Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 11.20.24 Holidays Deals With Charis! / 2025 Investment Predictions About this episode Today, a special guest joins the show - Charis from our ClarkDeals team shares the best deals of the holiday season and what to look out for. Also today, Clark lends perspective on post election confusion around the stock market right now. Holiday Deals: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Direction For Investors: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: CLARK DEALS How To Find Cheap Flights in 3 Easy Steps Best 529 College Savings Plans By State NYTimes: Even at a Time Like This, Slow and Steady Works in the Stock Market Invest & Retire - Clark.com Southwest Airlines $500 Email Delivery Gift Card Southwest Airlines: $500 eGift Card Credit Card Car Rental Insurance: What You Need To Know Is a HELOC a Good Idea? The Simple Answer HELOC vs. Home Equity Loan: Similarities and Differences Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time.
0:12 Speaker 01 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
0:15 Speaker 02 They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats, order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
0:50 Speaker 03 It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show where our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And today, we never have guests, almost, like just a couple of times a year. But today I'm honored to be joined by a special guest who hasn't been with me on the podcast in a whole year. Charis, our chief deal digger from Clarkdeals.com is going to tell you what the best deals are this holiday season. And wow, there have really been some great deals so far.
1:33 Speaker 03 And later, I'm going to give my predictions. This is really a stupid journey, but I'm going to give you my predictions on what's going to happen with investments in 25. But let's go straight to Charis. And Charis, it's wonderful to have you here.
1:52 Speaker 04 Thank you so much for having me.
1:54 Speaker 03 So if you're not familiar with Clarkdeals.com and our Clark Deals Daily Newsletter, we tell you what we think are legit, real deals on stuff, on travel, on whatever. And Karis has been at this, how many years now?
2:12 Speaker 04 About eight years.
2:13 Speaker 03 Eight years, bringing bargains to your wallet. And we are in what is the Super Bowl, World Series, the Stanley Cup, the NBA Championship, all of it. I gotta mention the World Cup, because soccer's so big now. Black Friday month is all those things wrapped up into one. And you last slept Halloween night, is that about right?
2:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, we're around the clock, you know.
2:42 Speaker 03 Around the clock right now. So trends this year, what are you seeing? Where we go back two years ago, it was like, are you gonna find gifts on the shelf? We got the gifts again.
2:56 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, we definitely have the gifts. So there's so much going on. I mean, there was October sales and it kind of trickled into, you know, November. Now it's like a big explosion of deals. And there's just everything. I mean, you're gonna find all the TV deals. And the stores really this year are doing staggered deals. So we had Walmart sale on the 11th that started with an official Black Friday sale. And then on the 24th, they're gonna start again. And so it's just crazy. It's just crazy.
3:21 Speaker 03 And people are buying the deals. I've seen the, the sales figures for Walmart and Amazon. And those are the two behemoths for Christmas shopping. I guess Costco would be the third. And they're reporting just very large sales of the promotional items being sold right now.
3:42 Speaker 04 Right, yeah, it's huge. And Amazon's gonna start their official Black Friday sale this Thursday. So you want to watch out for that as well as Best Buy. They've been doing, like, some of the stores have been doing, like, preview sales. So you'll have, like, Belk and Macy's. And Macy's already started on the 14th with their official Black Friday sale. But you'll want to look out for next Monday Walmart, because they're gonna have more, like, doorbuster-y type deals. Some of them have already sold out from the first wave. But there's gonna be a huge deal on a 65-inch TCL TV, Roku TV, for $228. So if you're a Walmart Plus member...
4:13 Speaker 03 Wait, wait, wait, don't rate through that. 65-inch TV for $228?
4:18 Speaker 04 $228, yeah, but... You want to probably be a Walmart Plus member to get that deal because it's probably going to sell out so quickly.
4:25 Speaker 03 Is Walmart Plus still available on trial for 49 for a year?
4:28 Speaker 04 Yes, yes, you can get 50% off, yes.
4:31 Speaker 03 Okay.
4:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, for new members. So that's a good one to look out for if you're looking for a TV. There's tons of other TV deals. We expect that still people will be rolling out really great deals, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, but some of these are just very staggered because they want to catch people's attention, you know, so.
4:45 Speaker 03 Right.
