10/12/26 Tricks, Treats & the Economy: The Cherry Acres Story

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, October 12th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com https://www.moneywiseguys.com/ facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.facebook.com/moneywiseguys/ LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneywise-wealth-management-bakersfield/ Guests: Sarah Flippin & Kearstyn Shaw, Owners of Cherry Acres website: https://www.cherry-acres.com/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Sarah Flippin, Kearstyn Shaw & Cherry Acres are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management

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  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths building in downtown Bakersfield.

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  Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

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  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show. Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you are on News Talk 96.1 and 1230 AM, KERN, streaming live at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, our hosts, I'm Sammy Abiawi with

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  Frank Lee.

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  Frank, welcome.

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  Welcome.

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  Happy Monday.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Happy Monday, Sammy. It's good to see you.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, same here, man. Same here.

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  And Steven.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Oh, hi. I'm over here.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Hey, hey, hey, Steven.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Good to see you guys, too.

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  Hey, Steven, what did the Dolphins do this past weekend?

• 1:17Speaker 01

  They played some football.

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  Did they win or?

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

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  Same, same story?

• 1:22Speaker 02

  I like your answer to that.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  We played some good football, though. Better football. I think that would be the correct way to say it. But we're getting there.

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  I love your attitude.

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  Baby steps.

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  I just love.

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  It's gonna be a long season, but, uh, yeah.

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  I love you.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  We only lost by seven.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Long season is probably a, uh, a good statement.

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  Yeah, I'm just looking forward to next season, when we have some money to buy some players.

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  Just for our listeners, Steven is an avid Dolphins supporter, wears hats and T-shirts. Regardless what the Dolphins do, you will never see me doing that with the Steelers.

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  And they won.

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  And they won, and I'm still.

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  And you're like, I don't care.

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  No, I mean, I just, just, just, whoever is at the helm right now between coach and quarterback, I'm not, man.

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  Win, lose, or tie, fins up till I die.

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  And good for you, man. Good for you.

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  That's what makes him a fan.

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  He is. He's a fan. I'm not. I guess I'm not a fan.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  It'll just make it that much better whenever and however it happens.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Frank, how was the market doing today?

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  Yeah, a little bit unchanged. There, there's some red in the mixture. Dow Jones up about 32 basis points, S and P down about 16, Nasdaq down about 50, and Russell 2K down about 38. So, a little bit of red, but a little change. Yeah, so not, not too bad.

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  Yeah?

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  Yeah, yeah.

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  And how was, how are the oil prices today?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  I think it was a little bit above 100. Diesel is still above $7. That's, to me, that's the, the worry, just because diesel prices typically translate into impact on our, on us consumers 60, 90 days down the line. There are some talk about, you know, prices potentially changing and some relief coming after the election. I'm not a, I don't, I don't believe that, Frank. I, I don't think that's gonna happen. And I'll tell you why. I mean, just, I mean, my humble opinion, I'm just a resident here in Kern County, far away from all the conflicts in the Middle East between Iran, Israel, and the United States, and now the conflict between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which affects the other

• 3:36Speaker 00

  choke point in the Middle East. So, for our listeners, there are two. The Hormuz, which is Iran, between Iran and Oman, that's about 20, a very, very, very small stretch of water where 20% of the world's oil, crude, pass through. And then the other one is Bab al-Mandeb, which is between Eritrea and Yemen. And that one now is under control. From the Yemeni side, it's under control, and Yemen now has been hitting the Riyadh airport with missiles. So, there's a war brewing. It might be a larger conflict. That's what puts me at

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  pause when I hear there's relief coming after the election. Election is, what, three weeks ago? Or three weeks ahead?

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  Yeah.

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  How?

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I, I think a lot of this, there's been a lot of understatement going on, even in the start of all this, where talks were about just for a few weeks, and now we're several months in.

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  Yes.

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  Into, into the war, so.

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  And all of a sudden, when we cast our, you know, votes and we sent our ballot.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, all of a sudden.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Yes. Now, we, we did reach an agreement with Russia.

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  That's right.

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  We lifted the sanctions on, specifically on diesel, you know, to, and, and, I don't know, there's some silver lining there for me is the fact that now that we lifted those sanctions on Russia, and we're buying fuel from them in the form of diesel from them, but they are exchanging with us in dollars, that's kind of like, I think, hampering some of the Chinese plans to stop the usage of dollars in international trade. But I don't know. It might have an impact, positive impact on the dollar. It might not. For the time being, we are short a bunch of, of diesel, and we're trying to find ways how to bring

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  as much as possible within the country, because eventually we're in holiday season. We'll talk about this later on the show, Halloween, then, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas. I think if there's nothing, if nothing changes, or if things don't change, definitely, prices will be affected.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think.

