apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It's a little of both. I think it's wrong to start opening stores in the middle of the night. In areas where people must drive to these stores, employees and shoppers are on the roads at hours they're not used to, and they may have just spent a long day eating, drinking, etc. They are accidents waiting to happen, not to mention the stampedes created at these stores. Retail employees are busy enough this time of year, and the rest of us have turned into a nation of workaholics. We can't keep one day as a holiday? At this rate, Thanksgiving will become the shopping day and no longer a real holiday at all.

I also resent the earlier and earlier push into the Christmas season with the decorations appearing in buildings and stores before Halloween is even over.

Ok, rant over.

@swbird said 50% of what I was going to say.

In the last several years I have made a conscious effort to try to spend only what I need to spend. At one point in my life I tried to go a week each month without spending a dime. As recently as several months ago I went for 13 days without spending a cent...seriously.

Yes, I work out of my home so that nullifies a commute. I just try to make wiser financial and ecological decisions when it comes to consuming.

Finally, I do sorta kinda resent how some people are getting so 'preachy' about the whole Black Friday thing. If you're on a very limited budget, this can be a good day to get some bargains. Ultimately, this is not a black and white issue.

OK, now MY rant is over :-)

i just wanted to spend more time with my family whilr they were in town and off from work.

I spent Friday napping. I think that this was a perfect use of the day. I already spend too much time fighting through crowds to want to deal with holiday bargain shoppers. I think that being anti-consumer for a day isn't a bad idea. I'm also short on money this year and will be trying to get one good gift for each person in my family.

Something which bugs me as a scientist: trying to have a buy nothing day on one of the biggest spending days of the year means that you can't tell if you've had any effect. I don't like what I see as pointless experiments. You're not going to get any data; you won't know if it worked. Maybe they don't want to know ...

Canadians seem to go by without this... but then again, I saw Christmas decorations in a home decor store before Halloween. Which pains me to no end.

This is a dumb idea. There are huge sales on black friday online where you don't have to stand in line. I bought a tv that was $400 less than it was a week ago and $1000 less than it was a month ago. It is already back up $400, meaning that if I had tried this dumb idea I would have actually helped the retailers quite a bit by paying way more than I needed to. I guess make a budget and then try to stick to it day just doesn't get as much publicity huh.

I saved $50 on a Pottery Barn faux fur throw thanks to a one-day only Black Friday sale. woohoo!

I'm just not that interested in the stuff advertised in the Black Friday ads, and there's nothing in my schedule that calls for holiday shopping to get done this weekend. Plus, it bothers me to be hyped into shopping or not shopping on some specific day.

I didn't do the traditional Black Friday shopping on Friday because we were doing a Turkey Day 2 with friends instead. But, I probably would have stayed away anyways-- the crowds were thick and I'm over the whole consumerism thing. This year, I'm thinking of making some homemade goodies for gifts-- think homemade truffles, spiced nuts, and cookies. Our family and friends will appreciate the heartfelt sentiment, not to mention there isn't much that they actually need...

I did my best. But then we ran out of doggie doo bags! OH the shame! :) And since i was at the pet store, I had to buy the pets a treat!