America may have just celebrated Thanksgiving, but the real holiday for budget-conscious shoppers is today, Black Friday.

Retailers nationwide are open early for the single-largest shopping day of the year. Local residents lined up hours — some even days — in advance to be the first customers through the doors.

By Thursday afternoon, the lines were modest in front of several stores at Bridgewater Falls Shopping Center in Fairfield Twp. First in line at Best Buy, Justin Wolfe of Madison Twp., and three friends set up a tent around 3 p.m. Tuesday.

“It’s been a different experience,” Wolfe said Thursday. “I’ve been eating at Chick-fil-A and Chipotle.”

In preparation for college next year, Wolfe planned on buying a 40-inch TV for $180 and a Samsung Galaxy tablet for $180. The store opened at midnight.

Last year, Black Friday sales topped $11.4 billion, a 6.6 percent increase from 2010, according to the Chicago-based research firm ShopperTrak — making the day after Thanksgiving the largest single shopping day of the year.

“I got knocked down from my crown,” said Travis Adkins of Middletown. “I’ve been the first at Best Buy the last three years.”

Adkins said he’s been attending Black Friday sales for the past 11 years. His tent was rigged with an Internet connection using power from his car so he could do online shopping Wednesday evening.

The Ohio Council of Retail Merchants teamed up with the University of Cincinnati to create a report of holiday retail spending in the state, released Monday.

Ohio is expected to see a 4.2 percent increase in holiday spending this season, with $14.66 billion spent in November and December this year – 19.8 percent of all retail spending for the year. Last year, Ohio saw a 5.6 percent growth in sales.

“I started when I was 17 because my parents would start going out of town,” Adkins said. “It turned into one of those things I do every year.”

Adkins said the warm weather Thanksgiving day was a blessing, especially as he’s spent years before in sleeting rain without a tent. He said his family planned to drop off a Thanksgiving meal.

With a campsite next door, Rick Smith of Middletown said he arrived to Best Buy around 6 p.m. Tuesday. Smith said even after scoping out Black Friday advertisements, he couldn’t decide between a TV, Blu-Ray player or laptop computer.

“This is my second Black Friday; it’s fun and you get to meet new people,” Smith said.

“I’m on a diet anyways,” he said of missing a big Thanksgiving meal.

Smith said Thursday there was a noticeably smaller crowd lining up at the stores.

“People just aren’t out as they were in the past; it’s a big-time difference,” Smith said. “I don’t know if maybe it’s the economy.”

At the Target store on Roosevelt Parkway in Middletown, 16-year-old Chris Allen was the first in line for a second consecutive year. Allen said he was in line with his cousin around noon Thursday — eight hours before the store opened at 8 p.m.

Allen said his family is planning a large 30-person meal for Sunday, and that it was actually his parents that sent him out for deals on a 50-inch plasma TV for $349 and a Sony PlayStation 3 with two games for $199.