The Holiday shopping season is here! We hope you have prepared your budgets and are ready to go. But has the way we shop changed forever? Our team goes over some trends they noticed and read about showing maybe Americans no longer line up with excitement for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Will the malls ever see crowds like they used to? Could it be that more people planned ahead or are more people just shopping online? The Talk Wealth To Me Crew covers those topics and more.
The Holiday shopping season is here! We hope you have prepared your budgets and are ready to go. But has the way we shop changed forever? Our team goes over some trends they noticed and read about showing maybe Americans no longer line up with excitement for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Will the malls ever see crowds like they used to? Could it be that more people planned ahead or are more people just shopping online? The Talk Wealth To Me Crew covers those topics and more.
Welcome to top Wealth To Me, a Safe space podcast, where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance, The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:Normally you want to stay as far away from airports as you possibly can. And apparently.
Felipe Arevalo:I saw airports were no that bad.
Chase Peckham:No, I had five or six friends that flew back east into the Midwest during the holidays. And they said it was easy. Like there was no delays, there was no problems. It's like people just decided not to go anywhere.
Felipe Arevalo:But did you see the freeways from, to and from LA, from San Diego? Did you see it on the news?
Chase Peckham:I didn't.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh, it was gridlock.
Chase Peckham:I did hear from friends that getting back was not easy on Thursday,
Felipe Arevalo:Entire interstate five, interstate 15 up north to LA and then south to San Diego starting like Wednesday afternoon. Gridlock so I think a lot of people decided to drive or drive at least in this area a little more locally than, than fly. Cause I did see on the news there were at the airport and it didn't look that bad compared to normal holiday. Uh extravaganzas at the airport.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It's pretty crazy. It really is. And you know, I stayed local this year. We actually had, uh, my family, my brother and my parents down. And, um, we did a Thanksgiving at our house and it was, it was nice. Um, and we then traveled up to the Palm Desert on Friday morning and we came back Saturday morning. Cause uh, Kerrie and Kerrie wasn't feeling great after chemo. And so Clay and I decided we, you know, well, he didn't want to bail on our friends that we said we would go up there and we went, Avery stayed with her mom and then Clay, you know, it's just kind of the world we live in now. Clay was like, I just don't feel comfortable leaving mom for that long. So, you know, and she's fine. And she probably was a little bit disappointed that she didn't get some alone time.
Felipe Arevalo:That you guys came home so early.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. But you know, she, I think she was, you know, she felt good that, you know, we cared enough to come back. We surprised them. Uh, we found out they were at the Starbucks. Yeah. They were getting some food kind of hanging out earlier in the morning. Cause we got back early. We had no traffic. We flew down from Palm Desert.
Felipe Arevalo:Nice.
Chase Peckham:And uh, we realized when we got home that nobody was home and the car was gone. So we got her, I said, I bet they're at Starbucks. And so cause kerrie was trying to call us and we were trying to, uh, surprise them.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. You didn't want her to hear, that you were in the car. because that would have ruined the surprise.
Chase Peckham:Right. And so Clay was texting her and she's like, oh. And she sent a picture and was like, yeah, sure enough. They're over at the Starbucks. So we went over there and then we, we were kind of jerks, but we, we um, moved her car.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh that's great.
Chase Peckham:To other side of it, to the other side of the parking lot. And then we, we kind of slowly came up and she sent this picture of her. So then clay took a picture of them sitting over there as we're behind a building and sent the picture and they were very confused. They were like, what is going on? So we surprised him when we sat down and we thought it was really kind of funny. Uh, and they were all super excited, but then we had the leave cause Avery had to get to volleyball practice. Uh, and as we're walking out, we were kind of going our separate ways. We were like, okay, we'll see you at home. And uh, she goes, Chase. I, I parked right there. And so she and Avery are starting to look at each other. So like we did park there. Right. She's like, yeah. And we're like, you lost the car. What the hell? Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, um, finally figured out,
Felipe Arevalo:Can you hold the laughter in though?
Chase Peckham:It was very difficult. It was very difficult. But um, anyway, she, we were pretty funny. We pulled our first prank.
Felipe Arevalo:That's good.
Chase Peckham:Of the holiday season,
Felipe Arevalo:We stayed local as well. Um, but on Friday I did go over. We went over to Sarah's grandma's house. We weren't able to go on Thanksgiving. So we went on Friday and we're driving through Mission Valley, uh, here in San Diego, you kind of hit two different mall traffic and it wasn't as bad as I feared, you know, going, cause you go, if you're from San Diego, um, or you've been here around the holiday shopping that mission valley exit to the mall,
Chase Peckham:Mission Valley period.