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  And spending, for that matter.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Right. And I think we touched on this a little bit last week, but the, the news with Russia and US making a deal to immediately supply, I think it was over 300 tons of diesel, and maybe more, potentially more after that, sent some news to the, the stock market in terms of like, what they're expect, expecting from all this. But, no, it makes sense with all the conflict going on.

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  Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, again, I'm not an expert. I'm not a geopolitical expert. I'm just seeing two conflicts going on at the same time of two choke, choke points in the Middle East where a bunch of oil travels. I'm not seeing unless something big changes or something happens. So, we do have some listener questions, and please do keep those coming. That's, that's what makes the show great. And the first one is just a, I guess a thank you or comment. You guys mentioned borrowing from 401K. Is there ever a situation where that actually makes sense? Or should you pretty much avoid touching retirement money no matter what?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

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  Very good question.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes. And then we, we do get this a lot in the education meetings that we do for 401Ks and everything. I, I think at the end of the day, when you want to ask yourself a question, you know, ask it, it's like, is this absolutely necessary? If you're in a position where you don't have anything else to get you by for the month, like paying the rent, or, or groceries, or fixing the car to get you from A to B, then it, it sort of makes sense. This, you want to think of borrowing money from your 401K as the last resort in terms of anything, because it's not just the repaying back the loan, but

• 7:41Speaker 02

  you're missing out on potentially good days in the market by touching that money.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  That's a very good point.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Right. So, I, I gave this example.

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  Don't let the short-term, you know, duress affect your long-term goal, is what I'm hearing you say.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Man, that was, that was like a drop of the mic type of thing.

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  He's proud of that one. It's like, I just thought that.

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  I've thought about it all morning.

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  Off, off the top of his dome.

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  When Sammy's on fire, man, he is on fire.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see that? Just straight on top from the dome, just boom.

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  I'm surprised he didn't drop the mic and just walk out.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, right? He's like, all right, Frank, you're on your own.

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  We have guests today. I need to be here.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But it's, it's, again, if it's the, the last thing you need, and you have nothing else, then yes, it makes sense. There's loans and there's, you know, hardship withdrawals. Because one of the, one of the examples I give is that if you're missing out the market, if you miss five of the best days in the markets, you potentially cut your gains from about 40 to 45%. So, down half, you know.

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  Just five days.

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  Just by, just by missing five of the best days in the market.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that was a research by.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  There you have it, folks. I mean, last resort type of, type of thing. To me, as an ex-banker, I mean, if you're under duress, but you do have a job, maybe think about other avenues to fill in the gap. Maybe use a credit card, but then pay it off when, when the income comes in, or maybe refinance, or maybe go and get a personal loan from a credit union with a lower interest rate, with some type of a payment plan. That's where you know exactly that it's not a revolving debt, where it's always there on the credit card and you're only paying interest. Having some type of a term loan where you know that the principal and interest are being paid and you have an exit from that loan. Yeah,

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  we all, I mean, people do face these, these situations, Frank. I mean, the average American family does not have a $400 surprise type of bill. So, these things happen. And thanks for the listener for sending this, this, this question. We have another comment here. "Thank you for breaking down the reasons why I shouldn't be paying employees through Zelle or Cash App. I met with my new CPA last week, and he repeated pretty much everything you said. And I told him, yeah, Money Wise said the same thing. And he had me send him your podcast. LOL."

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Hey, there we go.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Well, thanks for the support there. Thank you. Yeah, that's, that's what makes the show unique and, and great, is the, is you guys' involvement, listeners' involvement, questions. So, please keep those coming.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And send me another one for, for sharing our podcast. I might just have a Money Wise shirt for you.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Hey, there we go.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Nice little swag.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  There you go. There you go.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  You gotta walk to talk, too.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  That's right. That's right. That's right. That's one of our values, walk, you talk.

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  And the, the, the last one before we go on a break is, I'm with you guys. I don't believe any of these lower prices, listeners talking about gas prices. Me personally, I think these prices are going to be the new normal. I just hope we can find ways to help people survive this economy. We need a lot of relief. Sorry, Steve, my Bengals beat your team, but had me nervous. They had it close.

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  There you go.

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  Yeah, Steven is shaking his head. I mean, he knows. He knows what's up.

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  At least he apologized.

