How to Score Holiday Deals on Black Friday

(Image credit: Catherine Lane (C) Catherine Lane 2016 (Catherine Lane (C) Catherine Lane 2016 (Photographer) - [None])

published 19 November 2018

Ryan: This is it, folks. The year you finally get proactive about holiday shopping. But are Black Friday sales all they're cracked up to be? And what are the season's best bargains? Kiplinger's has got you covered.

Ryan: Online editor Andrea Browne Taylor is here, talking holiday shopping tips and tricks in our main segment. On today's show, we'll discuss the basics of bear markets, and wrap up by solving some consumer conundrums. That's all ahead on this episode of Your Money's Worth. Stick around.

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Ryan: Well, I'll be going back to Jersey, and I'll tell you what, I have to show up with some presents in tow. My birthday is in late October, followed right by my father's, and then my mother's and then my sisters, and so I'm going to have to come back with presents, having spent all my birthday money on it. Plus, I'm going to have to come up with Christmas stuff right after that. So I'm actually pretty excited for our main segment today, with the tips on holiday shopping. Do you ever get down with that Black Friday stuff?

Sandy: I try not to. Actually, we've reached the point in our family where we realized that we really don't need any more things. So my brother and I have been doing more experiential gifting the last few years. He'll give me, I think I have a gift certificate to the Kennedy Center. He's given me gift certificates to the Barns at Wolf Trap, and I buy gifts for his grandchildren. And sometimes I bring a bottle of wine. So it's kind of low key in our case.

Sandy: Ooh, I'm excited about that, Ryan. Let's start with, why do they call it a bear market, anyway? Is it because the term originates with early bearskin traders, or is it because bears sneak up on their prey and attack suddenly, in the same way that bear markets feast on investors? Or, is it because bears are notorious for ransacking campsites and stealing provisions in the same way bear markets can destroy your personal finances?

Ryan: So, it's the geopolitical thing. It's the military conflict. And history tells us that military events rarely have a negative effect on the stock market, and when they do, downturns tend to be sort of mild, and sort of short lived. So Pearl Harbor is one, I think it's probably the worst one. And Kuwait, in the '90s, was another one. But in both cases they were relatively mild in terms of bear markets, and counter-intuitively, war tends to actually be kind of a good thing, or can be kind of a good thing for markets.

Ryan: Well, you know, it depends on who you ask. But I think the general consensus is a little under two years. So, no one's ever going to tell you to time the market here, because we don't know any better than you, when the next bear market is coming. But maybe, considering that these things last about two years, it's probably a good time to consider what you're saving for, and what you're investing for.

Ryan: And so, if you have long term goals, if you have a long . . . investment people like to call it a time horizon. If your goals are sort of far off in the future, then you can probably afford to stay the course for those two years. But if you have shorter term goals; let's say you want to buy a house, maybe you're saving for a car, maybe you're saving for some fabulous family vacation. Then you want to have the appropriate amount of your assets tucked away in something that's a little bit lower risk, and something that gives you some access to it. Some liquidity.

Sandy: Yeah, and I think that's particularly important if you're retired. We tell retirees to have anywhere from two to five years, ideally five years, of basic easy, low-risk money that they can live on, because you don't know how long a downturn is going to last. We know how average they last, but some last a lot longer, and you don't want to have to sell your stocks to sell the bills when they're seriously depressed.

Ryan: Well, you've got defensive in the name there, so that's not going to be it. No, it's the high growth stocks with the broad following. So, during bears, there's typically what we call a flight to quality, meaning that investors rotate out of the really sexy, high growth investments of stuff that's been bid up by investors over the course of the bull market, and they tend to pile into safer stuff, either bonds, or like you said, sort of defensive stocks.

Ryan: Yeah, the other one being utilities, because yeah, people have to turn the lights on, people still need heat. So once again, we never tell you to time the market. We're not going to tell you to rotate into safer stuff in anticipation of a bear market, but maybe it might make sense to sort of batten down the hatches a little bit when it comes to your portfolio. Take a look at your asset allocation, maybe ramp up your exposure to some of those defensive sectors. And that's something that we're going to have Anne Smith to talk about on next episode.