Felipe Arevalo:and the exit to fashion valley are a mess. They were a little backed up, but nothing like I would have been nothing like I feared going over there at that time of day on black Friday.
Chase Peckham:Yes. Okay. So, and that was the point of today's podcast is we had to take something back that didn't work. I had this brilliant idea to spotlight one of my blow up, um, reindeer, uh, who's high on my roof and it just didn't work out. So I took it back and we need to take it back before I left. And Kerrie is like, oh, I'll go with you. And I'm thinking, what are we taking something back to Home Depot for on Black Friday? And it was okay, granted, it was 7:30 in the morning. There was nobody
Felipe Arevalo:That's prime doorbusters.
Chase Peckham:Nobody there, Costco was open across the street. This is in Carmel Valley or Carmel Mountain. And normally that's a very packed, they opened up early for black Friday. Nobody at Costco. There must have been five cars in the parking lot. And I looked at Kerrie, I said, what is going on here? They're like, no, I was expecting it to be chaos. And there was, it was literally nothing and reading that black Friday just didn't do the numbers that they thought at retailers. And, um, and we were wondering, is it because people stayed thinking that it was going to be nuts. They just stayed away and did their shopping early. And it looks like that might be part of it. Or they might wait for Cyber Monday. Uh, it was a very interesting thing. You talk about Mission Valley. Kerrie had to go of all places to pick up something at Fashion Valley because it wasn't online, but you could pick it up at one of the stores in Fashion and that place gives Kerrie anxiety. Cause it is just a mess.
Felipe Arevalo:On a normal day.
Chase Peckham:And I don't like on a normal day and it was easy getting in and out of there, it was I'm like what? It's like backwards holiday season or something.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. It was something where, but you know, I think people may have gotten a headstart on their holiday shopping. We keep hearing about shortages and supply chains, this and all that. And there are shortages.
Chase Peckham:There is.
Felipe Arevalo:I had to get new tires and it took like that when they said five to ten business days, they weren't joking. Um, and normally I've never had to really wait for tires. You just show up. I'm like, yeah, I need these ones and they put them on.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:Um, but it's, so there are some supply shortages. I keep hearing that I get a jump on it early. I got most of my shopping done well before Thanksgiving and granted some of it's still in the mail, but, um, you know, I think that might've played a role into it. The deal started so early this year.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And that, that's what I was wondering because my, you know, obviously my inbox is in my texts, I was going bananas promotions.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh yea.
Chase Peckham:Tab on my Google Chrome, uh, was going crazy about deals. And, but it was happening weeks earlier. And you wonder all the different discussions that you and I have and all the workshops we do and about planning for the holidays earlier and what a cluster, it was last year with people having to use the internet, having to basically for the holidays because of the pandemic had to send things everywhere that people were kind of prepared for that this year.
Felipe Arevalo:I like it.
Chase Peckham:And we're working ahead and planned it out when normally we, this is a time honored tradition to wait till the last minute to get everybody gifts.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. I like the, not just the preparedness of it, but there's a, it's just so easy to just order things online. If it's not going to cost you more, you can go to the brick and mortar stores, website, ordering Costco, Target, Walmart all those guys, pay, the same as you would in the store, but not actually have to go deal with the store.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:And, you know, checkout lanes and all that. Um, so it's something where, you know, where the store is a little more crowded than your average day. Yes. Where they like the videos you would see back in the day with people falling over pallets of TVs to try and get one. I don't think I saw that at least not here locally in, in San Diego. Um, I went to target. It was busy, but not like black Friday busy. Um, so I think people either wanted to plan ahead or, you know what maybe we're giving, we're giving all of us too much credit and everyone's procrastinating, uh, waiting for the better deal.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. Well, according to Forbes, which is, which is interesting store shopper traffic, uh, was down 28% on black Friday compared to 2019.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh wow.
Chase Peckham:Um, now obviously stores in 2020, we're not going to be open.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah they don't count.
Chase Peckham:So that 19 is a little bit more towards a normal reality than 2020 would be, but it was decreased, which is interesting. I thought it might be just the opposite, but I'm thinking people just are getting used to shopping online. I mean, I know that my wife ever since that came into play, that's, that's how she does it. That's what she wants to do. She loves to do it shop from the comfort of her, our bed.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Um, and, and do it well in advance. I mean, we've got things. The problem is, is figuring out where we hid things.
