← Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
Black Friday or Black Hole? Where Your Money Really Goes
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Early Black Friday Access and VIP presale starts now. Travel Tuesday Small Business Saturday Last Chance Campaigns Final hours Don't miss out. Cyber Week continues extended through Wednesday. Actually, the sale is back for one more day. Retailers spend millions of dollars on psychological tactics designed to make you feel like you're missing out if you don't buy right now. That's how I end up with a cart full of regret. Let's bring it back to reality Foreign. What's up rich friends? And welcome back to another episode of Net Worth and Chill. I'm your host Vivian Tew, AKA your rich BFF and your favorite Wall street girly. With Black Friday almost here, we are entering prime time for impulse spending that we did not plan for. The deals seem endless, the discounts look incredible, and before you know it, your cart is overflowing with things that you are not even that confident you need. Trust me, I've been there more times than I'd like to admit. I have fallen for those too good to be true sales that turned out to be mediocre deals on stuff I never actually needed or even wanted in the first place. So consider this episode a PSA for the both of us. Because yes, sometimes even I, your hbff, need a reality check during sale season. I'm sharing my go to strategies for navigating those massive holiday sales without succumbing to the buy everything temptation. We'll talk about how to spot genuinely good deals, avoid the psychological traps retailers set for us, and make sure sure every purchase actually adds value to your life. Let's make sure we're being smart with our money, not just spending it because something's 40% off. Let's get into it.
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Okay, so first let's talk a little bit about Black Friday marketing madness do you remember when Black Friday was actually just Friday? Those days are now long gone. Now it's basically Black November. Here's how the madness unfolds. Sales start popping up the week before Thanksgiving. You're getting emails with subject lines like Early Black Friday access and VIP pre sale starts now. They're trying to get you hyped up and primed to spend before the actual day even arrives. They Then comes Thanksgiving Thursday. And honestly, this is a day that is supposed to be about being grateful for what we already have. And yet some retailers can't even wait until midnight. They are launching Thanksgiving Day door busters while you are still basting your turkey. Friday hits and it is absolute chaos both online and in stores. But it doesn't stop there. The weekend becomes this extended shopping marathon. Saturday and Sunday are now apparently part of Black Friday too, because why limit yourself to 24 hours when you can stretch it to 72? Then we roll on into Cyber Monday, which used to be its own distinct thing focused on tech and online only deals, but now it's just Black Friday's sequel. And honestly the deals are pretty much identical. But wait, there's more. There is more Travel Tuesday appears targeting anyone who hasn't already booked their holiday trips or next year's vacations. Small Business Saturday gets squeezed in there somewhere, which is actually a lovely concept, but gets completely overshadowed and bulldozed by the corporate sale frenzy. And and just when you think it's over. Just when you think you can finally unsubscribe from all of those marketing emails, retailers hit you with the last chance campaigns Final hours Don't miss out. Cyber Week continues extended through Wednesday. Actually, the sale is back for one more day. The strategy is brilliant if we're being objective about it. The longer the sale period, the more touch points they have with you. The more emails in your inbox, the more ads in your feed, the more text messages on your phone. It's death by a thousand limited time offers. But let's bring it back to reality. Now that we know how Black Friday marketing tactics work, let's talk about some of the things to avoid buying and how to make sure you're actually getting a good deal. Here is what to avoid when Black Friday Shopping first up, Final sale Anything. Listen, I get it. Occasionally you can find a diamond in the rough on final sale. Maybe it's the last size of some covetable shoes or great leggings in a less popular print, or maybe just something a brand made too much of a But most of the time, final sale especially final sale from high end designers who usually don't do discounts. Excuse my French is just an excuse to fuck you. I would be very wary when buying final sale during this time. I'd make sure I had tried the thing or tool or item in person, know for a fact it fits or works and I'd do a mental check of the price overall to see if I'd be okay with it if this purchase fell apart in a month's time. I hate the thought of not being able to bring something back, especially if a retailer does not hold up their end of the bargain. I made a purchase years back during Black Friday and it was this beautiful sweater that lasted all of two wears before the material started to unravel. And yes, it was a designer brand. They're lucky I'm not calling them out. All I got to say is just be really careful with final sale items. Next up, furniture slash bulky home stuff. Reason being, you'll actually usually find better deals around President's Day. For indoor furniture, the best time to buy is typically in January and February or August and September. These months are when retailers discount old stock to make room for the new styles. You can also find good deals during holiday weekends. Like I mentioned, Presents Day and Labor Day. As for outdoor furniture, the best time to buy that is in the late summer and fall. Unsurprisingly, demand for outdoor furniture starts to lower during these seasons because nobody's sitting outside anymore so you can find good prices. Up next on my Do Not Buy list, impulse buys anything off of an IG ad. If you are lucky