Ah, the holidays—a time for twinkling lights, warm cocoa, and the yearly hunt for the perfect Black Friday deal. Feeling the mix of cheer and budget-related stress? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Today, Regina Conway from SlickDeals joins us to share insider tips on scoring the best bargains. From stacking deals for maximum savings to finding hidden gems (like book bargains that’ll thrill even non-readers), Regina has the scoop to help you stretch every dollar this season.
But we’re not stopping at shopping—oh no. We’re tackling the lesser-known world of using your IRA to invest in real estate. Spoiler alert: it’s not as simple as it sounds. We’ll break down the rules, avoidable mistakes, and real estate horror stories that’ll make you think twice before jumping in.
And because it’s the holidays, we’re sprinkling in a little fun. Think debates over Mariah Carey’s playlist dominance, nostalgic Christmas traditions, and some lighthearted banter that’s as comforting as Grandma’s stuffing (though maybe less calorie-dense). Cheers to smarter shopping and investing that doesn’t leave you out in the cold!
Run of Show
Holiday Season Reflections and Final Thoughts
Thanksgiving Banter and Warm Holiday Wishes
Saluting the Troops and Sharing Gratitude
Black Friday Buzz: Meet Regina Conway from Slick Deals
Spotlight on Real Estate Investor Horror Stories
Holiday Traditions: From Playlists to Tech Talk
Slick Deals’ Top Black Friday Shopping Tips
Book Deals and the Unexpected Rise of Reading
Travel Deals and Gift Cards That Pack a Punch
Memberships, Subscriptions, and Tickets: Hidden Savings
Utility Items and Home Improvement Must-Haves
The Slick Deals Community: Smart Shoppers Unite
How Slick Deals Makes Money (and Keeps the Lights On)
Celebrating 25 Years of Slick Deals
Historical Trivia: The Origin of Coupons
Essential Holiday Shopping Tips for the Savvy Stacker
Using Your IRA for Real Estate: The Dos and Don’ts
Monthly Update on the Benefits Guide
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/black-friday-deals-2024-1607
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Regina Conway
Big thanks to Regina Conway for joining us today. To learn more about Regina and to score some sweet deals on your holiday purchases, visit Slickdeals: The Best Deals, Coupons, Promo Codes & Discounts.
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- In maybe the earliest version of Black Friday deals, which soft drink company first created a coupon?
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Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday as we continue our special holiday week deals episodes with a visit from CNET’s Bridget Carey who talks to us about how to score some sweet deals on technology.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Unlock a Life with Purpose: Intentional Living Tips from the Pros (SB1606)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Oh, it’s a big Monday in America. We are all gearing up for the feast. The [00:00:06] Doug: feast. I can’t wait. Uh, Doug. Y’all stretch out and ready to go. I’ve been stretching my belly out for weeks. I [00:00:12] OG: was gonna say pregaming for like weeks, right? Yes. I mean, how many pies are you on so far? [00:00:17] Doug: No, I’m not. That’s not me. What I do, uh, I pregame with, uh, stove top stuffing. [00:00:23] That’s how I’ve been gross. So good whole, but it’s awful. So good. Quick and easy and oh my God, man, it expands in your stomach. So it really is a great training regimen. This is [00:00:34] OG: the nastiest thing. [00:00:35] Doug: Seriously. [00:00:36] OG: Okay, we need a vote on this or something. We have to have a poll somewhere of stuffing again, Doug again, Doug. [00:00:43] Different type [00:00:43] Doug: of poll, [00:00:44] OG: but [00:00:45] Doug: yes. You think Stovetop is inedible? [00:00:47] OG: It is the like I would rather starve to death. I would rather like if there’s what all the unlimited stovetop stuffing or imminent death, I would just. I would just go, well, this is, hold on. We’re your time, Lord. [00:00:59] Doug: We’re gonna talk about this because maybe later. [00:01:03] No, it’s breadcrumbs and seasoning. You add the butter and you add the water. That’s all stuffing is anywhere. [00:01:10] OG: Sounds. Wait a minute. Awfully bad. Is this [00:01:12] Doug: a hill we’re gonna die on? Is this Yes. You don’t get to say it’s gross. It’s breadcrumbs and seasoning. Welcome to stuffing the podcast. Do [00:01:21] OG: you put croutons on your salad? [00:01:23] Doug: Mm-Hmm. I, Ugh, [00:01:25] OG: gross. I mean, if [00:01:26] Doug: they come in a restaurant, I eat the croutons first and throw the salad away. Yeah. Duh. Like a civilized human being. [00:01:33] Joe: I mean, who needs all that lettuce in their life? I don’t got time for that, but if there’s dressing, I will use the dressing on the crouton. That’s pretty delicious. [00:01:44] OG: Yes. Oh, you guys are so gross. I think I’m gonna win this one. Stuffing is nasty. Af no. [00:01:49] Doug: Yeah, [00:01:49] Joe: Gertrude. Put that poll out [00:01:51] Doug: there. We need answers. [00:01:54] Joe: Hey, something we don’t need to take a poll on. And that is Monday’s a badass time, like every day to salute our troops. So raise your mugs everybody. On behalf of the Men and Women Making podcast in mom’s basement, the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union who serve our troops, here’s a shout out to our troops on cheers, this very special week while we’re partying. [00:02:16] You are busy at work and we thank you so much for it. And you know what the government is sending them [00:02:21] Doug: this week? I know. I think it’s pronounced government, government, government pallets and pallets of stovetop stuffing. That’s what they’re [00:02:27] OG: getting this week. If you could fill up on like fresh, homemade Turkey and pumpkin pie, or it may be green bean casserole or stuffing. [00:02:40] Doug: Oh, so you’re saying it’s not even just stove top that you’re opposed to? It’s all [00:02:44] OG: stuffing. All stuffing of any kind. Nasty. [00:02:49] Doug: All right. We gotta, we gotta put an ad on the internet for a new og. ’cause this is, he can’t recover from this. No one’s gonna, he has, he has no credibility anymore to our audience. [00:02:59] OG: We’ll see Time for this guy to walk the Thanksgiving plank. Let’s see what the poll says, Gertrude Launch it. We’ll shut it down on Thanksgiving morning or Wednesday night. When drug, when drugs all hammered up, [00:03:13] Joe: I’m gonna say what everybody’s thinking. Let’s open the show Doug. Let’s go [00:03:21] Doug: live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:03:36] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and it’s finally here. Black Friday week, the week. When you watch all of that hard earned money, leave your wallet way too fast, and as always, in an effort to help you plan your attack and hold onto your Benjamins, we welcome the woman from the community that curates great deals from around the retail landscape, from slick deals. [00:03:58] We welcome Ragina Conway. In our headlines. One brand is highlighting real estate investor horror stories. We’ll highlight their highlight on today’s show and tell you why this. Is important for your money, and of course I’ll share some absolutely mind blowing trivia. And now two guys who I had to pull away from the Thanksgiving table, just a podcast. [00:04:24] It’s Joe and oh ju. [00:04:33] Joe: Oh, he’s been telling himself I’ve been training for this my entire life. This is my moment to shine, except when it comes to the stuffing. Hey everybody, welcome back to a very special week of the Stacky Benjamin Show. I’m super happy you’re here. This is not just Thanksgiving week. This is a week of tradition on this year podcast because every year we play some fantastic notes. [00:04:59] Reina Conway coming down to the basement today as Dougie so eloquently said. On Wednesday, we’re gonna slide over into tech land, find out what’s not, slide into somebody’s [00:05:09] OG: dms. [00:05:12] Joe: We’re gonna slide into Samsung’s dms. Hey Samsung. What’s up? What you got going on? What’s up baby? You up? [00:05:20] OG: You up. Nice. Not Doug’s first rodeo. [00:05:24] He knows it’s up on the Wednesday. I mean, I [00:05:27] Doug: hear that’s what people say. [00:05:29] Joe: He may or may not have tried that before, but not with Samsung. He’s an LG guy. Come on. I actually am an LG guy. Yeah. Super, super fun and Visio. [00:05:40] Doug: Hold on. I’m looking at the disgust on OGs face. Are we going toe to toe on this one too? [00:05:44] OG: I mean, it just, you know, you’re just digging your own grave. [00:05:47] We can’t have two poles going at the same time, despite what your mom says. So we’re just gonna have one. [00:05:54] Joe: We’ve, we’ve wrecked the podcast already. That was [00:05:58] Doug: actually, that was one of your best mom jokes. [00:06:03] Joe: Reina’s, just wondering, what am I doing here again? Why do I come back every year for this? Uh, over at Slick Deals, they don’t talk about deals. [00:06:11] Well, they do talk about deals, but they don’t curate deals. The users actually curate deals. And Reina’s been nice enough to, like she does every year, round up the best ones. You don’t wanna waste money this year on, uh, black Friday. You wanna make sure that something’s already on the list, not on the naughty list, on the nice list. [00:06:30] It’s on the list, you’re ready to go. You know that it’s something that you absolutely need, that you value. And then let’s find a great deal. Even og, even Warren Buffet, when he took Bill Gates out to have Dairy Queen, which is a company that he owns, bill Gates. Mm-Hmm. Joked. I dunno if you ever saw this Bill Gates joke that Warren Buffet pulls out coupons from his pocket. [00:06:54] Like, Hey, why pay? Why pay retail even if you’re Warren Buffet? [00:06:58] OG: I remember hearing a story one time where he said every day his wife would put money in his, um, little coin purse thing for