Felipe Arevalo:Where to hide things.
Chase Peckham:During the, during the year. Right. And forgetting that we ordered that we gotta keep a list that hopefully the kids don't find.
Felipe Arevalo:We have a like for when we had moved, I had a box in the garage and old moving box and put that in the closet and then just put things in there and just kind of consolidate it all into one spot because otherwise you're sitting there afterwards. Like I know I bought something. Where did I put it? Um, but yeah, I think there's just different. I used to love going to the stores, uh, go into Target, go into Costco. Even the grocery stores. I just don't do it anymore because it's so much easier. Even my groceries, you go to the grocery store and you do that curbside pickup and you just plug everything in. I did groceries on what is it day before Thanksgiving on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Chase Peckham:Jeez.
Felipe Arevalo:Bad idea.
Chase Peckham:Yeah I was going to say that.
Felipe Arevalo:It wasn't that bad because
Chase Peckham:Talk about not Planning ahead.
Felipe Arevalo:I know I, You know what it turned out really good because most of the items on my list were not available. So when I do the drive up and pick up thing, they only had like 40% of the things on my list. Normally annoying, a little annoying then. Went home put it all in there that night, the fridge stopped working. So I was glad that I only got 40% of my stuff because everything in there went bad anyways. Um, but it made it so that I could do groceries the day before Thanksgiving. And it was super easy. I just filled it all out. Hit curbside pickup, waited for a text message that came later in the afternoon and then drive up, sit there and wait. And they bring it out to you. It's just so much faster,
Chase Peckham:Convenient,
Felipe Arevalo:Convenient. It's Kerrie's favorite thing too. It makes it so it's a, it's actually a good budgeting tool.
Chase Peckham:Yes.
Felipe Arevalo:You don't get distracted and go oh look at these cookies.
Chase Peckham:You buy what you want I mean you buy what you need, you don't have a kid coming there, tugging on you going, I want this, I want that.
Felipe Arevalo:You're not standing at the checkout lane thinking, oh, that looks good. Or, oh, look at this is on sale.
Chase Peckham:That is right.
Felipe Arevalo:Or things like that. You just get the stuff that you genuinely had on your list without all the extra marketing that goes along every time you walk into a store. So I, I think, I think it's just changed. And we were already seeing kind of a change from your brick and mortars to online retailers and things like that. And I think the pandemic kind of accelerated that to a different level. Um, it just makes it easier.
Chase Peckham:Well, and as we mentioned earlier, I mean, retailers also started this whole black Friday thing very early, uh, cyber Monday deals were not as big a deal on Monday. Um,
Felipe Arevalo:And it's Cyber Week.
Chase Peckham:They used to be because they, right, because really that's where it is. And if you think about the supply chain, which we've heard so much about, we just happened to be looking for, you know, it's not really a holiday thing, but we were looking at a new couches. Cause we've just, that's a whole other podcast we could do. Um, but you literally, if you're, if you're looking at furniture, you're looking at three to six months out.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh yeah.
Chase Peckham:For it to be turned around,
Felipe Arevalo:Oh, I've been looking at refrigerators and almost every single one of those things is on back order. I told Sarah, if we have to replace our refrigerator, we might be running on that mini fridge for the next week or two while our refrigerator gets in from wherever it's at. Because they just, everything is like back order.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. That's, that's nuts. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely nuts. I could not believe, um, what was going on, but it, it made me feel kind of good. Like, okay, maybe people are prepared. I don't, I've talked to many people that said I'm finished. I finished my shopping in October and November. And we're not, you know, you don't normally December people are scrambling. So it seems that people have planned ahead this year. So which leads me to think what, what are some of the things, you know, normally we have this discussion that in January that we should start our holiday preparing now. Right. So we would do this in 2022, but it doesn't look like we're going to need to do that again. I mean, we probably will, but, people listened, I, well, I like to think people listen, but maybe it was the pandemic, but, but it's coming to, you know, how we've done these discussions in these presentations for so many years in January that we shouldn't do last minute shopping. We shouldn't put all this debt on our credit cards when we're buying things. And it seems like this year, people are starting to take that in to consideration.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. But there's a couple of good things though. I've seen, uh, different articles where I think Americans are just doing better with their money. Um, for example, um, there a report that Americans have, like there's been a huge surge in savings during the pandemic. Um, you know, Americans are saving more bigger amounts. Um, this is on the Kansas city fed federal reserve bank. Um, let's see, there was a sharp increase in savings as a percentage of disposable personal income from 7.2% in December of 19 to a record high 33.7% in April, 2020. Um, you know, people decided to are, are saving more and more money. Um, now some of it was stimulus checks and all that, that people still put into savings.
