the crate....a little something for her to do. We'll put her Jibble in the Kong for her to munch on. 


Really, there isn't much to get overall. I'm pretty much done with Dear Richard, except for a few stocking gifts. For the grandchildren, we usually order online and have things shipped to my office (since we're not at home during the day). We need to work on DS and DIL, but we don't have the rest of the list from our DIL yet.

I forgot to mention that our BonTon had these red snowflake flannel sheets on sale. And a red snowflake comforter. We bought those yesterday for our bed. Although I was rather disappointed. BonTon had a $10 coupon on the front of their circular....good for anything, regular-priced or on sale. I tried to use the coupon, but was turned down. On the back of the coupon, it said it was not good on any Doorbusters. And, of course, pretty much everything on sale yesterday in the darn store was listed as a Doorbuster. The coupon was essentially worthless.

I will say that, overall, the stores were not packed with people; evidently everybody had been out shopping on Thanksgiving night. The only store that was a madhouse was PetSmart (and I mentioned that in an above post). And we managed to deal with that with no trouble. It wasn't that bad. (And now that we know we can buy cat litter in some serious quantity, look out next year....we'll be back. 
)

Rick is having trouble finding anything for me. The problem is that I really don't want anything. I saw Mark Knopfler, we went to the King Arthur baking class in Vermont. I consider those part of my Christmas and I was just thrilled with both of those events. I can't really think of anything and it's making him crazy.
 
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LTS3

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Nice score on the Tidy Cat, @Kat0121


I haven't bought any presents yet other than the iPod for myself. I can count the number of presents I need to buy or make on one hand: thick warm gloves, a few boxes of Pocky cookies, some kind of cookie, and a few pet things. And they're all gifts for one friend and her family. My family doesn't celebrate Christmas so there's no point in buying gifts that will just be stashed away in the depths of an overfull closet or in the basement and never used


Does anyone buy or make gifts for work, either for everyone to enjoy or individual gifts? I did small individually wrapped gifts at work one year but it was completely unappreciated. I didn't get a single thank you
I'm toying with the idea of a small gift of homemade cookies for a certain team at work (not the one I'm on)... perhaps partly as incentive to bring me onto their team when they get their next open position
 

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I used to bring a tray of homemade cookies in to work.  That was when the kids were still at home and I did a lot of baking at Christmas time.  It really isn't that much extra work or time to make a little bigger batch of everything.  That was really about all I did for work.  There was usually a holiday pot luck and I would bring in something for that.  I don't do all the baking anymore and I work from home now.
 

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We got out for a bit yesterday morning. We only shopped local. There is an Ace Hardware that had a special going on fifty percent off one regular priced item under thirty bucks or fifteen dollars off one item over thirty.
Hubby had spied a pair of electronic ear muffs he wanted. They were over thirty regular priced so he got a deal on them. I bought myself an amaryllis bulb red, to put in the pot and sit somewhere in my kitchen during the holidays. The local drug store has been selling hooded sweatshirts with the local high school logo on them I bought DD one for her birthday and liked it so well I wanted one for myself. They were out of stock but they had them again yesterday. Their sale circular had a coupon good for twenty five percent off one regular price item. They had lots of specials in their circular which if purchased gave extra credits with their store card to be used on the next purchases. I got lots of stuff which came out free because the credit was the same as the purchase price. I came away with lots of credits for my next shopping trip there.
We went to the local Wal Mart. It was not crowded at all, but they really didn't have much on special. It was pretty much a normal shopping experience. Then we went to Bojangles for breakfast. Nice time out with Hubby. :nod:
 

Winchester

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Does anyone buy or make gifts for work, either for everyone to enjoy or individual gifts? I did small individually wrapped gifts at work one year but it was completely unappreciated. I didn't get a single thank you
I'm toying with the idea of a small gift of homemade cookies for a certain team at work (not the one I'm on)... perhaps partly as incentive to bring me onto their team when they get their next open position
I usually bring in a stash of whatever cookies I've made. Sometimes some almond brittle. Oh, and some pumpkin bars with a decadent orange cream cheese frosting; those things are wonderful.

If I make some of Alton Brown's White Trash, I'll bring that in. I love White Trash and can't stay away from the stuff.

We used to do a bit of a buffet-type thing with just the six of us in our department. We stopped a couple years ago. But I contributed things for that, too.
 

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I ended up not going to Petsmart after all. Or Amazon for that matter, need to amend that today! We were arranging the meeting of the hopefully soon-to-be-newest member of the family (a 6-8 year old female Chihuahua). 

I also went to Orphans of the Storm yesterday and learned what 300+ cats looks like. Now I remember why I never go looking at shelter kitties. I want them all.
 
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LTS3

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I used to bring a tray of homemade cookies in to work.  That was when the kids were still at home and I did a lot of baking at Christmas time.  It really isn't that much extra work or time to make a little bigger batch of everything.  That was really about all I did for work.  There was usually a holiday pot luck and I would bring in something for that.  I don't do all the baking anymore and I work from home now.
When the department was just 20 people or so, I'd occasionally bring cookies or something in to share. Now there's nearly 100 people (and counting
). If I do anything this year it would just be for my team (just 6 other people) and that other team (just 4 people). Actually, maybe not something food related for my team. There are people who are on diets or have dietary needs or have some odd food preference / dislike, too much to keep track of


I'll do some online browsing later. I found a few potential earphones but need to check prices and reviews on them.
 

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Just an FYI for anyone who shops at Petco. They are offering 5 Pals Rewards dollars for every dollar spent online today and there a lot of things on sale. They normally offer 1 reward dollar per $1 spent. This is a really good way to earn those $5 coupons. I broke down and ordered 2 cases of the Soulistic Good Karma and a case of the Wellness sliced chicken. They recently decided that they like the Wellness sliced, minced and cubed chicken and turkey. Of course that will more than likely change 5 minutes after the case gets here though.
 
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