breakfast. ’cause he’d always stop at McDonald’s. And depending on how the market did the day before would depend on if he got an egg McMuffin and a coffee or an egg McMuffin, a hash brown, and a coffee. [00:07:16] And so he would, he would like literally look at, open it up just to see how much was in there. And then he would know what his wife decided that he got to eat that morning for breakfast. Based on how the market did, you know, he would adjust his spending accordingly. How much money do we have? We took, we took a little hit yesterday. [00:07:32] No hash brown for you. [00:07:33] Joe: I like the hash brown, but I don’t value the hash brown enough to have it on down Days only on the up days. Yeah. [00:07:39] OG: Only on the green days. [00:07:40] Joe: We got Gina Conway coming up. She is, uh, just a force of nature. She is a woman who looks at all of these fantastic deals. I don’t know how Reina is not broke ’cause she’s looking at great deals all day, every day that users at Slick deals have curated, she’s always got her finger on the pulse. [00:07:59] And today she’s gonna tell us exactly what stores online and offline are the great deals, where the weird ones are, where the great ones are, where the useful ones are. We’re gonna dive into all that. But before Ragina comes on to mentor us on our shopping, we’ve got just a couple sponsors that we need here to make sure we’re able to keep podcasting. [00:08:19] And so let’s hear from them. And then Reina Conway coming to Mom’s basement. [00:08:36] It feels like she was just here, but it’s been a year. Reina Conway’s back. How are you? [00:08:42] Regina: I’m great. Thanks for having me again. You know, the kickoff to this Black Friday isn’t official until we get to talk [00:08:47] Joe: a hundred percent and just like every year I take my wallet and I put it in the next room so that I have to actually think about these deals for 10 minutes. [00:08:56] Because your users are annoyingly creative. Verina. Mm-Hmm. They are annoyingly creative. Like they find the best stuff every year. Mm-Hmm. For, for people that are new to this, you should probably pause and put your wallet in the next room. Make your list, stick to your list. And then, uh, I’m, we’re gonna have some great stuff, but just generally, you guys do a study every year about kind of the mood and what’s going on. [00:09:16] Why don’t we start there? What are we looking for this year? [00:09:18] Regina: We do, so we queried, uh, US consumers right before Prime Big Deal days this year, because now we sort of got that October sales cycle that kicks off into Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And it just is, is the unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season. [00:09:30] But we queried around Black Friday and Cyber Monday and how excited people still are and the excitement’s still there. I mean, the deals are still good and they, interestingly enough, you know, I think they’re gonna be a bit stronger in November than they really were in October this year. But we found shopping during Black Friday isn’t just about getting those holiday gifts, though that is something that people do shop for. [00:09:50] 72% of consumers said that they’re shopping for themselves. So I’ve got some items on the list. It’s really a lot of different categories that people are shopping for. One of which I’m gonna talk about today, which is clothing and accessories. That’s the number one thing that people, uh, said that they would be shopping for this Black Friday as well. [00:10:04] Joe: I saw elsewhere. Do you do different age groups and what they think because, uh, I noticed in a survey elsewhere that Gen Z looks like they’re going to be spending tons of money on the holiday season this year. And as a former financial planner, gen Z stackers, just pump the brakes a second. [00:10:22] Regina: Put that money in your 401k or your investment accounts or whatever. [00:10:24] Back off a little bit. Yeah. Um, we didn’t do an age breakdown on this one. This was more a gen pop, uh, across the board. Yeah. But it is an interesting breakdown and you know, that is one of the things, I mean, obviously like this is a tip. Before we even get started, you said put the wallet in the other room, but it’s not a deal if you end up paying interest on it. [00:10:39] And credit card rates are at an all time high right now. I mean, or credit card debt rather. I mean, it’s gone up by 24 billion to a total of 1.17 trillion. It’s 8% higher than it was last year. So just make sure that if you’re shopping, you know, be responsible about it too. [00:10:52] Joe: It is interesting. You can’t have any, uh, deal site anymore without seeing, Hey, just put it on Klarna. [00:10:58] And then you’re possibly flushing money down the toilet. [00:11:01] Regina: Right? Well, I, and that’s the thing, I mean, at a certain point it’s like you have to look at how long is it gonna take me to pay this off if I’m making this purchase? And you know, it may have said it was 50% off, but now I’ve paid more than that over time and did I really need that product to begin with? [00:11:15] Joe: But this is such a great time to your point. I mean, let’s get off the Grinch Traina first now. [00:11:19] Regina: Okay. No, I am here to talk about the deals. I just wanna make sure people are shopping responsibly [00:11:23] Joe: and, and you’ve been warned Stackers, you’ve now been warned by the professional herself. But let’s dive in. So you talked about clothing and accessories. [00:11:30] Let’s start there. [00:11:32] Regina: Sure. So as I said, it’s, you know, the top thing that people, uh, said they were excited to shop around Black Friday this year. So, as with anything, you know, there are items that may have deeper discounts as you get. Past the holidays, so things like winter coats and boots, but the inventory may not be there as much. [00:11:46] If you have a particular style or something that you’re looking for. It’s not a bad time to buy those things. It just may not be the very deepest discount that you could get on those winter clothes. But nonetheless, in general with clothing and accessories, it’s a great time. So if you’re looking at, you know, I follow a lot of clothing brands, both for myself and for my girls. [00:12:01] I’m generally seeing that it’s everything from. The 25% to 30% off sitewide discount. Wow. Where they’re bumping up that friends and family discount by an extra 5%. So whatever they would typically offer, you know, they’re kind of bumping it up and then up to 70% off if it’s a sale item, and you can stack that 30% or 25% off on top of it. [00:12:20] So if you have a clothing brand that you like and you are not subscribed to their newsletter or you don’t follow them in some sort of capacity, it’s a good time to kind of check that out. ’cause uh, most of them are already launching their codes and they’re doing those sitewide offers. Similarly, we’re seeing a lot of athletic gear and clothing and athleisure on sale. [00:12:39] So Adidas is having their Black Friday sale. It’s 30% off shoes, clothing, and accessories. And one of the deals that’s been doing really well with our Slick Deals community, there’s. A particular style of men’s and women’s running shoes that you can get for $23 plus free shipping. Wow. So if you need something, you know, if your kids are in sports or if you just wanna take up some of those New Year’s resolutions, get yourself, uh, in shape this year. [00:13:00] If that’s on your list, this is a good time to buy some of that gear. [00:13:04] Joe: You mentioned something during all that, and this is, this is what I think your community so much better than other places are good at Regina, which is Stacking deals. Mm-Hmm. Can we pause there for a second? Because a lot of us, you know, we walk into the store. [00:13:17] Well, how often do you walk into the store? Now you go online, you see a deal. But your community’s looking at deal upon deal. Upon deal. [00:13:24] Regina: Yes, there are those Sitewide offers, and if you wanna shop more freely, you can look for those, and it’s a great opportunity to do that with a brand that you love. But if you’re really looking for that deep, deep best of deal, our community can really find it. [00:13:35] So, you know, there’s so many different ways to stack those deals. There’s the, I mean, I’m cautioning against using your credit cards, but if you have a credit card with rewards, that can be an opportunity to apply that. Sometimes the credit cards themselves will have an extra offer on. A brand where you might be shopping. [00:13:49] So you know, if you would normally get one point, you’re now getting two points or whatever it might be. And our community is really good at identifying things like that as well. Similarly, you know, if it’s a target product and you can use your red card and get an extra 5% off, you can also buy gift cards, which is one of the categories I’m also gonna speak to you about today. [00:14:06] But just in general, you know, you can use, you can purchase the gift cards and then use them as your currency. So there’s lots of different ways to maximize those deals. And to your point, our community, sometimes there’s a little bit of deal gymnastics to be done and they can help you navigate that. [00:14:20] Joe: I don’t know who’s better at it, you guys or the travel community, you know? [00:14:24] Oh yeah. ’cause if those travel rewards, it’s kind of the same thing. Right. And by the way, before we move on there, the target red card, for people that don’t know about this, this is something that when I first went from being a financial planner to a financial media Reina, I, I started hearing people talk about the Target red card. [00:14:41] I’m like, I don’t need another credit card. I don’t care what the percent off is. I. This can be a debit card. Like this truly is a good, if you don’t have a Target red card, you probably should go get one. [00:14:51] Regina: Right? Like you don’t even need to get yourself into the credit card situation of building it up. [00:14:55] There