4:45 Speaker 04 Yeah. There's tons of deals on electronics at Amazon, especially like FireSticks. Those are like 50% off plus. There's all kinds of stuff like at Costco. Costco just announced or released the next wave of their Black Friday deals. I have a lot of Ring things on sale. I know you have the Ring security system, right?
5:02 Speaker 03 That's right.
5:03 Speaker 04 Yeah, so that's on sale. It's $80 off, so that's a good one to look at. We also have a Costco deal right now, which I know you love Costco, so we always have the best Costco deal we can find at Clark Deals, but you get a $45 gift card with a Costco membership, so.
5:16 Speaker 03 Well, the TV I bought recently, I bought at Sam's Club because it was $698 for an 85-inch TV.
5:25 Speaker 04 How big is that TV?
5:26 Speaker 03 85-inch? I mean, it's not quite big enough. I wanted 98 or 100, but my wife capped me at 85 inches.
5:34 Speaker 04 Oh my goodness, gave me a limit. Oh my gosh, it's hilarious. There's also AirPods right now for $94 at Walmart, third-generation AirPods. People really like those, I know. That's a savings of $75. Roku Premier, $18 at Walmart. There's just a ton of stuff right now, so I think the best thing to do is subscribe to our newsletter so you can get everything that we know is hot off the press every day, and that's the best way to do it, I think, so.
5:58 Speaker 03 So I would say with the Roku Premier, if I can give a marketplace review of that one, is that if you're just wanting to sample Roku, get that one. If you're really going to use Roku, don't buy the Premier because the remote is so limited in the functions on it.
6:15 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. It may be better to go up. If you want a really robust one, you know, those are on sale too, so that's a great one to look at. There's Dyson vacuums, Dyson 11 cordless vacuum for $3.50 is going to be on sale next week.
6:27 Speaker 03 Who's going to have that next week?
6:28 Speaker 04 Walmart.
6:28 Speaker 03 Walmart.
6:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, so there's just so much. You really, yeah. And you know, our audience, our readers are just so smart. Like, a lot of them will like look at Clark Deals and buy stuff throughout the year so that they don't have to spend so much right now. But there's still so many great bargains right now, especially for electronics. Appliances are a great thing to look at right now. Wouldn't you say appliances right now?
6:49 Speaker 03 Yeah. And I've been reading in the financial press that clothing is sitting unloved on the shelves. So I can't figure out with clothing, should people be buying the Black Friday deals or should they wait till the retailers get desperate in January to clear? And I can't answer that question. You may or may not be able to.
7:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, see, I mean, probably you can get, you know, like the pajama sets on sale, you know, for the matching family pajamas and things like that. Macy's Black Friday. We're probably going to see a lot of leftovers in January though. So I'm thinking they're going to really want to clear out then. So.
7:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, the clothing market is in such turmoil right now. So it's, it's great if you need wardrobe. I get a lot of suggestions for those of you watch our YouTube show that I could use a wardrobe refresh. It's just I'm too cheap to, to do that.
7:40 Speaker 04 Well, if, if the Costco sale is running now, you know, they have like the buy 10, get $50 off or something. You could buy like 10 pair of khaki shorts and like they'd be like $6 a pair or like $4 a pair or something. So you'd be set.
7:53 Speaker 03 Okay, I'll look at that. I'll look at that. Well, Karis, thank you so much. And the newsletter is, is daily, every day of the year?
8:02 Speaker 04 Yes, every single day, except Christmas.
8:04 Speaker 03 Except Christmas. So, yep. Thanks, Clark. Thank you very much. Clarkdeals.com. So Krista, I love talking about deals. I mean, Karis and I could have talked about deals three or four hours and by then every viewer or listener would have been asleep.
8:21 Speaker 05 No, no.
8:22 Speaker 03 No, I just, I love bargains and this year, the retailers have been so well stocked and there are so many deals and, but there aren't going to be the clearance items later as we have had the last couple of years because stuff's really selling right now.
8:42 Speaker 05 Wow. All right. We'll go to questions. Mary feels like she is definitely not getting a bargain. She says, this is Mary from Michigan. Is Delta greedy or did the recent hurricanes make travel to Florida insane? We have a cruise booked and we need a flight from Detroit to Miami, March 7th through 15th of 25. We prefer to fly nonstop and the flights right now are over $800. They're usually in the $350 range. Should we book now or wait? I'm worried.