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  Right.

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  You could help me pay this Sunday ticket bill. Owing to five is hurting.

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  Yeah, that, that's, that's, that's awesome. The season is in full swing, and this London game, Steven, the players are having a lot of fun.

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  You see the celebration this past weekend?

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  Oh, yes.

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  The Rooney celebration, the, the, a bunch of.

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  The plan is for the NFL to expand and they want two teams out there. And, I mean, we, we, I've seen the NFL try to do this back in the day. But I, I think if they can find the money, they'll find it.

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  I was watching these, uh, the, the, the biggest game of the week was between, um, Man City and Liverpool. And some people on this, in the stands were wearing, uh, NFL gear.

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  You've seen that a lot more.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Seen that on the other side, too. You're seeing, you know, at football games. I'm seeing new soccer jerseys. I'm like, alright.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  That's great. That's awesome. I love it.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  When, when are they gonna collab? You know it's coming.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, how, how would that work? That would be interesting.

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  That would be, that'd be very interesting.

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  Tackles involved?

• 12:19Speaker 01

  That would be funny.

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  We'll take our first break. When we come back, there's a lot more to talk about. We'll be right back.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sammy Abia with Frank Lee. Some great music coming from that part of the world where oil prices are very, very expensive. They still have time to sing. Come up with good songs.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  It's a nice beat. It's a nice beat. I like it.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Uh, so we, we're about to start the season. I mean, October marks the season, the holiday season start. That's where you go to Costco and you see the, the, the, all the designs or.

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  Yeah, the decorations.

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  Decorations for either Halloween or Thanksgiving or eventually, uh, Christmas, right?

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  Yeah.

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  And, and, and, but now there's, there's, like, we're, we're prepping for the show and we see this little thing called tariff refunds.

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  Yeah.

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  Right?

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  Yeah.

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  And price war going on between Target, Walmart, Amazon. So you, you, you started talking about these refunds going to Walmart. What's that number, Frank?

• 13:31Speaker 02

  That was insane. Uh, well, a little bit of, uh, context here. So what Sammy's talking about is that, uh, some of the major retail stores, uh, including Walmart, Target and many other stores, we'll, we'll name them, uh, later, but there was a, um, government, federal government's, uh, tariff refund, uh, awarded to these companies, uh, in the midst of the, uh, what they call illegal tariff, um, spike.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  So Walmart, Walmart, I think the biggest of them all, received about $2.9 billion in government tariff.

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  So let me, let me just understand this. So we've put tariffs on a bunch of things coming into this country.

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  Yeah.

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  Right?

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Those tariffs made our prices go up.

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  Yeah.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Right? Is that, follow me here. But Walmart gets the refund.

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  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  Now, not just Walmart. Walmart got $2.9 billion in, in tariff refund.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

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  Target, $994 million. Home Depot, $730 million.

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  Yes.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Lowe's, $80 million or so. And Amazon was not this close. So I've asked our friend Claude, the AI, hey, estimate that based on Amazon sales. And it's about $1 billion. It was not disclosed for Amazon, but you can do a, what is it? An educated guess here? $1 billion. Now, what does that mean for us, Frank? Are we getting, are we, are we getting a break here at the, at these stores? Are we getting discounts? Are we getting cash back from them?

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Oh, I would love that, especially with how much we spent on Amazon the past few days. It's like, you know, I would like my little refund, but no. No, Sammy, we are not. We are not expecting any type of rebates or refunds from these major corporations.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  But are they using it to cut prices is the big question I have.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  I think we're seeing a lot of that, especially in, in the, in the topic that we're going into with Target, between Target and Walmart, uh, in terms of the, the price cuts and everything.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  I think when we read the headline news saying that, seeing that Target and Walmart are cutting prices in lieu of this refund that they receive, which seems.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  A little bit misleading, it sounds like.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  A little misleading, yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Because I didn't see any news about this refunds. I didn't like, like no major news outlet. I, at least, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I haven't heard it.

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  Yeah, yeah, especially for.

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  I'm prepping for the show.

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  Yeah.

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  And this came up.

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  Yeah.

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  So, I mean, good for us if it translates into some lower prices.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe, maybe not. I, I, I think it all depends, right? If, if you're really looking at the, the price tags and what it is that they're, you know, uh, uh, putting discounts on, it, it's limited selections.