is the debit card option and just a lot of different savings that you can stack, especially during this Black Friday time period. They have a lot of extra incentives in order for you to use that card. [00:15:04] Joe: Absolutely. Fantastic. You had the Adidas specific deal. Any other specific deals in clothing and accessories? [00:15:10] Regina: Uh, another one just there’s Converse if you wanna, the fashions come in cycles. I, I just was hearing that sweater vests are apparently making a comeback, which made me flashback to the nineties. Wow. Hello. Michael J. Fox, right? Yeah, so I don’t have the deal on the sweater vest specifically, but I was gonna say the Converse check Taylor, all Star Canvas shoes, 32 50 plus free shipping that’s available at Converse. [00:15:30] They’re normally $65, so check that out. [00:15:33] Joe: And I think, I mean, I’m a guy in his fifties, but I’ve heard the kids say the Converse shoes pretty. Pretty, uh, stylish, [00:15:40] Regina: right? It always makes me laugh when my girls come to me with something that I’m like, yeah, we did that. [00:15:45] Joe: But you don’t tell them, right? God no. No. [00:15:47] Absolutely not. Oh God, no. Yeah, that ruins the excitement immediately if mom did it. Uh, let’s move on. Uh, you and I talked before we hit record. You and I are both seeing on TikTok books, all of these book lists. Let’s talk about book deals this year. I don’t think you and I have ever talked about book deals Re Regina, I [00:16:02] Regina: don’t think that’s been on our list. [00:16:04] I mean, we’ve been doing this for, I, I don’t even know how many years, and I don’t think we’ve talked about books, making it on the list. But for me, I’m so passionately excited about this because I have loved reading forever, and so it makes me really happy that sort of, there’s this resurgence in publishing and excitement around books and that it’s, you know. [00:16:20] Something that people are really rallying around. But book talk features, users creating and sharing videos about their favorite books and emotional reactions to stories. And you can follow different genres of content creators. So if you’re into, you know, fantasy versus murder mysteries versus historical fiction, there’s different creators for all those different categories. [00:16:37] I’m [00:16:37] Joe: seeing even in business technology, self-improvement. Yeah. Right. [00:16:42] Regina: You gotta get on that. Mm-Hmm. And it’s not just a passing trend, it’s really reshaping the way that the books are being marketed and consumed and, uh. Interestingly enough, there was just a, a round of press coverage around the fact that Barnes and Noble is really making a resurgence where they were at one point closing down stores nationwide, and now they’re expected to have opened 60 stores by the end of the year. [00:17:02] So really making, uh, comeback there as well. I. Obviously just this as a category overall is, is very exciting. [00:17:09] Joe: I love that. Anytime I can have another bookstore in my neighborhood to just grab a coffee and sit in, that’s my favorite. Yes, bookstore. The smell of new books might be one of my favorite smells. [00:17:20] Like that new car smell [00:17:21] Regina: mine too. It’s, it’s magical. So, and that’s the difference. I mean, of course I support, you know, I love going to our public library as well, but there’s just kind of that magic of opening up that new book, new car. Yeah. Oh yeah. Don’t, [00:17:32] Joe: don’t get me wrong. I can do the library smell as well, but, uh, specific book deals. [00:17:36] Regina: Yes. So I mentioned Barnes and Noble, uh, they are running a buy one get one 50% off of hundreds of titles. Target has been running and is now again running, uh, buy two get one free special. So they’ve been sort of launching this one through the October, November sales cycle, but it is available during this Black Friday week. [00:17:54] So if you have. Multiple books that you’re looking for, that’s a good option to tap into. And then Amazon is deeply discounting titles, but they’re sort of at, at this point, it’s not an across the board type of thing. So this is an area where what you wanna do is build your cart and then monitor it throughout the Black Friday time period. [00:18:11] Ah. Um, and you could kind of see, you know, they’re playing with the dynamic pricing. Sometimes there’s the limited time deals. Sometimes you might see something on one book that you really want, but by buying the three books at Target, you might have a better option there. So build out your cart with the books that you’re interested in getting, and then you can kind of just check in periodically to see where you can get that best price. [00:18:29] Joe: Cheryl started a trend that I believe, uh, in people in Scandinavian countries can verify this, but she heard it was a Scandinavian tradition where on Christmas Eve, she gives every family member a book. Everybody gets a book. I love [00:18:42] OG: that. [00:18:42] Joe: It has become a thing that our whole family looks forward to, and Cheryl loves going and trying to figure out what book somebody would like. [00:18:47] Mm-Hmm. And the amount of reading people have done with these books that are titles they didn’t even know that they wanted, and then they read it and they’re like, oh my God, I love that. [00:18:55] Regina: Well, I think that’s what’s so fun about it, because it’s like sometimes you get into a reading rut or you know, you just are really committed to something that you love. [00:19:01] But if someone introduces you to something and you it, it just opens up a whole new world. [00:19:05] Joe: It’s almost like a new song that you didn’t know that you’d like in a different genre. You know, you’re like, why do I like that song? That’s nothing to do with me. And it’s cool. Let’s move on. We did a TikTok minute Ena recently about gift cards and uh, this comedian was talking about how, uh, gift cards kind of suck because. [00:19:22] I had a thing that was 50 bucks anywhere and now I turned it into 50 bucks at one specific place where you want me to shop, but I bet you’re not gonna tell me about gift cards. You’re gonna tell me about maybe some deals on gift cards. [00:19:33] Regina: Exactly. So this is the, we were talking about the Stacking your offers. [00:19:37] And actually one that’s a crossover between the travel category and the gift cards. If you are a Costco member, there’s a Southwest Airlines $500 gift card available for $430. So you save that $70 right there instantly. And if that’s, you know, if you’re planning a trip and you fly Southwest, that’s a great offer in and of itself. [00:19:56] And then Southwest Vacations is having a Black Friday sale where it’s up to $500 off of their vacation packages. So if you’re really looking to bundle and maximize and you know, kind of stack that all up, you buy the gift card, you apply it to a deal that’s out of the market and you really maximize your savings that way. [00:20:12] Joe: Is there a limit on the number of those that I can buy at one time? [00:20:14] Regina: I do believe it is one. One per member, but I, I check slick deals ’cause we can verify it there. [00:20:19] Joe: No, but that’s fabulous. Obviously. If I’ve got a 2000 trip and I can do four. Oh my goodness. But still $70 off, that’s, that’s a ton. What else in gift card world? [00:20:28] Regina: Um, so, uh, one that is available starting on the 28th. This Apple gift card, it’s a hundred dollars Apple gift card. Sorry, I have to look at the details here. Yeah. When you buy that a hundred dollars Apple gift card, you get a $15 Target e-gift card. This is available at Target. They’re bringing it back. It was a deal from last year’s Black Friday on the Slick Deals community. [00:20:47] It, you know, got hundreds and hundreds of votes. It was really like one of the most popular Black Friday deals from last year. So this is being brought back this Black Friday and this is where you can use that red card for an additional 5% off. So you get that discounted gift card already. You get that extra $15 to shop at Target and you’re really starting to have that money pile up for you. [00:21:09] Joe: Lemme make sure I understand the deal though. It’s a hundred dollars off on an Apple product or it’s an Apple gift card? No, [00:21:15] Regina: you buy the Apple gift card. So you spend a hundred dollars and it’s face value, a hundred dollars Apple gift card. So that, yeah, that card is not the discount. The bonus is the $15 Target gift card that you get on top of it. [00:21:27] Joe: Gotcha. But where can I use the a hundred dollars anywhere? Is it like in my Apple Wallet? Is that what I’m doing? [00:21:31] Regina: Yeah, so if you’re gonna buy Apple Products or Apple Store, you can use the Apple gift card. Gotcha. [00:21:36] Joe: Oh yeah. That’s funny. And by the way, stackers, tomorrow we’re talking to Bridget, carry from cnet, like. [00:21:40] Our one-two punch this week, Reina, and then Bridget. And I know Bridget has a lot of stuff she’s gonna talk about. So if you’re interested in Apple products, listen again on Wednesday. So Reina gives you the deal and, and Bridget will tell you about, uh, what to buy. I know she’s not that excited about some of the iPhone 16 stuff, but I know that she is excited about iPads and about the new imax, so, [00:22:02] headlines: oh, good. [00:22:02] Well, there you go. There [00:22:03] Joe: you go. Let’s move to. Oh my goodness. I don’t think, have we ever talked about this next? I’m looking at your list here. Subscriptions, memberships, and te I don’t think we’ve ever talked about subscriptions, memberships. I might [00:22:13] Regina: just switch it up a little bit for you this year. You know, there’s, of course there are deals across the board, toys, beauty, anything that you want. [00:22:18] You could check out slick deals for all of those things that are trending. But, um, I wanted to kind of bring some new ideas, fresh types of deals to what we were discussing. So the membership subscriptions and tickets. So kind of all