Patch Reader Shares Her Black Friday Steals, Deals

Patch Reader Dottie Lawson had a ball on her Grey Thursday/Black Friday shopping adventure.

Lawson found plenty of deals along the way.

Here's more about Lawson's shopping spectacular!

My friends and I scored some major deals last night, this morning and today.  

We started at Walmart at 7 p.m. for their first event at 8 p.m. We were able to snag the Wii UDraw and the XBox video games for $10 each along with the Skylanders Giants game for $39.

After grabbing a few odds and ends on our way to checkout, which only took about 5 minutes, we loaded everything in the car, grabbed a drink and headed back in for event 2 that started at 10 p.m.

The whole purpose of us staying for event 2 was so that I could get the Sylvania Dual DVD players for my kids that was on sale for $49. After asking 5 different associates with no one knowing where they were to be located, what did I finally find? An empty pallet where they once had been. The guy manning the two items there just let people take them and go on because he didn't feel like dealing with everyone that was waiting. So, as in years past I went on a search through the store for items that had been discarded at the last minute because people had second thoughts. What did I find? A Sylvania Dual DVD player and perfume and cologne that was not advertised as Black Friday specials, but was on sale and had an additional $5 off coupon attached. Then to checkout I went, again only about a 5 minute process. Low and behold the DVD player rang up $69 instead of $49 and even though I had my ad in hand they said it was the wrong one (picture matched, name brand matched and description matched), but had a different barcode, they would not sell it to me for the $49 so I didn't purchase it. I did however, score some Beyonce Heat Rush perfume for $2.37.  (One and only failure of the evening.)

Next stop, pick up another girlfriend and head to Target. By the time we got there the crowd had thinned out. Guess what I found at Target? A better Dual DVD player than Walmart's and it only cost me $10 more. I also purchased a contoured pillow that was on sale for $14 (a little gift for myself). My friends scored big time with the board games, DVD's and other miscellaneous toys for their kids. Although the browsing crowd had thinned the checkout line had not, took about 30 minutes to checkout.

After that we loaded up and headed to Haywood Mall. First we stopped at CVS for a quick snack and drinks. Did I mention that I went shopping straight from my parents Thanksgiving dinner and I had heels on? Needless to say my feet were killing me, so my friend Lisa surprised me with some lovely festive black slippers with snowflakes on them for me to wear for the remainder of our adventure. Yes, I was one of those people you may have seen out there with bedroom slippers on. LOL :)

So the traffic from Simpsonville to Greenville was not bad at all. Now the Haywood Road exit ramp was a nightmare so we bypassed by getting off on Pleasantburg Drive and came in the back way. There were absolutely no parking places to be found until we circled around to JC Penny and there were plenty.  We did have to walk a short distance due to the fact that Penny's didn't open at midnight like the rest of the mall, but we finally made it.

The mall was packed!

We did score some great deals at Justice since the entire store was 40 percent off. The best part was that their clearance was 40% off marked price, with an additional 40 percent and then another 20 percent off on top of that. I was able to score  some slippers and headbands for my daughter for $7. We tried to get to the Aeropostale sale, but it was way packed. One person that I talked to said they had already been in line for about 45 minutes and still had about 15 people in front of them. I was not fighting that mess for $12 jeans. I will pay the extra just to avoid that. We then tried to get some coffee from Starbucks, but again the line was crazy long. After browsing a few other stores we headed to New York and Company and while we were walking by Guest Services we received a cute leopard print bag containing hand sanitizer, a bottle of water, a granola bar, chap stick, 2 packs of gum and some Woolite samples for free. (SCORE!)

We then headed to Hot Topic for $10 T-Shirts. Our last stop at the mall was The Kitchen Collection where I found a french fry cutter that I have been searching for. Everywhere I have went has asked $20+ for them, I scored one for $4.99.

After leaving Haywood Mall we enjoyed a small break while sitting in the drive-thru of Starbucks for some much needed coffee. We then went to Toys R Us. Now let me tell you, when we went by there on the way to the Mall the parking lot was still slammed packed. We arrived at approximately 2:00 am, there was no one in the store. I counted maybe 25 cars in the parking lot and maybe that many people in the store. There were more employees working than they had customers, which made for an awesome shopping experience. They still had plenty of Black Friday door busters available when we arrived. After scoring more toys for the kids we decided that we were getting old and needed some sleep, so we loaded up and headed home for the morning.  

I did manage to get about 4 hours of sleep this morning before my phone woke me up. I then headed out again to get some much needed food. After an enjoyable lunch at Olive Garden we headed to the Dollar Tree for some wrapping paper and tape. While browsing the store I found some beautiful high quality knit scarves for a $1 a piece, I bought 10 of them for teacher gifts and to include in some gift baskets that I am making. To conclude my Black Friday shopping I stopped at Walgreen's to snag the Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent that they had for buy 1 get 2 free.

All in all this was another successful Black Friday and I look forward to next year! I could do this once a month for therapy!  I LOVE this time of year.