9:10 Speaker 03 Okay, for March, you're too far ahead, number one. But number two, you gotta understand the pricing pattern that Delta uses in their hub markets. Delta so dominates flights out of Detroit, Minneapolis, Salt Lake, Atlanta, that in those hub markets, Delta charges far, far more per mile on nonstop routes than they do in other markets because they are so dominant. So if you were to look instead at another airline out of Detroit, you might have to change planes somewhere to get down to your trip, to your cruise, you'll almost
9:54 Speaker 03 certainly be back in the $350 range you're used to. But if you fly a hub airline, like American out of Dallas, United out of Chicago, or Denver, they're in a real dogfight with Southwest right now, so not as much. But with any of the full fare airlines, the markets that are their hubs, Charlotte would be the best example for American, where they just clobber people in North Carolina with massive fares. The problem you've got is if you fly Delta out of a market like Detroit where they're dominant, you're going to pay double or triple the fare you would on competitors. But the sweet spot for booking a domestic
10:37 Speaker 03 ticket tends to be six to 10 weeks out. March is also a premium time because a lot of people are doing spring break trips, they're tired of winter in the Midwest, and that does bump fares up a fair amount.
10:54 Speaker 05 Carrie in Ohio says, "In August, my first grandbaby was born." Congratulations.
10:58 Speaker 03 Congratulations on that.
11:00 Speaker 05 "My ex-husband and I would like to open a 529 for her. My question is, can we both get a tax break for it? I wanted to open the account with both of our names on it so we can both contribute, but I wasn't sure how the tax advantage would work. For some background, we're on very good terms, and I've done his taxes and his wife's for the last 14 years, so we have no issues working together." And stuff like this. We are both remarried and both filed married filing joint returns. If this isn't an option, do you have a suggestion?
11:27 Speaker 03 Okay, first of all, congratulations on how you have navigated post divorce life. There's every kind of marriage, every kind of divorce. So you cannot jointly own a 529 account, even if you are still married to each other. 529 accounts have to have a single owner. So if your ex-husband wants to set up one, that's fine. If you want to set up one, that's fine. And depending on the laws, if you both live in Ohio, it would depend on the tax laws in Ohio. If more than one person opening a 529 for someone who's a beneficiary can each take a tax deduction or not.
12:10 Speaker 03 And I defer to your knowledge, since you do tax returns, either as a living or a hobby, I can't tell, you'll be able to see whether you each can open a 529 for the grandbaby and each take a tax deduction on it. But again, regardless of marital status or anything, a 529 plan can only have a single owner and a single beneficiary.
12:37 Speaker 05 Laney in Rhode Island says, hi Clark, my employer received an email today that was supposedly from me, asking the employer to immediately change my direct deposit information for payroll. It offered to provide new routing and account numbers for my paycheck to be deposited. The email conveyed a sense of urgency about making the change before the next payday. Apparently, the criminals are just going straight for our paychecks now.
13:01 Speaker 03 Thank you for bringing this up. You're the second person we've heard from about this payroll theft scam. And so it's a pretext. In this case, and most pretexts are from a company, a government agency, the post office. FedEx, Amazon, whatever, send to an individual. This is a reverse scam where companies are receiving emails from supposedly their employees trying to change direct deposit. And so this is a new pattern. And I appreciate you bringing it to your fellow listener and viewer's attention because the big thing here is employers need to have independent verification today when they
13:44 Speaker 03 receive instructions from an employee for direct deposit change and not just take it at face value. Receiving a communication by internal communication of a company or by an email coming that could have been an external email address. You just don't process that change of direct deposit till you verify directly with the employee or else everybody's going to be unhappy. And this is obviously an area that's working for criminals. That's why you've got to be aware that you've got to put rails in place, safeguards in place to protect your payroll account and your employees as well. Gosh, the scams never stop, do they?
14:29 Speaker 05 Unfortunately, no.
14:30 Speaker 03 And they never stop morphing either. Coming up ahead, there are people who think the stock market is a scam. I don't, but I want to tell you a lot of the hype right now could cause you to lose money anyway.
14:44 Speaker 00 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time.