across the board, the memberships, Walmart is offering a one year Walmart plus membership for $49. [00:22:35] This is for new or lapsed members, so you can’t, if you’re an existing member, it won’t work there, but that’s about 50% off there. [00:22:42] Joe: Can I just ask you about that membership because Mm-Hmm. I’ve seen it. I don’t have it. What is the Walmart, what’s it called? Walmart Plus. What does that, what does that give me? [00:22:50] Regina: It’s similar to a Prime membership. So some people, you know, you pick which one you’re gonna shop at more. Okay. And so depending on if you are a Walmart shopper and you shop there more frequently, or that happens to be something that’s more convenient for you, but it’s about the free delivery instead of having to have the minimum $35 purchase. [00:23:07] Got you. Okay. Kind of some extra benefits around that. [00:23:09] Joe: Okay, cool. But anyway, I’m sorry I cut you off. That deal was, it’s a $49 membership. [00:23:13] Regina: Yes. So, uh, that’s a one year Walmart plus membership that’s 50% off of what they would normally have that is for new or lapsed members. So you can’t renew it if you already have it. [00:23:23] Also a Walmart brand. So Sam’s Club has a membership for $20, which is 60% off of their annual membership. So again, kind of one of those things where you have to evaluate, like if you’re a Prime member already, do you need that Walmart Plus? But if you do shop there, this is a good time to get that membership. [00:23:38] Similarly, Costco versus Sam’s Club decide where you’re gonna shop the most, which one is gonna be the best value for you. But if you were looking to get a membership, this is a great time to do it. [00:23:46] Joe: Wow. I mean, if you can’t find $20 worth of deals at Sam’s, I think something’s wrong. But looking at, at the Costco deal that you had earlier too, I mean $70, I mean, there’s your, a big chunk of all the membership fees and more. [00:23:57] Regina: Right. And chances are that you will continue to find other options throughout the year as well, or, or like a [00:24:02] Joe: good hot dog at Costco. [00:24:04] Regina: Exactly. [00:24:05] Joe: Yes. Yum. Okay. So Walmart, what else? [00:24:08] Regina: So then the subscriptions, so this is also a great time to kind of look at those subscription services. So, uh, streaming services, if you’re due for a renewal or on a streaming service such as Hulu, this Black Friday season is a great time to keep an eye out for those deals. [00:24:22] Hulu is offering a deal right now. Similarly, peacock just had a one year peacock streaming TV service subscription for $20, which is 75% off of the normal $80 subscription price. This is an area where I do caution. Don’t sign up for all of these subscriptions and then don’t, you know, make sure that you’re evaluating that this great offer is going to continue to be a great offer for you and that you’re not just signing up because it’s a great deal. [00:24:46] But these, this is, if it’s something that you’re actively looking for, this is a great time to sign up for those streaming services [00:24:52] Joe: because what they’re betting on is the next time around you’re gonna leave it at full price, [00:24:55] Regina: right? That you’re gonna forget. And it’s an auto renewal typically. So if you don’t cancel that off, you’re gonna continue to pay for it. [00:25:00] Joe: My cousin, Randy, does this really well. He calls me about once every four months and goes, so what are you watching on Netflix? And I, and I’ll tell him what I’m watching, and then four months later he’s like, what are you watching on Disney Plus? And I said, what do you, what do you do? Why do you keep asking me this stuff? [00:25:14] And he’s like, because I only have one set of eyes. And so he and his spouse said, we’re just gonna get one. We’ll have it for four months. We’ll binge everything on that channel and then we’ll do the next one. I’ve been talking about this by the way, Reina for probably two years, saying that I’m gonna change ’cause I have like four of these services. [00:25:29] Mm-Hmm. But have I changed? No, I’ve done nothing. [00:25:32] Regina: Well Steve, that this will be your, another little nudge for you to think about. Okay. This is, [00:25:36] Joe: this is Mya Conway therapy time. That’s what? That’s what it’s, [00:25:39] Regina: there you go. Yeah. So great offers available, but make sure you’re actually using them. Maybe have somebody check in on you just to make sure that you are still using them and watching them. [00:25:48] Alright. What about tickets though? Sure. So we’re so used to physical products as gifts consuming things, but a lot of people have most of what they need. And you, we were talking about the dangers of the gift cards as a gift where you’re just basically replicating that dollar amount into something that now somebody’s forced to spend on. [00:26:04] Tickets are a great experience gift. And during Black Friday, just like everything else, there are great discounts to be had. So Disney on Ice, you can get up to 35% off of tickets. I mean, again, wow. I, I, some of these deals are probably influenced by the phase of life that my children are in and, and what we’ll be doing. [00:26:21] So excited about that deal. There’s also, uh, local ballet nutcracker performances. So I’ve seen one for l the La Ballet Nutcracker for 20% off locally. We’re having that similarly with our, uh. Local company that puts on the production every year. So this is more of a localized deal. Check out what’s available in your area, but make sure that you are thinking about saving on those experiences as well. [00:26:44] Joe: Well, that’s a big thing in our community is, you know, less stuff around the house that we’re not gonna use and more experiences and, and that time and oh my goodness. Just going out to watch the Nutcracker with your family. [00:26:54] Regina: Mm-Hmm. [00:26:54] Joe: Well, what a, what a great, uh, part of the holiday season, [00:26:57] Regina: right? It’s, I do it with my older daughter every single year. [00:27:00] My younger one, not as great at sitting through it, but we’ll get there. [00:27:03] Joe: We tried to do a couple years ago with our nieces, we tried to do, it was a Cirque de sole knockoff show Uhhuh when we were in Detroit. And it was horrible. Uh, if you, if if you wanna see Cirque de Soleil, go see Cirque de Soleil because this was just a weird show. [00:27:16] It was really weird. [00:27:17] Regina: Find the actual discount on the tickets for Cirque de Soleil, not the discounted version of, I [00:27:22] Joe: could tell you that because I was in Las Vegas recently. Uh, we had a meetup there and I was doing an interview, but. The first night I was there, I went to see a Cirque Solei show. And what was interesting, Regina was going through, I should have gone to slick deals to see if there was a deal. [00:27:35] I did not, but I did notice that going to Ticketmaster directly, the tickets were almost a third more expensive than if I went to cirque soleil.com, which by the way, set me to Ticketmaster to buy the ticket. [00:27:48] Regina: Right? Well it, yes. And then the ticket master fees, I mean, similarly it, this is very local if you wanna go to this part, but if you can get to the box office, typically you can save some money there as well. [00:27:58] But. That requires you getting in the car and you know, taking that action and everything. [00:28:02] Joe: That’s right. That’s right. I, I don’t got time for that. Right. Alright, uh uh, let’s end with an area that I bet people are looking for. A lot of you, you spoke at the top of the segment about people shopping for themselves, but utility items, home improvements. [00:28:14] These are some of my favorite things to buy this time of year. ’cause man, if I need a food processor, I bet this is the time to buy it. [00:28:19] Regina: It sure is. And you know, I was gonna say, you might make fun of me for this one. ’cause last year I think I brought you like a pantry goods item and you were like, I’m gonna put that on your Christmas tree or whatever. [00:28:27] But it’s a very great time to save on those bigger ticket items, tires. Something that we all need and don’t necessarily think about until all of a sudden you go for your inspection and they’re like, you need to get new tires. So if you’re getting close to that [00:28:40] Joe: speaking us, if you could have a bow on your tires under the tree, [00:28:42] Regina: like how romantic, you know what? [00:28:44] Somebody might get really excited about that. So [00:28:46] Joe: nothing says romance like tires. Right. I think [00:28:48] Regina: I’d be more excited if they weren’t under the tree, if they were actually like installed on the car. Everything was done for me and I didn’t have to deal with it at all, but, good, good, [00:28:55] Joe: good point. [00:28:56] Regina: But if you wanna build that into the gifting part of the process, but if you just need it for yourself, Walmart is running some great offers on tires right now, so there’s a number of different options depending on what you need for your region and your particular vehicle, but the one that’s trending really well with the Slick deals community. [00:29:11] There’s the Goodyear Reliant all season tires, $59 each as opposed to $89. So $120 savings if you need to replace all four tires. [00:29:20] Joe: Wow. $59. Like, I swear to God, I just became, uh, my dad right there, [00:29:25] Regina: $59. Right. The things that we get excited about made slightly different than what they used to be, but it is, it’s a great time to stock up on those. [00:29:32] Joe: They should make a Hallmark movie about that deal. [00:29:34] Regina: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So romantic and so lovely. But it, it is important as we head into this, for those of us on the East Coast and those in the Midwest as well as we head into the season where you gotta make sure that your tires are safe. So check them out. [00:29:46] Joe: Well, let’s keep going. What else? We got [00:29:48] Regina: another one that you’ll make fun of for likely won’t end up under the tree, but a good thing to get at this time. So Walmart again has the Frigidaire upright freezer. It’s normally $399. It’s available during the Black Friday time period for $197 plus free shipping. [00:30:05] Joe: Okay. I’m not making fun of that because I need that. Okay. I need that right now. Well, there you go. Yes, [00:30:10] Regina: there you go. And I, we have our freezer that we got about two years ago through one of these deals, but it’s something that is just so you know, you can store your food, you have it there, and this is the time to buy it, because that’s significant savings that you’re gonna get. [00:30:21] Joe: 2024 was the year that I decided to try to eat more locally. Mm-Hmm. Eat local foods and local meats and just the difference between the farmer’s market and the local produce. Local meats. So good. Mm-Hmm. Like just the food is so good and it’s so clean. I mean, it’s amazing. But we’ve talked about, you know, we can only buy a small amount because my freezer’s not that big. [00:30:42] Regina: Right. Where you have to have a place to put it. And so these are the great options. We have one in our basement, obviously. And same, same kind of a thing where you try to just stock up on some of that [00:30:50] Joe: $197 at Walmart. Mm-Hmm. Okay. Well that costs me money. [00:30:54] Regina: Well, what’s the upfront investment? But over time it’s gonna last you quite a while, so. [00:30:58] Oh, it’s gonna be great. [00:30:59] Joe: Yeah. No, no, no. That will be fantastic ’cause that’s, that’s wonderful. And I love supporting the local community too, right. By doing that. Alright. Yes. Spend more of my money. Reina, what’s next? [00:31:07] Regina: Dyson products across the board. So, uh, black Friday cyber week, great time to be tapping into everything from vacuums to air purifiers to the hair products. [00:31:17] We just got our second rescue pup this year. So I am in the market for a cordless vacuum. I am going to be tapping into one of these deals. At Target. There’s a Dyson cordless vacuum, $250 that’s 50% off of the normal price. Another kind of tip around the Slick Deals community is where you can look into those comments and sort of query what people’s experiences have been. [00:31:35] So is one better for pet hair versus that? So kind of depending on what your needs are in your home, do you have a lot of carpet? Do you have harder floors? But across the board, great Dyson deals on those vacuums Similarly, I don’t own one of these, but my friends who have them love it. The Dyson Air Wrap is available at Ulta, normally $600. [00:31:56] So it’s a very pricey product. But if you’ve been saving your money, it’s available for 20% off at $479 right now. Well, [00:32:03] Joe: yeah. And to your point, people that have those don’t like ’em. They love them, [00:32:06] Regina: right? I mean, if you’re committed to, you’re gonna use it and you are excited about getting one, this is the time to do it. [00:32:13] Joe: Yeah, it’s like the equivalent of CrossFit. They’ll tell you if they’ve got one. Um, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about the community because. This is the important part. This is what I didn’t know when I first heard of Slick Deals, is this isn’t Reina and the team out there looking for deals. It is. You guys have curated a community of people. [00:32:32] Well, no, you, you’ve opened up the doors for a community of people. They curate the deals. Let’s talk about the value of this community, [00:32:40] Regina: right? A as you said, it’s not us telling you that this is the deal that you need to go. We’re, we’re having this community of millions of shoppers who are out there vetting, voting up the very best deals that are available at any given time from all of the top retailers. [00:32:53] So it’s not, it’s not something that, you know, occasionally you’ll see a, your mileage may vary, deal. That might be localized a little bit more, but in general, it’s something that’s available nationwide or online. Walmart, Amazon, target, best Buy. All the top places that you would shop. And so you as a user can find a great deal on something like pantry goods or paper towels or AirPods and it can range from everything that you would be shopping for. [00:33:18] People post the deal, others comment on it, vote on it. And those deals that are the best of the best deals make it to what we call our front page. Um, so it’s really about the kind of joy of discovering that great deal that you know, that you’re finding the very best thing that’s available at that time. [00:33:33] And you know, sometimes deals don’t always come back like these Black Friday deals are once in a life, not once in a lifetime, once a year kind of a thing. Yeah. But you may need a product at a specific time so you can still find the best deal that’s available at that time. [00:33:46] Joe: Well, that’s what I like the confidence of. [00:33:48] I need tires. I just query tires. I just put tires in the search engine. And here’s all the discussions going on right now. Around tires, [00:33:55] Regina: right? And we always, of course, want everybody to come back and check regularly, but you can also set, if you are specifically shopping for something and you know that you are going to need those tires, you can set a deal alert, then you’ll get a notification in your email when something that meets your criteria that the community has posted and is, is chattering about, uh, matches your criteria will get sent to you as a notification. [00:34:14] You can tap into the deal that way. Um, but to your point, you know, it, it’s one of those things where I was kind of talking about it with the vacuums, but just a lot of different examples where it’s like, something may seem like a great brand or a great product, but we, we don’t have any sort of vested interest in telling you, right. [00:34:29] That it, it’s not like reviews that you might find on other sites where there might be something that, you know, they were paid to do it or whatever else. This is genuinely people who are excited and passionate about just deals in general and, and wanna offer their input on it. [00:34:42] Joe: You’re not paid by Dyson or Walmart or. [00:34:45] Regina: No. I mean we have affiliate relationships with them. Sure. But we, well, right. They cannot come to us. Well, it’s and say, right, I want this deal to be on your homepage. We have to, it has to really organically reach that through the community. Well, and that was [00:34:57] Joe: actually my next question. That’s how you guys make money then, is the affiliate deal. [00:35:00] People click the link, then people have curated and that’s how you guys make money. ’cause is there, is there a fee to join Slick deals? [00:35:06] Regina: No fee. It’s completely free to use. Yeah. So, um, yeah, that’s one of the ways, and then also obviously advertising on site. But what I will say about that too is the integrity. [00:35:13] So we just marked our 25th anniversary earlier in November. The thing that has always stayed true is that some of the deals that you see, we don’t make any money off of. They’re just there because they’re genuinely that good of a deal. And so it’s really the deals that are surfacing are rising there because of the merits, not because of something that somebody paid us for. [00:35:31] Joe: That’s fabulous. We’ll link to slick deals and we’ll also know all the deals that Ragina brought to the table here today on our show notes page at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Regina, this is so fun. As always. I love it. This is so fun every year, and thank you for mentoring us on finding some great deals. [00:35:46] Regina: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Every year I’d love doing this segment. It’s so fun to get to share the best deals and shop responsibly, but make sure that if you need to make those purchases, this is a good time to do it. [00:36:01] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and on today’s date in history, way back in 1783, George Washington took back New York just in time for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in a stroke of brilliance. He also timed his recapture to coincide with LVMH, buying jewelry store. Tiffany, I’m sure he bought Martha something nice. [00:36:22] He probably had a coupon. What? Revisionist history. Look, this stuff all happened on today’s date. I’m just connecting the dots. Speaking of coupons, here’s a good one. Coupons weren’t a thing until the early 19 hundreds. Nobody had ever heard of ’em. Here’s a question. In maybe the earliest version of Black Friday deals, which soft drink company first created a coupon. [00:36:45] I’ll be back right after I go see who this Tiffany person is. Is she like a friend of Joe’s mom or something? [00:36:57] Hey there Stackers. I’m Black Friday shopper. And your personal Doorbuster Joe’s mom’s neighbor. Doug. So it turns out that LVMH bought Tiffany. Not a real person, by the way. Way after Washington retook New York City. That’s disappointing. Even more disappointing. I hate to let you down. But he couldn’t have used a coupon to buy something nice for Martha because coupons hadn’t been invented yet. [00:37:24] I know, right? What did they do without big deals all those years? I have no idea. What I do know, however, is that the company that first created the coupon not only made sodas or pop, as they say in the Midwest, wait, wait, wait, I gotta say it right, pap, they also had the name of Coca-Cola. Did you get it right? [00:37:44] If so, you deserve a Coke and a smile. Don’t ya know? And now here’s Joe and OG [00:37:53] Joe: Oji. What do you think about Vanilla Coke? Maybe we’ll, we’ll go, we gonna go around three times now. No cherry coke. I [00:38:01] OG: can honestly say that I’ve never tried vanilla coke. I do like cherry coke only at the movie theaters. [00:38:07] Joe: Isn’t that funny? It’s so weird. Like I told you guys, Sprite, but only on a plane. Like why? [00:38:11] I have no idea what [00:38:12] OG: mixes great with vodka, obviously. That’s what I, when I have it, [00:38:17] Joe: nobody knows. It’s clear. Just like the vodka Seagrams and seven duh. I used to have a woman that worked across from me when I was at American Express who, uh, was Russian dite. She would drink what looked like water and we found out based on her erratic behavior, that she was just getting loaded all day at work on vodka. [00:38:36] Yeah, I mean, just getting, getting, wait, we’re not supposed to do that. I dunno. Weird workplace over there at American Express. I dunno what they got going on. og. [00:38:47] OG: Oh, I was. Nothing, nothing to see here. [00:38:55] Joe: Big thanks to Reina Conway. You know, when it comes to these, these deals we talked about, uh, coupons, Doug, you brought up that, but really, isn’t that how they say that up there? Coupons. Oh, we’re gonna do this now. Yeah, I think it is coupon, but I think, uh, this is just like coupons. You know what, hold [00:39:11] Doug: on. I can see, I can see in the reflection in OGs glasses and on Well, the, one of the tickets behind him, he’s looking up pronunciation of coupon right now. [00:39:22] I guarantee you that’s what he’s doing. Nope. Nope. He can either confirm, nor [00:39:27] Joe: did I, well, actually, he’s denying isn’t he? Yeah. That he’s doing any of that. I [00:39:31] OG: will though. Q how do you spell it? Q-U-E-P-O-N, right? Q-U-E-U-E-P-O-N-Q. Pons Pro Annunciation. Coupon it says [00:39:47] Joe: right here. Coupon. There it is. Mm-Hmm. The voice of reason. [00:39:50] The computer. I think it is og. Very important to remember the stuff that you find on sale. I think it’s so easy to go down that, that rabbit hole just, oh, it’s on. I should get that. It’s on sale. I should get that. I should get that. [00:40:04] OG: You know what I did for the first time this year? I have started, and, and I don’t think it’s too late for this, but I have started creating a list of the things that I wanted to particularly get for the gifts that we’re buying this year, as opposed to meandering aimlessly through the mall or through the Amazon. [00:40:25] Like just going, [00:40:26] Joe: huh? I don’t know. Like what? [00:40:27] OG: Like, yeah, sure. Guess we’re, you’re gonna begin [00:40:28] Joe: with the end in mind. [00:40:30] OG: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t know that it’ll end that way, but, but that’s where it’s starting anyway. And largely this was for, you’ve got good intentions. This was born out of, um, you know, this, I, I know this happens to you guys too, but my wife’s like, I, you know what? [00:40:44] We have everything. Like, what the hell do we need for Christmas? Like, stop buying around here. You know, like, what do we, what, what? And I said something the other day. I said, you know what? I could really use, I would really like one of those griddle pans. That fit over the stove, you know, for pancakes and whatever. [00:40:59] Yeah. We have a grill thing that you plug in, but I’m like, wouldn’t it be, she’s like, yes, that we can buy, put that on the Christmas, like the, you know, we’re like going, this is something that’s useful. We know the manufacturer that we like. And I started doing that with the kids over the, you know, like as the summer went on into the fall. [00:41:14] And we have a rule in our house that after November 1st, if there’s anything that you want, you just can’t buy it. No, because it’s too close. Like, gimme an easy one. Basically. It’s like, I need a new sweatshirt for school. Oh, well, okay, you’ll have to wait till January. Oh, you know, like sweatshirt. Maybe in a couple months for school chitting, you know? [00:41:32] But your point about just spending money to spend money, right. It’s like, just ’cause it’s on sale doesn’t, doesn’t make it a good deal. It’s, it’s if you need it or you know, if you want it. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things, but go into it with a list I think will really, really, really curtail your like, I don’t know what to buy. [00:41:54] So I’m gonna buy everything issues. I [00:41:55] Joe: did this segment every year back when I was on tv. To your point, og, start off with list number two, scoreboard. Do give yourself an amount of serendipity money. Figure out what’s appropriate for your budget so that if you see something and you’re like, oh yeah, I forgot about that, that’s great. [00:42:10] Like give yourself a little room to roam. But by setting a budget on that number, then you’re not, you know, there’s not the Amazon guy over. Of course, she’d love a cash [00:42:21] OG: jacket [00:42:23] Joe: that happens to fit me. Right? Exactly. Exactly. I got you. Me this, let’s transition to our headline. [00:42:29] headlines: Hello doling. And now it’s time for your favor, part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:42:36] Joe: Our headline today actually comes from YouTube and a company that, uh, during the month of. October was talking about horror stories in investments, and this was one of the horror stories. I really wanna dive into this ’cause we haven’t done this in a while. By the way, thanks to Susan Stacker, Susan, for sending this to me because a lot of our stackers like to buy real estate. [00:43:04] They maybe own an investment property, maybe two, maybe like my son. They own 15 different rental properties. You start looking at that 401k that IRA and you go, oh, I heard that I can buy a rental property with my IRA. What could possibly go wrong? Well, this is uh, what Susan sent me from YouTube [00:43:30] tiktok: This month we’re highlighting investor horror stories with respect to a self-directed IRA. [00:43:35] It’s important to understand if your IRA buys a property, whether you do that through an LLC or the IRA directly. That you cannot do the physical sweat equity that can be considered a prohibited transaction. That’s one of the most common ghosts and goblins that’s lurking in the shadows. That could potentially create a situation that could be disastrous for your retirement savings account. [00:43:58] Joe: That’s from Equity Trust Company, who actually does self-directed IRAs. Mm-Hmm. Just to give them some props because OG you see this every year. Some person that doesn’t know all the rules goes and buys a house on the beach that they and their family can stay in and they use their IRA money to to buy the thing, and then it needs to be fixed up as well. [00:44:20] So they pack the bags and go to stay there and then, Hey, I’m just gonna work on it. What could possibly go wrong? [00:44:26] OG: Well, and what they’re talking about here with the concept of prohibited transactions are things that you can and can’t do with respect to your qualified retirement plans. At the end of the day, the government is pretty particular about how you can use those funds and how, and, and, and more particularly, who can benefit from the funds when they’re there. [00:44:48] You’re saying if it’s in a qualified plan, which your IRA, you know, is a qualified plan, you’re saying, I’m not using this money, I’m not benefiting from it right now. I will benefit it from it in the future and then you can tax me on it. Right. And we have required distributions and so on and so forth. [00:45:05] Which set aside for a moment, the whole prohibited transaction thing. How the heck do you do RMDs out of a, out of a house rental property? Yeah. But, um, I know there’s ways, but it’s just, you know, adds layers of complexity. But when you benefit from the use of capital, the IRS is gonna wanna cut, take their fair share. [00:45:25] It’s just, that’s just the thesis of all of our investing in tax, you know, uh, code. It’s, it’s, if you are not gonna use the money right now, we’ll let you defer it. Take a look at your. Stock investing, right? So you buy a stock for $10,000, it grows to $15,000, and you tell the IRS, no, I’m not using it. They go, okay, no problem. [00:45:47] And it grows to 20,000. They go, Hey, and you go, no, no, I’m not using it. I go, okay, grows to 50,000. You go, I’m actually gonna use some. They go, okay, now you’re using it. Now you’re benefiting from it. Now you’re gonna pay taxes on it, right? If you have earned income and you say, I need to use this to pay my bills, and they go, great, you gotta pay taxes on it. [00:46:05] But if you say, I’m gonna take 23,000 of this and I’m gonna send it, I, I don’t wanna use that. They go, okay, no problem. Don’t pay taxes on it. If you’re not gonna benefit from the asset, if you’re not benefiting from the income, then you don’t. Then that’s the whole thesis of all this stuff. So if you take your money out of your IRA and you put it in an investment property, there’s ways to do it. [00:46:24] Equity Trust is one of the companies that will help you do that. Like you mentioned. If all of a sudden you benefit from it, you’re like, haha, I got, I pulled one over, I got a nice beach house, you know, woo woo hoo. It’s like, well, hold on a second. You’re benefiting from this. Oh, I’ll pay, I’ll pay market rates. [00:46:39] Yeah, okay, sure. You are, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s see the receipts of you paying market rates for the two weeks in July on the beach in Florida to your, you know, that’s $15,000 a week that you would be renting that beach house for, let’s see, your $30,000 check that goes into the IRA, which by the way, you can’t use, you know what I mean? [00:46:58] And then as you’re talking about, like, what they talked about in the video is doing the activities associated with fixing up the property, basically saying, I’m going to improve the property benefit from this. I’m gonna, yeah, I’m, I’m doing stuff to it myself. It’s like, no, you can’t do that. You have to do it a different way. [00:47:16] So [00:47:17] Joe: I think the best way to think about this is this is not your money. Yeah, this is future use money. Mm-Hmm. And once you qualify, which is what I like, think about when I think qualified plan, I qualify, oh, I get to the point that I, I can take this money out and use