the reason for the long line at lay-away is as follows:

if you put an item on layaway, they take it off the shelf and hold it for you. if the item happens to be on sale when you go to redeem it from layaway, you get the item for the sale price. so people who get wind of the sale items ahead of time go and put the items on layaway and then come back on black friday to purchase their items without having to get up at 3 AM to wait in line.

11/28/2005 10:18:59 PM

that's a good idea, but the people i saw in the line where not the typical looking "bargain hunter" shoppers.... if you catch my drift.

I'm talking the kind of people you NEVER see in a store untill christmas shopping begins.

[Edited on November 29, 2005 at 7:56 PM. Reason : clarity]

11/29/2005 7:55:17 PM

here's my black friday haul:

i went to my local best buy here in maryland at 10:15 Thursday night and was 21st in line. I wanted the $380 laptop, the $150 desktop, and the 19" LCD Monitor for $170. When the associates handed out the vouchers, I got laptop #6 and desktop #26. I left BB by 5:20 and arrived at WalMart just in time to grab some stuff my wife wanted for our son (Little People Noah's Ark for $10). Then I hit up Staples and got there just before 6:00 when they opened. I was able to grab the $50 leather office manager's chair (regular price $150) but missed out on the 200 GB HDs for $30 AR. My plan was to throw the desktop, the LCD Monitor, and the xbox i picked up on tuesday up onto eBay and use the profits to finance the laptop.

my plan took a surprising turn for the better yesterday when I noticed that the $150 desktop from best buy rung up as two separate components on the receipt: $40 for the tower (reduced from $390 with $350 instant savings) and $110 for the monitor. i took the monitor back to best buy last night and had zero trouble with the return. of course this would never work if there were rebates to send away for since rebates typically require purchasing the desktop and the monitor in a bundle. but since it was instant savings, i got the desktop (2.93 GHz Celeron 340 Processor, 80 GB HD, 256 MB Ram, etc) for $40! by far my best best black friday deal ever...

even at $40 i've got no use for an emachines so it's up on eBay giving me maximum profits...

11/30/2005 4:14:18 PM