14:56 Speaker 01 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
15:00 Speaker 02 They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats, order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
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16:30 Speaker 03 So there's a lot of confusion about the stock markets right now. There was an initial euphoria and the part of investors after President Trump was re-elected. I don't know quite what you call it when somebody was president, then wasn't, and then is again, but we'll just call it that, President-elect Trump. And then after that, it was kind of like a fall off. What's referred to as the Trump bump becoming the Trump dump. But the reality is world events and the profits of companies ultimately control earnings. You know, now we've got the fears of what Russia may do.
17:13 Speaker 03 And now Putin says, you stop taking away my candy or I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow up the world with nukes and all that. Stock markets don't like that. So I want you to know that initial euphoria for people following the election cycle.
17:32 Speaker 03 Followed by oops and all that. Know that over time, over time, what really matters is are companies making money? Are those profits increasing over time decreasing? And what are you actually paying for each share of that company's stock? And right now, what you're having to pay for the share of an average company's stock is really, really high. The values of US holdings are really abnormally high. So, does that mean that I'm selling
18:10 Speaker 03 anything I own right now? No. Am I buying frantically right now? Not that either. Anyone who has listened to me or watched me over the last many decades know what I say concerning market conditions in good times and in bad, in times of great pessimism or times of great optimism, is I believe that slow and steady ultimately wins the race. I am Dullesville. I'm a dull person. I invest the same way. And so, right now, no changes in what I'm doing. I don't expect the kind of returns over the next 10 years that I've had over
18:55 Speaker 03 the last 15. I don't expect that. I expect that returns are going to be more anemic because of an economic principle known as reversion to mean that when values get kind of out of whack to the high side, over time, they gradually find their traditional ratio of value. And so, what I'm doing is what I've always done. 401k money going in every month, diversified. Money that I put into investments monthly just keeps going as it was, widely diversified. And that's my thing. Slow and dull. And I know there are people
19:40 Speaker 03 who are always the hot money kind of people. The kind of people who love sports betting, or going to Vegas, or whatever. And look at investing the same way. That's not my game. See, my game is to be dull if I have the resources so my life can be exciting. So that I have financial security. That's what I'm about. So yeah, if the election cycle had gone the other way, there are people who would have felt morose and would have dumped what they had, and that would have been a bad idea, too. The whole concept that you should put huge money in or pull money out if you have money
20:24 Speaker 03 to do that with all at one time, that to me is something that if people enjoy that, go for it. But what I'm about is living on less than what I make and having long-term financial security. And we do live in a dangerous world. We've always lived in a dangerous world. And so you cannot overreact to events in the world that happen, either good or bad. You have to look at fundamentals. The fundamentals of the US economy are rock solid.
21:02 Speaker 03 We are just about the most dynamic and successful economy on all of planet Earth. A lot of people didn't feel that way because of the brutal cycle of inflation that we went through through COVID and afterwards. But we are still a solid economy. We have, compared to the rest of the world, very favorable employment trends and very favorable economic growth. I do feel, though, as I said at the very beginning, markets are almost certainly overvalued. But that doesn't make me change my mix. It just makes me change my expectations for what kind of gains I'll see going forward.
21:50 Speaker 05 All right. We had Kara on earlier about deals and AD in Texas wrote in with one for you. Southwest Airlines has a great deal at Sam's Club for their $500 gift card. It's only $429 for the card. What a deal.
22:03 Speaker 03 So this has been episodic. Sam's and Costco have been doing these deals for 29, for 19, then back to the regular 449, 449 for $500 worth. So the baseline is if you do fly Southwest regularly, and they are the largest airline for domestic flights in the US, you're getting a 10% discount on all your Southwest flights and the money has no expiration date buying it on Costco or from Sam's Club. And then they keep doing these specials like AD has pointed out where you get an even bigger discount buying it
22:48 Speaker 03 for 19 or 429. And all I got to say about that, what a deal.
22:54 Speaker 05 Iman in Hawaii says, aloha from Hawaii. My comment has to do with a recent auto rental. I returned from travel to Florida and booked a one-week rental car with a company that I've never heard of, Clark, through a website. The weekly rate was only $69. Of course, I read-
23:11 Speaker 03 It's been a long time since we've had car rentals for $10 a day. Man.