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  Correct.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Like clothes, uh, perils and home goods, but none of their other major stuffs like electronics and groceries. I, I think that's the misleading part.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  The groceries is, yeah. So, so Walmart defined the plan and that's basically price cuts made mainly on groceries and general merchandise, I guess is what they are saying their plan is. Target does not have a plan. They don't, they have not talked about a plan. Home Depot is saying that they're gonna cover for the fuel surcharges that they're experiencing right now. And uncover for other energy surcharges that are happening. Lowe's, same thing. And of course, Amazon, it's unclear.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

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  Unclear on what they're gonna do with the $1 billion potential. I'm not, I'm, I'm guessing here. $1 billion in, in, in refunds.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

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  This is insane.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  It is, it is.

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  I mean, these are huge numbers.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Cause if you think about it, if there's no, if there's no type of refund going to the consumers, you know, who's really suffering here, right? The consumers. Cause during this whole time, all of these major corporations have adjusted for inflation. They've.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  They've raised their prices. They've, they've kept their margins, cause that's the goal of these companies, keep those profit margins.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  So let's, let's, let's talk about margins here, because a lot of the time, so if you go and you buy this gallon of milk for that same, not, not, not, gallon of milk is not a good, is not a good example. Something that's coming from overseas. But you go and you say, okay, the price did not go up by that much. Right? They say, oh no, Walmart kept its prices. But I can assure you, they cut expenses somewhere else. Either a job was lost. Right? So for them to keep those margins, because those margins are what affect their stock price.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Is that correct?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Exactly. Shareholders, it's expectation.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, very, very, uh, I mean, I was very surprised here, but let's talk about the war now. At the, at the start of every season, there is, you start, you, uh, seeing ads, more ads, Walmart, Amazon, um,

• 18:42Speaker 00

  who else? Target.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  And you, you see this, hey, this one is $1 more here, this one is $1 less. So they just want you to come into the store. Because once you're into the store, then most likely you're gonna do most of your shopping in that store. A lot of people don't do store hopping anymore. Right? You wanna go into one store and do most of your shopping. A lot of it, sometimes it's online even.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

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  I was very pleased this weekend because a lot of these new stores opened in the Southwest. The Home Goods and, I look at there's, there was a bunch of traffic in that area. It was really actually good to see that brick and mortar is attracting traffic.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  People are not just sitting, sitting in their homes, clicking for purchases, which was really cool to see.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I, I think, I, I don't know. I, I'm always big on like going into the store and trying on the clothes and then, and then buying. I was never like buy and then return. I don't know. It's like, yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Me neither. I want, I wanna go and try things and see if they fit, see the color, touch it. And also give a chance to somebody that's working at that store to actually make a living as well.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Versus just sitting on my couch.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  You know, watching a losing team, doing its thing.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  You know, zing, zing over there, but Steven is not even paying attention to me. It's, it's got so old for him that he's like, he's like, ah, whatever you say does not hurt my feelings anymore. My skin is thick.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. It, it's gonna be interesting with, uh, uh, with these price cuts between Target and, and Walmart. I know there's, there's probably more of a strategic play here, uh, between the two. But sometimes, sometimes we, we see this a lot in, in economics as far as like price cuts.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  I'll make you a bet. I'll make you a bet. Take a look, the five top executives on each one, take a look at their pay now and take a look at their pay at the end of the year. And come back and tell me if these billions of dollars translated in, in higher pay for the executives.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  So I bet you five bucks.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  Okay? You wanna take the bet?

• 20:42Speaker 02

  No, cause I know it's. I'm not gonna lose $5.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Uh, we'll take our second break. When we come back, we have some really cool guests to introduce. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  The kink is on. Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sammy Abia with Frank Lee. We're joined here with Sarah Flippin and Kirsten Shaw, owners of Cherry Acres. What a fun time to be in.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Thank you for having us.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, welcome to the show. So you guys own Cherry Acres, which is a pumpkin patch? But it's more than a pumpkin patch, I'm hearing. Frank was there, I think, last year with his one-year-old baby. So you guys, when did you guys start this?

• 21:31Speaker 03

  We started in 2022.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Okay, and what prompted this?

• 21:35Speaker 03

  I'm stir crazy, COVID happened, YouTube-ing. I was a financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  Oh, you were?

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Yep, and so COVID hit and we spent a lot of time at home. And yeah, and then I had my third baby and I'm like, what else is gonna make me happy? So yeah, I made the jump and asked them if they want to sell pumpkins.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a big shift from financial advising at Northwestern and then to this.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  So you guys are friends before this?