enough to buy something, you can actually return. Oftentimes these days there are restocking fees, so do not just buy stuff to buy because it could still cost you even if you return it. You don't know what this sketchy or maybe non existent brand is actually selling if you've never heard it before. If you don't have friends who already own it, it could be a real big problem to use this holiday as an opportunity to buy your first order. So how should you actually shop on Black Friday if you want to do it like a pro? I love an Excel sheet because I'm an organization girly. I know we're a little early for this phrase, but I want you to make a list and check it twice. I like to make mine on Excel because it'll be a full list of what I need or want, what it costs now and what I think it'll cost on Black Friday. And then if Black Friday rolls around and the discount isn't even close to what I needed it to get to, I skip. But if it's roughly what I predicted, or maybe even better, I'll get it. This way I I am able to buy what I have on my list surgically. But then I don't faff around on my phone all day because that just gets me tempted to buy other things that I don't need. Something else I really encourage people to do is using a more effective approach to budgeting known as value based spending. I personally call it the your rich BFF is it worth it? Equation. It involves identifying what truly matters to you and making spending decisions that align with those core values. Values based spending flips the entire script. Instead of starting with restrictions, you start with clarity. You sit down and really think about what truly matters to you. Not what Instagram tells you should matter. Not what your friends are spending money on and not what society says you should prioritize, but what genuinely brings you joy, fulfillment, and meaning in your life. All you have to do is calculate your hourly take home pay and then divide the cost of your purchase by your hourly pay number. So, for example, say you make 20 an hour. An 80 pair of jeans is four hours worth of work. Is that worth it to you? This helps you visualize what you actually have to exchange to have that thing. Because if I'm being honest, most of us do not understand the value of a dollar. And that's not because, you know, we're irresponsible. I'm not trying to sound like your dad in lecture, but it's because most of us are really bad at conceptualizing money. We do not understand what it is in relation to our time. But when I'm able to weigh a purchase against how many hours I to work, I'm able to really understand what that trade off is. So for me personally, I've realized that I love spending on experiences way more than I love spending on things. Whether it's travel to a new city, a weekend road trip with friends, or a really incredible dinner at a restaurant I've been wanting to try. Those are the purchases that light me up. Those are the things I remember years later and what I'm willing to pay for here is one of the ultimate Black Friday rules I've recently instituted. Now that I'm getting older and wiser, Black Friday is for buying gifts, not treating myself. I knock out 90% of my holiday shopping over Black Friday weekend electronics. Bigger ticket items, things I know people actually want. I grab them all when they're actually discounted. I've already made my list of who needs what, I've researched the prices and I purchase. If there's something I've had on my wish list for months and it goes on legitimate sale, sure I might grab it, but I'm not really browsing for myself anymore. That's how I end up with a cart full of regret. But this strategy helps to keep me really focused because I'm shopping with purpose, not for entertainment. And honestly, it really does still help. Scratch that buying itch. And it makes the entire holiday experience less stressful and more successful. Because I'm spending this money. Yes, but it was money that I was going to probably have to spend in December anyway. Now I got those things spent less than my budget probably and I don't have to worry about it. And I've gotten through this really impulse spending holiday responsibly. Also, since we are going to be spending anyway, let's talk a little bit about making sure you're getting cash back on your purchases. If you are going to be spending money, you should be getting rewarded for it. Tools like Rakuten, Honey and Dosh, they all offer cash back on tons of items. You just want to make sure you aren't leaving money on the table. And in that same vein, make sure you're using the right credit cards. If you're spending on a credit card, this is going to help maximize your cash back or travel rewards, which can then help save you even more money when you get dollars back on your credit card statement or you book your next trip. I also highly encourage you to leverage technology for price tracking so you can use price tracking tools and extensions. Things like Honey Retail, Me not or Price Blink can help track price drops and discounts to make sure you're actually getting a good deal. Also, especially when it comes to online shopping over the Black Friday holiday season, a lot of things are going to be marked as on sale when they didn't actually go down in price at all. They'll essentially be marked up to be then discounted to make you think you're getting a good deal. For example, if you're specifically looking on Amazon, you can actually use a site called Camel Camel Camel to check the price history of an item to make sure you're actually getting a discount and not getting scammed or even just paying the everyday price. I like to make sure that when I'm shopping during this holiday I'm getting true deals and then the other stuff I can get throughout the rest of the year. All right, now on to Viv's Picks. I like to think of myself as an Olympic level Black Friday shopper, so obviously I want to spread my knowledge of what frequently goes on sale and specific items I love that you should check out. If you're going to spend money, it should at least be on something worthwhile.
