For those who ventured out to Butler and Warren county stores on Black Friday, spending quality time with family and friends to score mind-blowing bargains outweighed any thoughts of sleep deprivation.

Karen Napier of Oxford was in line at 7 p.m. Thursday for the 10 p.m. opening of the Oxford Walmart. After purchasing a flatscreen television, she moved on to Kmart at 1 a.m. for sheets and comforters, made a quick stop at home, and then went to the Hamilton Walmart for its 5 a.m. sale.

“I got a lot of good deals,” she said. “It saves a lot of money.”

Balancing a stack of shoe boxes just minutes after the 6 a.m. opening of JCPenney in Bridgewater Falls, Wende Ferguson of Oxford and her mother, Pennie Nichols, of North Carolina, said they enjoy the camaraderie that comes with Black Friday.

“We split up and we have different areas that we cover,” Ferguson said with a laugh. “It’s kind of a team effort.”

The mother-daughter shopping expedition didn’t go smoothly the whole time, especially when a trip to Best Buy six hours before its midnight opening ended in frustration when the store was sold out of the television they wanted to purchase.

“There had to be hundreds of people and … we were probably only 30th in line,” Nichols said.

Melissa Murphy of Hamilton, a 15-year Black Friday veteran who shopped at Walmart on Thursday night to purchase an iPad, visited JCPenney just before the store’s 6 a.m. opening Friday morning and piled into her cart several deeply discounted kitchen items that sold out in about 15 minutes.

“It’s crazy to do this but it’s fun,” she said.

Diane and Jack Gray arrived at Elder-Beerman at Towne Mall at 6 a.m. to nab discounts on a comforter, wine bottle opener and other small-ticket fare and departed just after 8:30 a.m.

“You do find some bargains,” Diane Gray said. “Some of the things where they look like they’re really too good are gone by the time you get there unless you’re willing to fight the crowd to be out there at the beginning, but we’re not into that.”

At Cincinnati Premium Outlets in Monroe, first-time Black Friday shopper Rachel Wagner and three friends visited 10 stores in five hours before sitting down for breakfast in the food court at 7:30 a.m.

Wagner said the trip to the outlet mall was well worth the two-and-a-half hour drive from St. Mary’s.

“There’s nothing like this there,” Wagner said.

Shopping at the outlet mall for the second year early Friday morning was about more than finding bargains for Alfredo Diaz of Mason, a native of Mexico.

“I shop basically just to be with my wife and my son and maybe after this to go for some pancakes,” Diaz said. “For us, coming from a different culture, it’s the opportunity to experience this day, this American cultural event.”

For Devanie and Brent Walters of Germantown, who exited Target in Middletown at 8:50 a.m. Friday to head over to Lowe’s, Kohl’s and Sears, Black Friday meant getting a good price on “little things” like DVDs and baby dolls rather than high-end electronics or other more costly items.

“It’s more looking for Christmas stuff for the family than big ticket items for ourselves,” Brent Walters said.

Patty Andrew and Jim Burns of Hamilton began waiting inside Walmart on Main Street at 10:30 p.m. Thursday for a chance to purchase one of 10 Emerson 50-inch LCD flatscreen televisions for $289 that went on sale at 5 a.m.

While paying half price for a television made the trip rewarding, Andrew said being stuck in one spot for six-and-a-half hours was “insane.”

“You had to wait in line or not get it,” she said. “They lose a lot of business making us wait in line instead of shopping in the store.”

Heidi Trinka of Hanover Twp., who stopped by Walmart early Friday morning to buy an extra Christmas tree before heading to Meijer, said she planned to continually stick with stores that offers Black Friday openings and avoid shopping the day before.

“I think it’s wrong to do anything on Thanksgiving because we need a day when there’s nothing going on,” Trinka said. “I think everything should be closed.”

While others may view early morning shopping to be a hassle, that wasn’t the case for Liberty Twp. native Jessica Evans, now of Columbus, and aunts Sandy McClain of Grove City and Nancy Rowley of London, who hadn’t seen one another in a long time until Thanksgiving. The trio said they used Black Friday to bond while shopping at HH Gregg and Kohl’s in Fairfield Twp.’s Regency Center and Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, TJ Maxx and PetSmart in Bridgewater Falls.

“Sometimes it is (a hassle) but that’s part of it,” McClain said. “And you get hot cocoa or coffee and maybe sometimes if the line is too long somebody runs and gets food and comes back. It’s just exciting.”