• 22:11Speaker 03

  In the same group of friends, yeah, more acquaintances and yeah. And we had like one afternoon, we were all cackling, having fun. And I'm like, I like them. I really like them. And they were go-getters. And I'm like, I need help. So we had, you know, I have three kids, she has two. And I'm like, you want to, you want to do a pumpkin patch? She looked, she thought I was crazy.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, she messaged me on Instagram. She's like, hey, what do you guys think about doing a pumpkin patch? I'm like, in my backyard? Like, where are we doing this? And my husband had some property and so we, we did it. We threw everything together within two weeks and started the business, yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  So cost-wise, for people listening, I mean, this is idea now execution. Cost-wise, what was that? What was that?

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh. Well, I scored because her husband has an equipment rental business.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  So we had the tractors already locked down. He had the property. And I had no plan, I had no idea he did any of that. I just, and he's a diesel mechanic. So he knows how to fix everything. So yeah, and he's, he has big imagination. And I'm like, okay, this guy, he is in. I hit the jackpot.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  That's awesome. That's awesome. So you have an admission fee?

• 23:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  For, and how much is that?

• 23:28Speaker 04

  It's $5, Monday through Thursday. And then on the weekends, we have changed it to $7. But it's also including our wagon ride.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Where previously that was a separate ticketed event.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  What other activities do you have besides the wagon? Steven was telling me there's donkeys, there's goats, there's, what else?

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Sammy, you can do yoga with these goats.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  Yes. Goat yoga is a big hit. Our biggest attraction this year has been the zombie paintball. It's brand new. My husband, he turned two school buses into zombie paintball buses. So he's mounted a whole bunch of paintball guns and he made a zombie land. And we have live zombies on the weekend that you can shoot at. During the week, we're gonna open it up at a discounted price because there won't be live zombies. But everyone has enjoyed that so far this season. It's been great.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  That's awesome. Yeah. Where's, where are you guys located exactly?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  We're in Northwest Bakersfield, 411 Wegeus.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, right off of Wegeus and Hagman.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Okay. Has the growth been good since you guys started?

• 24:34Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh, yeah. The first year blew us away and we're like, oh, yeah, okay, we're back in for the second year. Because we didn't really have a long-term plan. We were like, you want to do it this year and see? And we, we all really clicked together and we all have different good qualities. And yeah, we, every year just grows.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  So how do you go from someone that works in a, a job that's year-round to managing a company that's only seasonal, especially for Halloween? Because we talked about this a little bit. Halloween is a big month for consumers and the start of a...

• 25:09Speaker 00

  $13.5 billion industry.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Halloween month, yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  And we, yep. We've noticed.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  We've noticed.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  So you guys are, do you work Halloween? Do you go beyond that, all the way to Christmas?

• 25:22Speaker 03

  No, we try to do like one weekend and Christmas, but for the most part, it's just October. And then Halloween Day, we spend the time with our family.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, nice.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Oh, so you guys like are trick-or-treating with your kids?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, by midnight on the 30th, we're done. You won't see us anywhere.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  So what happens between that time when you guys are finished for Halloween and the next year? Is the planning starts like the day after? How does that work?

• 25:49Speaker 03

  No, we kind of kick the can down the road. Come January, then I'm stir crazy again. And then we have to start planting in June. And really, like, May, April, we, we need to start working the property because like weeds and planting pumpkins. We have sunflowers, we have corn.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  You plant your own pumpkins?

• 26:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And which that was a whole nother thing. We weren't farmers before. So we're like, okay, we got to figure out how to farm very quickly.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's cool. It sounds really fun. I mean, I haven't been out. My kid is turning 14.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  I'm sure he's gonna love this whole paintball bus thing.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, he still wants to go and buy a pumpkin and carve it. He's, like he said, that's tradition, our tradition, so.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  That's what I was telling you, Sammy. This Cherry Acres is for all ages. There are sections for grownups, there's sections for the younger ones.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Uh huh, yeah. Nice, yes, I'm definitely gonna go check it out.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  And they do a drive-in movie, which was my go-getter. It was like, oh, man. I was always telling my son, oh, we used to grow up going to the Crest Drive-In and blah blah. He's like, what is a drive-in?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 26:53Speaker 04

  We just had one on this weekend and it was packed, like the whole, we have like a really, really big parking lot. But we cut off half for the drive-in movie. But because we've become so popular and we're doing the zombie paintball in the evenings, plus our scary maze, there were people parking all along the sides of the road. There was traffic. It was a crazy but exciting and fun night.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  That's awesome. That's awesome.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Got a message that came through. So it says, oh, I didn't know that they were still doing the pumpkin patch. Did they move? Thank you. We have been looking for something to do with the kiddos.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, we did move from our first location. So the first one was, her husband, Casey Shaw, had his platinum rentals off of Cherry Avenue. That's where our name came from, Cherry Acres.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  And then we had to move, and then we ended up purchasing our property and now we'll be there forever.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  Oh, good for you. That's awesome. Congratulations. On, just a business question with these diesel prices, are they affecting you? We've been talking about diesel prices on the show, being at almost near $8. Does that affect you guys at all with your pricing, your prices?