Andrea: Well, something that consumers should know is that retailers will be trying their hardest to get you to spend your money, and there are certain tricks that they employ. A big one is that some of the advertised discounts that you may see can be misleading. And this is very big, and you'll see this most often with online sales. And a lot of times, what they'll do is they'll compare a product to a manufacturer's suggested retail price, or the MSRP. And what shoppers don't realize is a lot of times those items that are getting advertised don't ever sell for the MSRP price.

Andrea: Yeah, yeah. You definitely will see a lot of retailers offering discounts for items that require you to send in a mail in rebate, and mail in rebates can be very, very tricky. A big reason for that is that you'll have to up front, buy the product at full price. And when you get home, you'll have to remember to fill out the rebate form, include that proof of purchase, and then actually mail the thing in. And that can be very hard to do, especially during the holidays, which are a busy time for a lot of people.

Andrea: No. And it's funny that you say that, Ryan, because retailers are very good at instilling this sense of FOMO, or fear of missing out on an exclusive deal. And that's just not something that you should be concerned about. Online you'll see this a lot when you go to websites, and they have those holiday sale countdown tickers. As you're clicking through pages, you see this ticker that's just winding down, winding down.

Andrea: Right. So, if you're an avid online shopper, you just absolutely refuse to leave your house. You like shopping in your PJs. You definitely want to do some research in the days leading up to Black Friday, for those items that are on your shopping list that you know you want and you want to spend your money on. You want to have a good sense of how much those things cost before you see the Black Friday sale price. And that will help you get a better idea of how big or little those advertised discounts really are.

Andrea: So, the tip that I'm about to give you, I'll . . . full disclosure, it might seem a little out of control, but you want to go to that retailer's website. That one that you plan on braving the crowds for, you want to go to their website like maybe the day before, and print out a store map. This will help you familiarize yourself with the store's layout, so when you get there, you know exactly where you want to go, exactly where the aisles are located that you want to shop in. So you're not distracted when you get there, hopping from aisle to aisle, filling up your shopping cart with everything but what's on your shopping list, having lots of impulse buys, and blowing your budget before you even get to that doorbuster deal item that you actually came to the store for in the first place.

Andrea: Right. So Amazon is an e-commerce giant, we all know that. They get a lot of sales from consumers over the holidays, and they'll definitely have some Black Friday deals specifically on their proprietary devices. So we're talking about like your Echo Dots, your Fire TV products, the Fire TV stick and the Fire TV cube, as well as the Kindle Paperwhite items. So if you're on the market for any one of those, Amazon is definitely the place you want to go. I know you can get some of those things at some of the big-box retailers, but an important thing to keep in mind is those other retailers won't ever be able to beat Amazon's prices on their own products.

Andrea: So, remember that and like I said, if you're looking for any one of those items, definitely pick those up from Amazon. And the discounts on them can vary between, for example, for like the Echo Dot. You can get some models, which would typically be the older generation models, for up to 50% off. So for the second generation Echo Dot model that will be on sale for Black Friday, which normally retails for about $40, you'll be able to get it for $20, which is a good deal if you're looking for that.

Andrea: And one of their standout TV deals this year, I'm going to call out this one specifically, is for the Sharp or TCL brand 65-inch, 4K Roku smart TV. It will be on sale for $400, which is a pretty good price for a TV of that size. The brand and the model will vary by the store and location. And again, at that price point, you want to be one of the early bird shoppers who's camped out ahead of time, to get in line.

Andrea: Because as you know, people who shop these types of deals know that when you have these big doorbuster deals for these TVs and other types of products in-store, they're available in very limited quantities. So there might only be five or six of them. If you're standing in line and there's 20 of you out there, more than half the people on line are going to be pretty upset when they're not going to be able to take that TV home.

Andrea: So for example, at Apple, you only have 14 days from the date of purchase to return that type of item. So again, you definitely want to do your due diligence and read the retailer's return policy ahead of time. That way you know whether or not you should buy that item, especially if you're buying items to give as gifts that you won't be giving to the recipient until late December. Again, like you mentioned, if they decide that they don't like the item or they already have it and you need to return it, you might find yourself in a situation where you're not able to get your money back.

Sandy: I have a deal with a caveat. H&R Block came out a couple of weeks ago with an announcement that it is offering more transparent pricing for people who walk into one of it's many offices, and want to have their tax returns done. Basically, they've broken down customers into a handful of categories. Someone who's single, has a W-2 only, somebody who is a student or retired, a family with dependents, or a homeowner. And they're saying most of these people will be able to know going in, exactly how much they're going to pay to get their taxes done.