Chase Peckham:Sure, as they should have.
Felipe Arevalo:Some of it was the uncertainty of, you know, that, that the pandemic cause where people are like, oh, maybe I should save for a rainy day, uh, because no one knows exactly what's coming up next type of thing. Um, there, there has been an increase in shopping recently in, in 2021. Yeah.
Chase Peckham:So it's a little bit more going back to consumers spending. But to be expected and human nature, you know, it's normal,
Felipe Arevalo:There was nowhere to spend money in 2020.
Chase Peckham:Right, right.
Felipe Arevalo:There was a lot of forced savings.
Chase Peckham:So I was looking at a few different articles and, and just, and talking to different experts. And they were saying that a big thing that in 2021 is people were planning ahead for experiences and, you know, gifting like night stays at hotels or staycations, or even for travel people looking, you know, to get the family, uh, you know, a big holiday trip or a big trip in the, during the summer, but give it as a Christmas gift, uh, ahead of time. So it's, you're, you're experiencing something that you planned for a year in advance, which is extraordinarily smart.
Felipe Arevalo:That's what we're doing for the boys at this time. They a little something, but you know, we're going to tell them we're going to bring them to Disney sometime next year. Um, cause Ignacio hasn't been Barrington hasn't been since he was four. Um, so it was like, that's, there's your Christmas present. We're not going just yet. But at some point we're going to go maybe spring break or something like that. Um, but, uh, it's an experience. It's not, you know, one of Sarah's uncles got us, uh, for the boys instead of giving them toys and whatnot, got us tickets to go see the Muppets Christmas Carol thing at the new, uh, symphony dome thing down by the water,
Chase Peckham:Right on the water, gorgeous.
Felipe Arevalo:Which is.
Chase Peckham:Beautiful.
Felipe Arevalo:Awesome looking I've wanted to go. I, I wasn't planning on going to the Muppets, but it's still pretty cool and the kids will love it. So, you know, I, I just want to see the thing. Um, and like I hear it's really cool, so that's different, whereas they would've gotten toys or whatever it is now they get to go see this thing and complain about how cold they are. But, um, you know, it's fun. It's different it's experiences like you mentioned.
Chase Peckham:Yes. And, and, you know, in this world that we live in right now, and we noticed that all the, you know, staying at home, as long as we did over 2020 in a good portion of 2021, um, those how critical, um, and how much we took those experiences for granted. Uh, and how many, I mean, when you look at the increase in RV sales and campgrounds being booked years out, uh, and the availability of hotels, the cost of hotels are up just dramatically. Uh, it's almost insane. What a hotel, a night stay at a hotel is now, uh, we were looking at something and we were like five, six,$700 a night for places that aren't you know, that great.
Felipe Arevalo:Typical travel destinations.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. So it's, it's a lot to take into consideration when looking for what those kinds of gifts are going to be and where you want to spend those dollars.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.OAnd maybe you don't give that person that full hotel state, cause it's not within your budget, but hotel companies and things like that. Even I think like the orbits and Travelocity is of the world. They usually do gift cards where you might be able to give them.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:Whatever your budget is worth. I mean, know that they have a trip coming up, or if you know that they want to go take a trip or something like that, you might be able to give them whatever your budget is in a gift card or a Visa gift card. It might cost you an extra$5 or whatever for the card itself, but then they can use it for their travel. They can use it for whatever it is that they want to do. Um, so maybe it's time to go back more to gift cards. Um,
Chase Peckham:That's been huge this year. So gift cards again, have been amazing. There's, uh, there's things.
Felipe Arevalo:And you can order them online.
Chase Peckham:Yes. And there's things that have jumped up like perfectgift.com, um, where you can customize gift cards for the things that you want and you can give them and they can go get it whenever they want. So you're not in a hurry of trying to wrap it and get it to somewhere, wherever it needs to go. If you're traveling somewhere for the holidays where you're going to get things for family and the thought of, you know, we thought about that we, our kids opened something, but then we got to ship it back or have it to go with us. How do we do that?
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:So we don't, and we don't want to burden our families with having to ship that stuff back too. So it can be very, it could be more expensive to ship it back than it was originally to get it.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. You can buy it, leave it at home, print up a picture, wrap up the picture.
