Thanksgiving Happenings, Pt. 3

And on to the final piece to the Thanksgiving saga!


6. Less Material Needs and Very Stable Finances
So what comes after Thanksgiving Day? Black Friday, of course! I usually join the masses to splurge on a number of small- and large-expense items. I've gotten in the habit these past few years (pretty much ever since I've had "substantial" spending money) of looking through the Black Friday ads, planning out to some degree the places I'll be going and the things I'll be buying, waking up in the wee early hours, and swiping the credit card multiple times. Whether it was Fort Worth, Georgetown, or College Station, this "tradition" hasn't changed much. Looking through the ads this year, I didn't find a lot of things appealing due to two reasons, I believe: 1) already having many of my major wants, 2) knowing that saving money is so important to support the family I have now and in the future.


There's no shortage of articles or people saying that many people are hurting financially these days. Whether it's their own fault, someone else's fault, and/or the systems' fault, something needs to be fixed. That's a whole discussion I won't get into.


I just want to say simply that I'm thankful for the financial stability that Jessica and I had going into our marriage, which is now bolstered with Jessica's new job. As a graduate student, I shouldn't expect to be saving a lot of money, so I'm very, very thankful to be in a situation in which my financial stability is very strong for the foreseeable future.


Back to Black Friday: my dad got up at 4 in the morning on Friday since he had to be at work by 5am. While he was getting ready, Zoe heard the noises and barked, thus waking me up. So began my Black Friday morning with my mother and I going to JCPenney (we promptly left that place after we saw the long line for the checkout registers), Kohl's, and RadioShack (see section below).


7. RadioShack, Amazon, and Samsung
Jessica and I have been toying around the idea of getting off of our respective families' cell phone plans to be on our own plan. It didn't make financial sense since we were both on family plans and not having to pay that much for cell phone service. We have, however, recently been talking about getting Jessica a smartphone. She always uses my iPhone 3GS on car rides and for other random tasks. In her words, Jessica wanted a smartphone but she didn't want to have to pay for the required data plan.


On a recent trip to an AT&T store, Jessica looked at the various smartphone options and saw the Samsung Galaxy S II. It rated the highest in a recent consumer magazine test, and she liked it enough that we would get it for her whenever the time came.

Samsung Galaxy S II (courtesy of Samsung).

Bring in Black Friday. Both RadioShack ($49.99) and Sam's Club ($0.96) had specials on the phone. We didn't think getting a Sam's Club membership was worth the reduced cost. Plus, there was only Sam's Club near my parents' house. There were two RadioShack locations, and let's face it, Radio Shack isn't really the "it" place for Black Friday.


Jessica and I attempted to open our own family plan when we got the Galaxy S II at RadioShack. Due to some funky technicalities, we were only able to get a family plan with just Jessica's new phone on it with a new number. We then got back to my parents' house where she proceeded to look on Amazon for a case when she found AmazonWireless's Penny Pincher sale where the Galaxy S II was being sold for $0.01 and without an activation fee. After a few hours of deliberation and napping on it (I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before), we decided to return Jessica's new phone to RadioShack and to go the AmazonWireless route. I didn't want to return the phone that day because the RadioShack employee had spent 90 minutes helping us out with our situation only to have us return a few hours later to undo everything he had done. Jessica did all the talking, and RadioShack was so great in helping us every step of the way.


Back home again, I transferred my number to a new account with the hopes of adding Jessica with a new phone. Along the way, she had convinced me to upgrade my phone to the Galaxy S II, which I agreed to. We stumbled again on this cell phone path when we discovered that the AmazonWireless Penny Pincher deal was only for new lines of service and not upgrades. Oh, boy. So what do we do now? We decide to forget transferring any of our current numbers and start fresh with new phones and new phone numbers.


Long story short, Jessica and I are now proud owners of Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android phones, and we both have new phone numbers with the area code of the market we're in (it's an identity-connection thing)!