Texas has a “sales tax holiday weekend” designed to help with back-to-school shopping.
It’s this coming weekend, Friday through Sunday.
We’ve never bothered with this. The main reason is we don’t want to deal with the crowds and chaos. And unfortunately, we fear people are going to be petty, rude, and ugly because they all want the best deals for themselves. We’ve experienced this during “big shopping weekends” before, and we just choose not to deal with it. Plus since we homeschool, we don’t always need to be on the same clock and schedule as the rest of the world.
However, we decided to give it a try this time around. The kids need clothes, we know every retailer in Texas will be stocked up and prepared for this event (I even got an email from Waco Harley-Davidson promoting this weekend), and there will be sales and lots of aggressive pricing and discounting and so on as retailers jockey to attract customers. Then the sales tax alleviation on select items. The kids need the clothing they need so buy it now or later, they still need it. If we buy it now, I expect we’ll be able to lower our total bill. By how much I don’t know yet, but I expect any reduction in the overall bill will be welcome. 🙂
Being the planner I am coupled with my desire to get in and get out as fast as possible, we’ve figured out all that the kids need. We know what pants, shoes, socks, skirts, shirts, underwear, and whatever else they may need. We figured out what sizes of everything to get to minimize the slow down that comes with fitting rooms. Plus we figured out quantities. I think that’s a key factor at keeping cost controlled… you know you need 5 shirts, you get 5 shirts instead of saying “gosh at this price, we can get 7 shirts” which then just jacks up the total bill. If last night before you saw the prices 5 shirts was enough, then today after seeing the prices 5 shirts is still enough.
And going with the fact we aren’t on the same clock as the rest of the world, the plan is to go at the time we feel will have the smallest crowds: first thing Friday morning. Most people will have to be working, most people aren’t morning people. So if we can be on the road at 8 AM and done by lunch, awesome.
The geek in me is also wondering if the iPhone will come into play. If I’ll be able to comparison shop, look up prices, product reviews, or any other sort of on-the-spot information gathering.
Finally, I suspect there will probably be a man with a gun wandering through all these crowds, through all these retail establishments, being around lots of children…. and I’ll betcha nothing will come of it. 😉
So, onwards we go. Hopefully tomorrow won’t suck. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 
Ours was two weekends ago… walked out of it with a $500 vacuum (that was not tax free, sadly), and $500 worth of clothes we got for about $60 (yay for tax-free-ness and shopping Kohl’s sales racks). Surprisingly, though, the crowds were not bad… they were there, but it was hardly Black Friday-caliber.
Not a bad haul. 🙂
I did the Black Friday thing one year long ago, just to see. It was stupid and I’ll never do that again. The trick? Do all your shopping BEFORE Thanksgiving. Or these days, do it all online. I’ve gotta ship so many presents to so many people anyways, might as well just order it online and ship it direct.
I’ve seen the “bloody aftermath” of the tax free weekend here, and even how ugly people were then. I’m hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
It’s not as bad as we think it will be. At the BBOD, everybody works, all weekend, no exceptions, according to my boss. None the less, we stand around doing nothing all weekend, because Tax Free only applies to the apparel sold at the BBOD. Finally, since most people don’t seem to spend ultra huge, copious, amounts of money, then the savings on sales tax, which while high, isn’t that great.
It was a much bigger deal two years ago, but last year, before the major economic crash, it was just a slightly busy Saturday. Now, with the economic crash, I expect it to look like any normal Saturday.
Have fun, just avoid the malls.
-Rob
No worries about avoiding the malls. Heck, I think the only reason I go to the mall these days is because the only Apple Store near me is in a mall. Even then I rarely go there.
Where you work, I can see it not being swamped given the majority of your merchandise isn’t geared towards “back-to-school”. But we’re probably going to end up at places like JC Penny’s, Kohl’s, Burlington Coat Factory, and other such places that are more geared towards that.
But who knows. You’re right that with the state of things being what they are, it may not be more than a busy Saturday sort of thing. Nevertheless, I still hate busy Saturday’s. 😉
We’ll be out the door in a little bit. Hopefully all will go smoothly.