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So one of the best things I have ever bought on a Black Friday sale was a designer discounted Ferragamo wallet for Boo for Christmas. And the way I did this was I knew that the Ferragamo website wasn't going to be, you know, having any sort of discounts. They never do. But big box department stores like Saks or Bergdorf's or Neiman Marcus or, you know, all of these high end stores were and oftentimes what they do is they will say hey, instead of giving you a discount if you spend up to this much, we will actually give you a gift card for $250 or whatever. And so what I was able to do is get my husband a lovely wallet. I saved it, it was his Christmas gift. But then I had a little gift card to spend on myself which was an extra nice touch and it just made me feel really good about Accomplishing one of the things I had to accomplish for my Christmas shopping list. Anyway, another thing was on Amazon I typically find that their home tech or you know, items for your home but are not furniture typically go on sale during this time in a really cool way. So I'm talking things like a Dyson vacuum or air purifiers or for my, in my case an espresso machine. Hilariously enough, I bought this espresso machine for my sister in law and shipped it to my, my, my in laws like home so that it would be ready for Christmas which we were celebrating at their home. But something happened. They said it never got delivered. Amazon was so, so nice. They were like hey, like our bad, we'll just send another one. So they send this other one. The espresso machine arrives, my mother in law, she wraps it, a week or two later a random espresso machine shows up on her doorstep. And Amazon was like, you can just keep it, it's not a big deal. So in that holiday I was able to get an espresso machine for my sister in law but my mother in law got one too. So as I'm sure you can imagine, I was very popular that Christmas. And then I would say the third one of the most important things and cool things that I've gotten during Black Friday were was actually flights. This was my senior year of college. I actually use this time period to buy flights. I wanted to do a little bit of a backpacking trip my senior year. I was finishing college a quarter early and I was like okay, I want to spend like three weeks in Europe. I'm going to backpack around, stay in hostels. And so I purchased my flights during that time. I got a really great discount. And funny enough because of the time period when I was flying, I was actually able to get an entire row of seats to myself just out of luck. And it was a really wonderful trip. So I highly encourage people to think about that. Other things that I really really love during this time are buying things that you consistently re up on. So beauty, that favorite moisturizer you have, that face mask that you love, things that you know you're going to use. So even just like toilet paper, paper towels. I bought a simple human trash can one year. It's the best thing ever. I go over to the can and I'm like open can and like all my hands are you know, holding trash. And then it opens and I dump my stuff in. I feel like anything that I know I'm going to wear through so sneakers like when you're running and like, by the time you look down at the bottom of your shoe, the entire right part of like the ball of your foot is just gone. I have one pair of shoe that I really like and I keep buying over and over again. Tower 28 hypochlorous spray. I mean, that is something that I constantly buy. I always buy underpants during Black Friday. Sorry if that's tmi. But listen, I am very much someone who laughs at those videos of those girls showing their boyfriends husband's underpants with holes in them. Boo does not have holes in his underpants. You want to know why? Because I refresh both of our underpants every single Black Friday. I get a bunch. So nobody has. Holy underpants socks. You know, the. The things that you know you are going to eventually have to spend on, do it now because you're just going to get a better discount on it naturally. Okay, so now that I've told you things that I buy, we did have a couple SOS messages come in of what to spend, what to buy during this time for, you know, for Black Friday. And people wanted to know what to get their relatives and family and friends. So I am here to help you out. So first and foremost, somebody said, what about my dad? I can never seem to get something that he likes. Yeah, okay. Dads are incredibly hard to shop for, especially if you have an Asian dad like me. So I will say the things that my dad has enjoyed the most are oftentimes things that save him time or things that are an experience. So one thing that I will oftentimes do during Black Friday, and this isn't even necessarily a holiday gift, but I try to do this whenever they have a nice little sale, is I'll actually send a Gold Belly kit. So Gold Belly works with restaurants, like famous restaurants across the country to send the best of. So they'll send pequods like deep dish pizza from Chicago, or they will send