it once the money’s out and it’s yours, then again, man, taking a house out of that plan, if you’re ever gonna wanna use that house, taking the whole house outta the plan at one time, there’s a accounting nightmare. [00:47:46] Right? Just can’t, can’t imagine how that works. And then, oh my goodness, if you can’t pay cash for it and you’ve got a mortgage inside of your IRA and rental income has a down year and you can’t pay the mortgage, you’re screwed there. There truly is very little. It it, the bad thing to do here. And I’m stuttering because it’s so frustrating. [00:48:06] ’cause it, I swear we see this, what, just a couple times a year we see somebody step in this again, the thing to do, that’s the poor structure is leave cash there for these things. But then you’re like, why am I investing? I’m investing to have my money invested so I actually get somewhere, but if I leave a bunch of cash just in case the house doesn’t rent, just in case I need to fix it up, just in case. [00:48:32] All these, just in cases that come with having physical property in your IRA, you’re ruining the reason why you wanted to do it in the first place. You probably told yourself, oh, this’ll beat the s and p 500. This’ll beat the, an index fund. Well, does it after all of this crazy, and then the time and the energy and the worry. [00:48:50] Well, it [00:48:50] OG: doesn’t, I mean, the thing is, is that real estate and stocks are the same in terms of long-term growth rates, and the only reason that they’re the same, plus or minus, you know, a point or two. Yeah, sure. The only reason that they’re the same is because you can leverage real estate. The return happens with real estate due to leverage. [00:49:07] That’s the only reason that it works in the context of investing. Otherwise, the return is whatever the market return is of your, of your portfolio. Of the area. Right? And if you live in an area like I live in, yeah, houses appreciated eight or 10% a year, that’s great. But in some areas that doesn’t happen. [00:49:26] And of course it’s not always gonna be the case here, but if my house goes up at eight and the s and p’s going up at 20, like what the, you know, the only way that I can cover that gap is to have leverage where you say, well, I put $50,000 down on my $500,000 house and my $500,000 house went up by 10%, so it’s worth five 50, therefore my 50 has grown by 50, I made a hundred percent return. [00:49:50] And it’s like, well yeah, but you had to have a $500,000, 450,000 loan to make that happen. So to your point, when you do it in your IRA, you probably shouldn’t have debt associated with it. That takes the levering factor out of it. There’s just better ways. You know, the other thing that I think about here, Joe, is sometimes people say things like, you know, annuity suck or whole life insurance sucks. [00:50:15] Or whatever and it’s like, well they don’t really, it’s, it’s a product, it’s a tool. And in some circumstances arguably pretty limited. But in some circumstances, those products, those tools make a lot of sense. So why wouldn’t you just align the product, align the strategy to what makes the most sense for that thing? [00:50:36] I’m not, I don’t think either of us are saying you shouldn’t own a rental property on Beach House in Florida. We’re just saying you probably don’t wanna do it in your IRA align the product and the strategy with the tool that makes the most sense. Don’t put an annuity inside of your IRA most of the time. [00:50:53] That’s stupid. ’cause you’re, you’re paying for a benefit that you don’t need tax deferral. One of the benefits of an annuity is tax deferral, right? So you don’t need to have tax deferral inside a tax deferral. That’s not, you don’t double tax deferral it, you know what I mean? Don’t use the thing that doesn’t align with the right tool. [00:51:10] If you wanna have a beach house in Florida and rent it out and you know, do all the, like, do it. That’s awesome. If that’s the path for you, your son, Nick’s a great example of this. We’ve had rental properties, you’ve had a rental property. Doug has two properties, but not a rental. You’re shaking your head Doug saying, yeah, that’s not for me. [00:51:28] Joe, you’ve pet a rental. I told you it wasn’t for [00:51:30] Doug: you too and you didn’t listen to me. [00:51:33] OG: He did pretty well though. I did great with it. It just wasn’t, it’s like you bitched and moaned the whole way, man. A hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. Outcome was fine. The process sucked, which is, you know, really the, the antithesis of what we talk about a lot. [00:51:47] But my point is, is that for us, that’s not a good fit. You know what I mean? Like that’s, that’s nothing that we’re, I’ve done it, I’ve tried it. Whatever. Nick’s having success with it. That’s great. Good for him. And if you’re gonna try this or you’re gonna try to explore this line of investing for your personal wealth. [00:52:06] I don’t know that you want to add the la the bunch of complexity on top of it. [00:52:09] Joe: Yeah. [00:52:10] OG: You know, agreed. In some limited circumstances this way makes sense. Just like in some limited circumstances, buying an annuity inside of your IRA pains me to say could make sense. Right. I mean, there’s some very limited circumstances where it could, but for 99.9% of the people, it just doesn’t. [00:52:31] Nope. Stay away from this sort of nonsense. If you can, [00:52:35] Joe: thanks again to Susan for bringing this to our attention. You know, we always think there’s a loophole, og, and to somebody like, really, I could just buy the house and inside my IRA. Yes, you can. And just because you can does not mean you should, like mom says, just because you can. [00:52:52] Uh, good stuff. Hey, time for us to transition to the back porch Doug. I got some big news on the back porch, and that is our monthly update on the benefits guide is now live. If you own the Stacking Benjamins guide to your benefits, your human resource benefits at work, your workplace benefits, here’s what, uh, we updated this month. [00:53:16] Some great advice here on, uh, on month number one of the updates. We have a checklist at the beginning of the guide. Those. Those were numbered. They’re now check boxes, so you can physically check the boxes. I know, brilliant, isn’t it? And also at the back checklist for each of the major areas, again, those were highlighted, those now have check boxes as well. [00:53:38] So there’s just some basic formatting that when we first took it out, we continue to tweak and make it better. But we promised you that in month one, we’d add a bunch of resources to mom’s mega resource in the back of the guide links directly to podcast episodes, where we reference different benefits specifically in that area. [00:53:56] So. We’ve added references and disability. We’ve added, as an example, when the money guys were on, they talk about benefits in general. We added that. We talk about pet insurance, we’ve added that. So all of these different mentions in the stack of Benjamins universe have now been added to the back of the guide for people that wanna dive in and get even more clarity. [00:54:19] If you wanna nerd out on the stuff, we have made it even more robust. So if you don’t have the guide to choosing your benefits at Stacking Benjamins dot com slash benefits and, uh, for people that have it, just go in and get the new updated version. [00:54:33] Doug: Uh, a couple other things in the back porch, Joe, that I think are incredibly important and, and they both happen to be reviews, but I think it’s important for the, our public to hear this. [00:54:42] Uh. We have a review from Josh Rett, 58, who said one of the best investment podcasts out there yet. Duh. I have been listening for a few years full of fun and interesting trivia. Oh God, as well. Great advice to saving and investing for personal finance, yada yada yada, but fun and interesting trivia. And, uh, and then, uh, we have, uh, Asher Sue Asher Sue sent us, uh, I’ve been listening to Stacking Benjamins for almost two years as a younger listener. [00:55:16] I love their 1 0 1 approach for personal finance. They keep it simple, lighthearted, and fun. Here’s the best part, even though OG can be a curmudgeon, [00:55:26] OG: I don’t find that to be accurate. [00:55:28] Doug: Spell curmudgeon without an O and a GI enjoy his practical no nonsense approach. Those [00:55:33] OG: were [00:55:33] Doug: two great reviews [00:55:35] OG: just ’cause I don’t wanna fill up my Thanksgiving plate with I. [00:55:37] Weak old musty bread. [00:55:41] Joe: He doesn’t hold a grudge either for the entire episode. Not at all. Doug. Get us outta here before we get into stuffing, uh, argument again. [00:55:50] Doug: By the way, be sure to check out the uh, 2 0 1 because there will be a definitive pronunciation guide on the word coupon as well. Coupon [00:55:58] Joe: you mean coupon Q Coupon. [00:55:59] Okay, go look it up. I’m sure what he means is coupon. All right, Doug. Here we go. Let’s do this, man. What’s on the to-Do? Speaking of check boxes, let’s check the check boxes. What’s on our to-do list now that we finished today’s show? [00:56:12] Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from Ragina Conway and Warren Buffet. Why pay retail when companies are offering discounts all the time? [00:56:21] Control your FOMO for weeks like this one, and you could score that thing you’re hoping to own for much less money. Second, looking to own real estate in your IRA. Avoid a horror story and know the rules before jumping in. You could create your own nightmare because you don’t understand the rules, but the big lesson, just like George Washington said, we shall create a nation where on this day after Thanksgiving, you can score a great deal on your favorite electronics. [00:56:52] So pay attention. Stackers here. Yay here. Yay. Wait, you don’t think he said that? Well, where’s your proofy? Didn’t. Thanks to Regina Conway for joining us today. You’ll find deals curated by people like you@slickdeals.