23:18 Speaker 05 I read all the fine print and I had everything covered. I have primary auto insurance which covers liability and collision and I use Amex for collision and loss of use coverage. However, when I got to the rental car counter, I was advised that my coverages could not be layered, that one policy needed to cover all three. I suggested that this should have been specified in the rental agreement, but to no avail. Since I was now-
23:41 Speaker 03 That was a bunch of hooey, by the way.
23:43 Speaker 05 Hooey. Since I was now hostage several miles away from the airport, I ended up paying another $94 for coverage. In total, $163 for the week was still a great deal and everything else was smooth, but I felt I was misled and would like to hear your take. Mahalo.
23:59 Speaker 03 Mahalo. And you were misled. You were taken advantage of, I mean, and I have been seeing more and more UFO car rental brands that I don't know if they're, somebody got together and said, hey, wait a minute, we got eight vehicles here. Why don't we set up our own car rental agency? Because you look now and it's a joke. You see all these car rental agency names that no one's ever heard of. And often they involve a bait and switch. So you, I think, did very well even getting ripped off on the pseudo-coverage
24:42 Speaker 03 that they made you buy before you left the counter. You still ended up with a cheap rental, but I am very nervous about using these UFO car rental agencies. Not that the service has been the greatest from the big car rental companies. I'm just not sold on renting from these off, off, off brands that are so prominent in Florida, Nevada, and I'm sure coming soon to your home state of Hawaii.
25:14 Speaker 05 Janay in Illinois says, hi Clark. On a recent podcast, you discussed the need to obtain credit cards before you retire in the event your level of earnings in retirement will not qualify for a new card. I was wondering if the same concept applies to home equity lines of credit?
25:29 Speaker 03 It does.
25:29 Speaker 05 If we have significant equity in our home, is it advisable to open a HELOC on the home in the event it's needed at some point in the future? Are there fixed-rate HELOCs that can be locked in on a rate, or are they always variable based on when you draw on it? Would a five-year or a 10-year term be recommended if this approach is advisable?
25:47 Speaker 03 Okay, so Janay, very interesting question, and you are right that for people that are actively working but are looking forward to retirement, you have a lot of equity in your home. Just as, as you mentioned, I want you to make sure you have the credit cards you want while you're still working, because you may not qualify for them in retirement. Same thing with the HELOC. Now, you're Talking about a HELOC and also at the end, you're talking about what's known as a home equity loan. They're very different products. A HELOC is a standby line of credit for a certain amount of money that they'll grant you,
26:26 Speaker 03 that you can draw on very easily when you need access to funds to do an improvement at your home or something like that, whatever it is. I want it only used to improve your home. People use HELOCs for a variety of non-domestic functions. I don't like that. But anyway, the HELOC is always a floating rate because it is a line of credit and it's set typically based on the prime rate. They tell you which prime rate they go by, plus an index added on to it, plus a spread. And so the rate changes as often as every 30 days on the HELOC.
27:06 Speaker 03 You set up the line depending on the credit union you use and you should go to a credit union first to look for a HELOC because almost always the terms are more favorable than they'll be at a bank. And they will tell you, you get this line of credit established for whatever period of time they tell you it's for. A home equity loan's a whole different thing. It's one you draw on and then you pay for it at a fixed rate for most common five-year term. You can do five, 10, or 15, but the interest rates tend to be very unfavorable on a 10-year payback and way unfavorable on a 15-year. So doing the HELOC before you retire is a great idea,
27:50 Speaker 03 even if you have no immediate need for the funds. Because if, let's say suddenly you need a new roof and you're retired, the HELOC becomes a good source of funds potentially to replace it. Or you need a new furnace, or you need a new heat pump, or whatever it is. And so your thinking is right on the money. And thanks for bringing that question to me. And I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast and YouTube show because this is all about you. And speaking of you. If you need or could benefit from one-on-one advice or guidance, or getting a question
28:33 Speaker 03 answered, we provide that 30 hours each week, except holiday weeks, and it's completely free. We've been doing it for 32 years now, I guess it is. So you can see how to get that free one-on-one advice from the Team Clark Consumer Action Center by going to clark.com/cac. And what we're all about is you, learning ways to save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. We'll see you tomorrow.
29:03 Speaker 00 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.
29:19 Speaker 01 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
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