the best Cubans from Versailles in Miami, or they'll send the best cookies from wherever. Like crumble cookie or like whatever. Best retailer, the best barbecue in Texas. The best, you know, xyz, I have sent my parents sushi. I've sent them a Peking duck. I have sent them tacos. I have sent them Italian pasta. Like, they love it. Because my parents are absolute foodies. It's where I get it from. Um, my parents love to cook. They love to eat out. They love to. They just love food. Like, unfortunately, that is our entire family hobby. Um, so I would say try to get your dad an experience. If he has a food that he loves that might be really, really popular, or even if he has a hobby that, you know, maybe he and you could do together, that would be something that'd be really cool and memorable. Um, my husband took his dad to a baseball game. Um, and so not only are you getting a gift, but you're getting, you know, that time, which is really lovely. Ooh, this is a good one. What about my work bestie? Do I need to buy her something for the holidays but also like during Black Friday? Okay, yeah, that's a good question. You don't need to get your work bestie anything. But I think about the amount of just hot garbage I have dumped on my work best friends. Like just the trauma dumping I have done on them. I think they've deserved it. Something that I actually love to do is to buy a duo of something. So maybe if you're getting a lip gloss, sometimes they come in kits of two. Or like, maybe it's like one is like pink pink and one is like a mauve or like one is like a red and one is an orange or whatever you can do one for you and one for them. So it feels like a gift for yourself, but also it's a gift for them. Maybe it's even just buying a bunch of things in two packs at like a Sephora beauty retailer, an Ulta, and splitting them up into then a goodie bag for one for yourself and one for them. You know, shout out to my girlfriend, Iskra, her brand Saltair, it's sold at Ulta. They do these incredible like shampoo conditioner sets, lotions, like whatever, like just something nice that you can put together. I don't think you need to spend an arm and a leg on someone who you just work with. But I think of all of my work best friends and they have also become like my real life best friends. And I see them outside of work anyway, so I want to really treat them and show them some of the love since they have seen me during the darkest of times and they deserve it. Here's a good one. What are your favorite high end big ticket Black Friday purchases? Okay, so I will say back in our parents generation, for whatever reason, TVs were like $8,000 and now they're like $200. So I will say home tech is an incredibly, incredibly like, smart thing to buy during this time. TVs, sound systems like Sonos or Bose or JBLS, like this is the time to get it. Electric toothbrush, I mean I'm a big teeth person so like I take very good care of my teeth. Electric toothbrushes are really, really smart just but like home tech, life tech, even like Kindles, fire sticks, Roku's, things like that will all be on sale right now and it is probably the best time of year to get them. And then on the flip side, somebody asked what are some really low cost Black Friday items that you think are fun and still worth the money and like, you know, aren't trash? Great. I would say this is a good time to think about your capsule wardrobe. Or maybe not necessarily finding the cheapest thing possible, but finding something that's reasonably priced that you are going to use again and again and again. So things that I really love gold hoops. I'm not saying you need to get 18 karat solid gold hoops, but there's a lot of brands now that do a really good job. Thick plating, they have a warranty that like they'll replace it for you over the course of your lifetime if it tarnishes or if it scratches or something happens. So like getting a good pair of gold hoops is reasonably affordable, especially now since they're not solid gold, but it's something that you can wear with any sort of outfit and it'll look really, really nice. So to wrap us all up, Black Friday is not inherently evil and I'm not here to shame anyone for participating. But I am here to remind you that retailers spend millions of dollars on psychological tactics designed to make you feel like you're missing out. If you don't buy right now, you're not missing out. That deal will come around again, and even if it doesn't, you'll be fine. The goal isn't to save money on things you buy. The goal is to only buy things that genuinely improve your life or spark joy, whether or not they're on sale. Everything else is just noise. So this Black Friday I'm challenging you shop with intention or don't shop at all. Either way, you're winning. See you next week, besties. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastorrichbff.com follow Net Worth and Chillpod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news and you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know how. See you next week.
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Bye.