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the Property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [00:57:21] Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [00:57:43] This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:58:48] Joe: I know that not every stacker is a sports fan. What? But I do know. Hold on. That [00:58:58] OG is like, well then we don’t want them. He’s not a stuffing fan, which is fine, but when it comes to sports fan, they’re off the island. You’re not off the island. They’re off the island. But they are, they have been kind of, uh, maybe they’ve been a sibling and they felt kind of slighted. I also know that our stacker family, that you all know, the Kelsey Brothers and their kind of podcast nearly as famous as ours, um, would you think kind of as famous as ours. [00:59:27] Uh, but this is the NFL on on CBS. You’re gonna hear the voice of. Well, their brother and their mom. [00:59:38] bit: Hi, my name is Sean Kelsey. I am Jason and Travis’s older brother. What’s it like being the third Kelsey brother? Man, I’m not gonna lie. It’s, it’s, it’s rough sometimes. You know what I, I’ve always said that Sean has his own special gifts. [00:59:54] I just wish she would move out of the basement and you know, I have a podcast too. Welcome to the Kelsey Cast. The world’s number two, Kelsey hosted podcast. It just sucks. Only being known as someone famous as relative. My next guest is Arch Manning’s. Dad, I think we’re so proud of all of our children for all of their accomplishments. [01:00:14] Hey mom, how come you don’t wanna wear my jersey? Uh, honey, they don’t make JV jerseys for the parents. What about like my actual jersey? You know, we could like stitch it in with theirs in the middle or something. Didn’t we have to turn it back in to the school? Remember because they said it was so clean and basically still like knew they needed to reuse it. [01:00:37] It was [01:00:37] Joe: so clean they had to reuse the jersey basically [01:00:40] OG: like new. [01:00:42] Joe: It’s always sad being the third wheel [01:00:43] OG: sucks, doesn’t it? Doug. [01:00:47] Doug: He’s my favorite. Kelsey. [01:00:48] Joe: The only part of that, that, the only part of that that you can’t see is when mom says he has his own special talents. He’s hopping on one foot with his other hand in the air, like really twerking. [01:01:00] It’s, it’s, it’s kind of uncomfortable. And while, but the rest of it, uh, you got on the audio, those guys are [01:01:06] OG: leaning into their 15 minutes. Are they not like going, I, we are going to ring the register. Yeah. As much as possible with this, [01:01:16] Doug: haven’t they blown right through 15 minutes? I feel like they’re, I was gonna say like hak to a woman, right? [01:01:22] Well, but I, I think that still qualifies as 15 minutes. It’s only been like three months. Kelsey’s been a couple of years now. Yeah. She’s got a Monster [01:01:30] Joe: podcast too now [01:01:31] Doug: though. [01:01:32] OG: Yeah, we’ll see how long it lasts. Call me when you’re at 15 years lady. [01:01:36] Joe: Yeah, right. He calls into her show and goes, this is stuffing. [01:01:41] I think this show is like Stovetop stuffing. [01:01:44] Doug: I think stuffing iss a very appropriate topic for cocktail show. [01:01:48] Joe: Our, our, our moving on. Our friend, uh, Dr. Daniel Crosby, who’s always, uh, funny was talking about on Twitter that, uh, he used to be a no Christmas music until Black Friday. Guy like, Nope, not doing it two weeks ago. [01:02:12] He posted, I’m not there anymore. He goes, as I get older and I just wanna be at my happy place, I realize that the month of December is my happy place, so I am now all in. All in like, wow. [01:02:26] OG: Like I find it interesting on the holiday season stuff. Um, I don’t know, you know, when you guys get your stuff out, when does Christmas start in your homes as it were. [01:02:36] But, um, uh, but our Christmas lights are up. I mean, they’ve been up since November 5th. They’re not on, but they’re up. And I think Mo a lot of times they’re up because the weather is markedly better at the beginning of November than the end. And so it’s just easier to get all that stuff together. But I look outside and I see, I see my neighbor’s homes and there’s the big wreaths and you know, like everybody’s got the stuff all decorated. [01:03:01] And the 1st of November, uh, we don’t have any Christmas decorations out, but I think about how it’s literally one sixth of the year. ’cause it’s definitely full on Christmas here by Thanksgiving. Especially at late Thanksgiving this year. Right. And you know, the tree will be up and, you know, all that stuff. [01:03:18] Those to be some Thanksgiving stuff out, but then it stays up through, you know, the first couple weeks of January. Right. Generally it’s like two months. That’s one sixth of the year is freaking Christmas. Should be up longer. [01:03:31] Doug: How great is that? Not if you live in a single wide, it’s 12 months. [01:03:35] OG: Christmas is 12 months long where you are. [01:03:36] Just [01:03:37] Doug: leave those lights up all the time. Those icicle lights hanging from the edge of the trailer. It’s okay year round. What’s wrong [01:03:42] Joe: there? I think in the northern hemisphere especially where it gets really cold, leaving the lights up all winter long just makes a lot of sense. Wow. Don’t even call ’em Christmas lights. [01:03:49] Just call them. I am fighting the applause. Lights. Lights. [01:03:52] OG: They’re just So this is why I don’t slip and fall so I can see outside. Yes. It’s because it’s dark. It could be that too. I will [01:03:58] Doug: say side benefit of living deep in the north woods is you don’t decorate ever. Nobody sees it except the U Bs guy, Bob Mbo, who shows up, wanna see it. [01:04:09] You don’t other people, it’s about yourself. I look at the pine trees out my window. It’s about the [01:04:14] OG: inside. You don’t like to see the, the red and blues and the and greens glistening off the freshly fallen snow. When you awake in the morning. That does lovely. Actually, [01:04:24] Doug: that [01:04:24] OG: sounds delightful. Can you come over and [01:04:26] Doug: hang [01:04:26] OG: them for me? [01:04:27] No, I mean, I’ll send some people, but Sure. [01:04:30] Joe: We set up the tree in early, uh, November this year because my son was here visiting and it was just, it was, it was more fun having one of the kids here, so why not? [01:04:38] OG: Yeah. [01:04:39] Joe: I’m also on board with the Christmas music early. I don’t know about you guys, but, but play me the songs. [01:04:43] Are [01:04:43] Doug: you still playing? My heavily curated, expertly curated Christmas. CDs. [01:04:49] Joe: I love the Christmas CDs. Any of those. I have them actually sitting in this closet over here. The problem I have is that now everything’s on Spotify. It’s all MP three. You can’t play ’em. I know. You know what you gotta do? You gotta make like a get a playlist going. [01:05:02] OG: You gotta take them and [01:05:03] Joe: make This is, that’s a great idea. This is Doug’s 1997 playlist. This is is 1998 playlist. I like that idea. Should we make those available to stackers? Make it for the modern times? I should. If you put it, I think we [01:05:13] OG: should On Spotify, it’s can be public. Yeah, you can make a public playlist. [01:05:16] That’s, yeah. I don’t do Spotify. I mean, nobody listens to Apple Music, so you don’t have to worry about that. But [01:05:22] Joe: Hmm. If you give me the list in, in, in order, if you’ve got like the master list of all the different, I bet that there’s a [01:05:29] OG: way to have chat, GPT create a file that you can basically upload to Spotify. [01:05:36] To create a playlist and then just had the list and so you just does [01:05:38] Doug: it all for you. I could give you the list, Joe, but you just pointed to your closet and said you have them all sitting right there. So I’ve got [01:05:44] Joe: like three of them that I know that I’ve seen recently sitting over there. But you made those for how many years? [01:05:50] You made those for a 10 of years? Yeah, those are [01:05:51] Doug: solid 10 years. I was sending [01:05:52] Joe: out OGs like WTF. Where’s mine? I know. [01:05:56] OG: Yeah. I never got one, but that’s cool. [01:05:58] Joe: It was always very fun seeing what Doug’s new mix was gonna be. [01:06:01] OG: Okay. So I will die on this hill also, since we’re on stuffing and I’ll just throw another dagger out there. [01:06:09] The stupid Mariah Carey Christmas song. Hmm. If I were president for a day, that would be my executive order. That that song is banned from all play for all eternity. [01:06:23] Joe: For everybody. What if we like that song? Everyone [01:06:25] OG: don’t care. [01:06:26] Doug: What if we like that song, we are gonna legislate taste [01:06:29] OG: for you. No, there is no liking of All I Want For Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. [01:06:35] Doug: No stuffing, no Mariah Carey. We’re done. What? What’s interesting there is, and I don’t know if it’s ever gonna happen for Nickelback, but that song went through this whole lifecycle where universally it was hated but it just kept getting played. And now it’s like its own joke. Now it’s back. Yeah, it’s back. [01:06:50] ’cause it’s now it’s like cool to begrudgingly like the thing that we all hated a few years ago. [01:06:56] Joe: Like wham, last Christmas. Yes. Same thing last Christmas. My sister a few years ago made me a playlist of all kinds of different bands covering in the most hilarious ways possible. To your point, Doug last Christmas and the speed metal version of last Christmas, the country version of last Christmas. [01:07:15] I think I’d like that. The ska version of Last Christmas. All these people taking the song and it’s pretty amazing. Anyway, hopefully by the time this airs, we may be able to get a holiday mix out for people. That’ll be fun. So you can go early with us. That’d be fun. [01:07:30] OG: Yeah.
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