On Thursday morning, I went to the Toms Warehouse Sale in San Mateo with Peanut and my mom.  The doors opened at 10am and we arrived just before 10.  The line had already snaked around the building but there was plenty of shade and we weren’t too far from the door.  The wait wasn’t too bad and I had time to feed and change Peanut before it was our turn to go inside.  At 11:00, we got wristbands and then waited another 30 minutes.

Once inside, everything was surprisingly calm and organized.  The shoes were organized by size in clusters of 6 boxes.  They had lots of classic styles and colors with lots of inventory.  I had everyone’s shoe sizes recorded in my phone and sent photos and messages to everyone for their color preferences.

I ended up getting a pair for everyone in the family including 2 for me, 2 for KK, 1 for Jes, 2 for Alice, and 1 pair each for Jia, Jason, Brother, and Joy.  The women’s slip-ons were $24 each, mens’ slip-ons were $19 each, and tinys were $15 each.  Not bad.

While I shopped, my mom got in line to pay, which saved us a lot of time.  There was a station where the staff counted up the shoes by style and category and then zip-tied the bags.  They also made sure that we didn’t have more than 15 items (their limit per customer).  The last step was the credit card line, which was pretty quick.

We were out of there by 12:30 at the latest with 14 pairs of shoes in hand.

My mom offered to pay for all the shoes so I treated her to a lobsta roll!!  So yummy.

Here are KK’s old pair next to her new pair.  She made good use of the old pair so they went in the trash today.

The whole experience was not as painful as I had expected.  This may keep me coming back every year if I have the time.