Sandy: Why I say it's not necessarily a deal is because, just to get a basic Federal tax return and State tax return at an H&R Block office is still going to cost you $118. If your return is that simple, and for 90% of people, they're going to be claiming the standard deduction, which means their tax return is going to be pretty simple, you can do it on line for less than $50, probably $25, and maybe for free.

Sandy: Because under the new tax bill, the vast majority of people will no longer itemize. That means you're no longer going to have to sit down and figure out how much you donated to charity, and whether you donated some books and how much they're worth, and whether you paid property taxes. You'll just take the standard deduction. It should make doing your taxes very easy. And there are a lot of tax return programs online that are very inexpensive, or if your tax return is so simple that you only have to pay H&R Block $118, you could do it for free.

Ryan: So, I was on the train, and I saw an advertisement. It was a picture of a very nice looking model. Just her face, and this pink background, a nice font, and it said "Low sex drives now optional." And I thought, who would opt in? So I had to figure out what it was, and it was for a website called Hers. And there's Hers and there's Hims, and it turns out that the drug that they were advertising in this case was to increase sex drive for people who suffer from sexual hypoactivity.

Ryan: But some of it is prescription drugs. And like FDA approved prescription drugs, and in that case, I start to get a little more curious. So I went to Hims, because I happen to be a him. And so, their mission statement says guys are allergic to doctors. True. So through their site, within minutes, a doctor can prescribe you the stuff you need, and ship it overnight. And while these products usually cost $100 to $300 a month at the big guys, we changed that, they say. We cut that price in half, and then we slashed it in half again. Which sounds like a deal.

Ryan: That's precisely right. So I found one of the prescription drugs on there, and it was finasteride, which is Propecia. It's for male pattern baldness. And on the site, 30 one milligram tablets of finasteride, so a month's worth, they charge $18.50. I know I'm breaking my math rule here already. But $18.50 plus $10 for membership. I think that's a monthly cost. But $18.50, $10.00, $5.00 for a medical fee, that's what you're paying to get a doctor to prescribe it to you. That comes out to $33.50. If we waive the membership thing, $23.50.

Ryan: So, on one hand, Hims is sort of telling the truth, because it says on GoodRx's site that this would usually cost 200 some odd dollars if you just paid for it out of pocket. And so the advice is, you have to shop around when it comes to prescription drugs, because there's no sense in paying this huge markup for Hims. And I'm not . . . if you like to have things in a pretty bottle, and have it come to your house, I like the sort of millennial targeted stuff. I have Warrior Parker glasses, I wear indochino suits. Sometimes they really are a savings, but when it comes to prescription drugs, you have to shop around. And in this case, you could get your finasteride for far, far cheaper at your local pharmacy, and then buy a very nice bottle to put it in.

Sandy: Well, I think two things, one is I can testify that Ryan, you do not need finasteride, and second, I think there is just so much marketing around drugs, and particularly life-enhancing drugs. I mean, as a woman, I see it all the time, with cosmetics. And certainly, that seems to be what Hims and Hers is doing. They're really appealing to your emotions, your insecurities. And confidentiality.

Ryan: You're right. And look, we get it. People are embarrassed to see their doctor, they're embarrassed to go to the pharmacist with something that they don't necessarily want to advertise. But doctors are here to help you, and pharmacists are here to help you. And we're here to help you, too, but to save money. So this one's a no deal, but we encourage you, as always, to shop around and make sure you get the best deal you can.

Ryan: That's it for this episode of Your Money's Worth. Another huge thanks to Andrea Browne Taylor, the online editor at Kipplinger.com. For show notes and more great Kiplinger content on the topics we discussed on today's show, visit Kiplinger.com/links/podcasts. You can stay connected with us on Twitter, on Facebook, or by emailing us at podcast@kiplinger.com. And if you liked the show, please remember to rate, review and subscribe to Your Money's Worth wherever you get your podcasts.

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Block joined Kiplinger in June 2012 from USA Today, where she was a reporter and personal finance columnist for more than 15 years. Prior to that, she worked for the Akron Beacon-Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. In 1993, she was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in economics and business journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has a BA in communications from Bethany College in Bethany, W.Va.