Black Friday/Cyber Monday - what did you buy?

[iced]

Bought a couple silicone spatulas to replace some older cheap ones we had been using that were starting to get chipped and warped. Refilled my tin of loose-leaf Earl Grey. I have no idea if any of it was on sale or not.

IMO, when it comes to electronics, I find the Black Friday to EoY period is the worst time to buy. Soon-to-be-deprecated models are being unloaded, the sales are typically on the lower-end models (not size, I find a lot of people go right for the cheapest TV based on size plus one or two major featues like 4K without paying attention to the other properties), and I just don't want to be anywhere near a shopping mall or the types of people they attract this time of year. 

When I buy electronics, price takes a back seat to quality, performance, and specs. I'd rather spend $3,000 on a quality, reliable TV that's going to last 15 years than the cheapest 55" available at Best Buy because it's on sale. I tried a few cheapo brands in the past and I'd get dead pixels or connection problems after 3-5 years, or the picture quality was just meh. This approach also means I can go pretty much any time of year to pick out these items since the models we end up going with are typically rarely/never on sale.

Fortunately, our current TV is only 6 years old, so it's got another 10 years of life, and my laptop should also still have another 4-5 years of life left in it, so I shouldn't have this problem for a while.

[Anonymous]

$210 for an eye exam, frames and progressive lenses. 

$168 Fitbit Versa 2 Special Edition.

$113 for an SUV battery.

$80 for a puffer jacket from ll bean. 

$21 for a cast iron skillet.

$47.63 for 17 IZOD men's t-shirts; thick cotton at kohls, reg msrp was $20-$30 per shirt. got them for $1.50-$3.90 ea.

[wasCB14]

No shopping yet. Partly it's because I'm primarily a desktop user limited to a phone so even researching deals and comparisons is trickier. Partly it's being fairly busy with friends and family. Partly it's not really wanting or needing anything.

I looked at getting a new desktop tower but as iced noted, the seasonal deals in electronics are often very mediocre.

[Trudy]

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@iced wrote:

Bought a couple silicone spatulas to replace some older cheap ones we had been using that were starting to get chipped and warped. Refilled my tin of loose-leaf Earl Grey. I have no idea if any of it was on sale or not.

IMO, when it comes to electronics, I find the Black Friday to EoY period is the worst time to buy. Soon-to-be-deprecated models are being unloaded, the sales are typically on the lower-end models (not size, I find a lot of people go right for the cheapest TV based on size plus one or two major featues like 4K without paying attention to the other properties), and I just don't want to be anywhere near a shopping mall or the types of people they attract this time of year. 

.DITTO! Shiny, sparkly things.

When I buy electronics, price takes a back seat to quality, performance, and specs. I'd rather spend $3,000 on a quality, reliable TV that's going to last 15 years than the cheapest 55" available at Best Buy because it's on sale. I tried a few cheapo brands in the past and I'd get dead pixels or connection problems after 3-5 years, or the picture quality was just meh. This approach also means I can go pretty much any time of year to pick out these items since the models we end up going with are typically rarely/never on sale.

DITTO!!

Fortunately, our current TV is only 6 years old, so it's got another 10 years of life, and my laptop should also still have another 4-5 years of life left in it, so I shouldn't have this problem for a while.

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Happy Holidays!!!!

[Anonymous]

@iced It must be nice to be able to go 15 years between TVs and 4-5 years between machines. I buy a new TV every 2-3 years and if I felt well enough to game like I used to, I would be on a 2 year upgrade cycle there as well - at the very least for video cards. 

Sony always marks their flagship TVs down during Black Friday and Sony is basically the only brand I ever look at besides once in awhile glancing at an LG OLED, which go on sale for Black Friday too. 

I am real tired of my mattress so I went to Layla and ordered a copper-infused foam topper to try to tide me over until March when my cards are paid off and I spend $700-$800 on a new foundation and mattress from them. Topper was on sale for $149 (regular price $200) and I can just toss it on top of my mattress when I get around to ordering it since it's meant to pair with their mattress anyway. 

I am a bit miffed at B&H. Synchrony sent me an email that the $499 charge for the Axon 10 Pro posted to my Payboo card which shouldn't have happened since I canceled the order and it shows canceled on the site -- it should have stayed pending and then fallen off. With how Sync likes to off-cycle report any balance on their cards, I'm now going to have $499 I didn't actually spend report and B&H better be prompt with the refund. 

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@iced It must be nice to be able to go 15 years between TVs and 4-5 years between machines. I buy a new TV every 2-3 years and if I felt well enough to game like I used to, I would be on a 2 year upgrade cycle there as well - at the very least for video cards. 

Sony always marks their flagship TVs down during Black Friday and Sony is basically the only brand I ever look at besides once in awhile glancing at an LG OLED, which go on sale for Black Friday too. 

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The gamer's drive to have the latest and greatest is a self-imposed curse. When I was a younger fool, I also wasted entirely too much of what little I had on endless cycles of building new rigs and hardware improvements that were worth bragging rights for a few months, then faded. My PC probably used more electricity than my refrigerator for a few years. Fortunately, I grew out of that phase so now I'm that older tech guy who just nods and rolls his eyes whenever a colleague tries to impress him with his latest gadget.

There were a few major leaps in technology that were worth accelerating the cycle on, such as when HDTV (in the form of 1080i) first hit the scene, but a lot of the improvements in the last 10 years haven't been worth dropping an existing model for. 4K and OLED are nice, but they're not going to make the news or a documentary suddenly pop in ways I never saw before. Similar concepts with things like 240Hz refresh and 30KHz tweeters in a sound system - the human eye and ear isn't even capable of seeing refresh rates or hearing high notes anywhere approaching those maximums. To be clear, I get that one can see a difference between 1080 and 4K, but I see that difference as negligible enough to not rush out and buy a 4K while stabbing the planet with another large piece of unwanted electronic trash. The jump from 320/480 to 720/1080 was a much more noticable one, particularly on any screens over about 25". 

I don't mind Sony, but they've had their reign in my home come and go. The nail in their coffin for me was a DLP television about 15 years ago that I had to keep replacing the bulbs in, to the tune of $200 a pop, every 6-12 months or so, when they should have lasted at least twice that long with my infrequent viewing patterns. The picture was fine for the time, but the maintenance soured the milk.

[Andypanda]

2x $100 itunes gift cards from Costco for $79.49.

[magixnite]

I really want to buy an apple watch 5 or a new 4k tv...but already spent a lot on clothing sadly.

[Wrigley2172]

I fell victim to the new and shiny lol. Bought an ASUS tuff with a ryzen 5 3550H, 120hz display and a gtx1650 for $650. I needed a new laptop and since im splitting more time between my moms and dads now i cant bring my tower back an forth so its perfect for some light games at my dads when i get bored

[Anonymous]

I bought an Alienware AW3418DW 34" IPS gaming monitor yesterday. I couldn't help it. Monitor has an MSRP of $1349 and a regular price of $999, was marked down to $599.99 for Cyber Monday, AMEX had a spend $599+ get $120 at Dell offer, and BeFrugal stacked another 12% cash back. 

When everything is all said and done I'll have a sick monitor for $441.