Chase Peckham:And by the way, that's a lot of what we're doing this year. A lot of,
Felipe Arevalo:Then you don't have to worry about shipping it there, getting your shipped back or vice versa and they could still go, oh wow, great. I got XYZ. And by the way, it's in your room already,
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:When you get home, you can go ahead and charge it or whatever it is.
Chase Peckham:Right? I mean, I know Clay is probably not going to listen to this podcast because he really has no interest in what you and I have to say, knowing that he sees us work every day, but we are doing the experience thing as well and something that we don't have to open, but there's, we just, by chance, we're going to be in Greensboro, North Carolina for the holidays. And the day after Christmas, the Tampa bay Buccaneers are playing, uh, the, uh, Carolina Panthers in Charlotte.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh look at that.
Chase Peckham:And it'll be a chance for Clay to see Tom Brady, who as much as I hate to say it, you know, is, is the greatest probably the greatest quarterback ever to live. And my circle son be able to say he saw them. Yeah. Saw him play live. So that is,
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. After he whooped up on the Chargers. So many times in the playoffs back when I was a Charger fan it hurts to say it, but he is probably the best to ever play.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And he gets the experience of going to an NFL stadium at a place that isn't.
Felipe Arevalo:New stadium.
Chase Peckham:Near his right. It's new and it's a different place. And so it'll be fun. And now that Cam Newton is back with the Panthers and clay went to a, uh, Cam Newton camp when he was super young.
Felipe Arevalo:That is one of his players he likes.
Chase Peckham:Yes. And he got to meet Cam. So it'll even get to see him live too. So even though it's not the same cam Newton that hid him with a big tackle bag, but he'll, he gets to see,
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, he's struggling a little, but you know, it looked like he was that's exciting though, regardless of it that's,
Chase Peckham:Yeah and it's something he'll remember for the rest of his life, hopefully,
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah And you get the NFL experience. Anytime you go to like a sporting thing, um, you know, you get to enjoy it. You watch the things it's different than when you watch it on the television.
Chase Peckham:Right. And we get a full experience. We're taking the train down. So we're not going to deal with traffic between Greensboro and Charlotte. And so it'll be kind of a fun day for all of us. And usually the day after Christmas is a lot of.
Felipe Arevalo:Sitting around.
Chase Peckham:Sitting around and not doing anything. And we actually have something to look forward to the day after Christmas.
Felipe Arevalo:So yeah. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Hopefully it just isn't miserable.
Felipe Arevalo:Hope the weather helps.
Chase Peckham:Wet. Yeah. right, Not betting on it, but yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Maybe we'll watch the game. I'll watch the game and see if I see you guys on there.
Chase Peckham:Oh, cool. Yup.
Felipe Arevalo:Because I'll be sitting at home doing nothing, but I'll watch the,
Chase Peckham:That's really funny.
Felipe Arevalo:Uh, but you know, it's, you know, what I to do is I want to go to the State games next year.
Chase Peckham:The stadium is, uh, yeah. The stadium looks good. It's right there in Mission Valley,
Felipe Arevalo:Right there in Mission Valley.
Chase Peckham:Right. Everything's in Mission Valley besides down, you know, what's going on downtown, but man Mission Valley normally is something to just stay away from.
Felipe Arevalo:It's a mess.
Chase Peckham:Oh yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:But it wasn't this year.
Chase Peckham:Yeah not so bad.
Felipe Arevalo:Little busy, but it wasn't this year.
Chase Peckham:Well, it gives me great hope, uh, that people are not, obviously, they're not all taking our advice, but between all the financial experts out there that, that we constantly talk about planning ahead creating that budget for yourself, for the holidays, uh, and not waiting to the last minute to do everything. Um, it makes me feel good that people are doing that.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And you know, can't be remissed as we're recording this, it's Giving Tuesday. And I hope that everybody, when they listen to this will have given because it's not a bad idea in this day and age when people are in need to donate to whatever your favorite charity is because there are a lot of people in need.
Felipe Arevalo:Absolutely the Amazon trucks are buzzing though they're out and about
Chase Peckham:Give blood is another one.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh, that is a good,
Chase Peckham:Good holiday gift is to give blood in somebodies honor. Um, if you know, wherever that is, whether it's through the Red Cross, uh, here locally, the San Diego Blood Bank and with the Red Cross, obviously it's international national. Um, I just gave blood last week, um, in honor of Kerrie because she can't give blood anymore. Uh, so she, you know, and it feels good because we are on a shortage for blood and people can use it.
Speaker 1:[inaudible].