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh, that's really a Casey question. He just, he sends me the bill at the end of the year. And then, you know, I cry and...

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Goat yoga. So tell us about that. What, how is that?

• 28:15Speaker 02

  You've never tried it?

• 28:16Speaker 00

  No, are these this baby goats?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Oh, they're baby goats, yeah. And then we invite Golden Meadow goats. She's a nonprofit and she always has babies. So she, she comes with the new babies. You get to bottle-feed them and snuggle them for, you know, like the first 20 minutes and then...

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Maybe not the zombie, but for me, the baby goats would be.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  And then we have paint nights, we have toddler time, we have different painting, like pumpkins and different. We have a whole list of events this year.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's awesome. I'm looking at you guys' website and it's really nice. All the activities laid out and the paintball zombie. I was like, I saw that, I was like, wow.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  I want to shoot some paintballs.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  And then our scary maze, we invite all the kids to come scare and they really enjoy that. They'll get volunteer hours through whatever group they're a part of, yeah. Which is nice. They really look forward to it.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had a quick question because I saw your guys' patch passport. Could you expand on that for a little bit?

• 29:14Speaker 03

  Well, we do, we just launched that new website.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, we had a week and a half ago. It's brand new.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, Caleb Designs, he does all our website stuff and he's been amazing. He set it all up and he's been sending us pictures like, oh, people are using the passport now. Yeah, he's incredible.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I think that from my understanding, you click on it and then it comes with a photo frame where you can take a photo with your family at each different thing around the pumpkin patch. And then you kind of collect.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. Well, thank you guys very, very much. I wish you nothing but the best. This sounds like an amazing place and I would love to go and visit, which I will, hopefully this weekend maybe. What's, what's, what, what else can we say to our listeners?

• 30:02Speaker 04

  Come hungry and come thirsty. We have a bar. We have lots of good food.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Yes, let's talk about the bar, yes.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  Next time, lead with the bar.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Yes, we have, it's Chewy's and Boozy Mama's. They, they serve alcohol there. We also have a concession stand and then Sarah has her sweet spot. So she's doing lemonades and sweet things. So we have lots of different food options, snacks, all the things. You guys can come hungry.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Local vendors.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Your sweet spot was at the, oh my God, I'm blanking here.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Is it a cookie thing or?

• 30:35Speaker 03

  No, it's something I threw together like two weeks prior to opening.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Never mind, I'm mixing that up with something else.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  I've also heard about the food. The food is really good. And I heard it in Amanda's podcast that one of your moms?

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that's, yeah, her mother-in-law. She's incredible. She makes the best hamburgers.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Yes, the cheeseburgers are to die for.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  There we go.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  Well, hey, there's always a reason for me to say yes. Yes, the little goats and the burgers. Well, thank you guys very, very much for coming in today. Sarah Flippin and Kirsten Shaw, owners of Cherry Acres. Go visit. Come hungry, come thirsty, right? Thank you, guys. We'll be right back. We'll take another break.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sammy Abia with Frank Lee. What a great and fun activity to do and business to own.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  Put smiles on kids.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Exactly. Exactly, right?

• 31:38Speaker 00

  And drink. And adults. I mean, if you're gonna get adults drunk and with a burger, that's fun, too.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  I mean, you're hitting both groups.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  I don't know about you, Frank, but I'm not a big fan of these patches or things, like personally. Mary Ann was always the one taking Gabe.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 00

  I don't like crowd. I don't like dust.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It can get a little dusty, especially if you go in the busy, busy times.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  But if you can, I mean, answer to those and find a solution which these ladies seem like they have, that's awesome.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  It's such a cool, like, entrepreneur type.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Plan together and just rolling with it.

• 32:15Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I heard Sarah's story about how she was an advisor before and then switched and started to do this full-time. I was like, that's, that's amazing.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  So, so the patch that's on coffee and Brimhall, right behind the gas station?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Is that the one by Frugati's?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I was asking the same thing. I thought it was the same people.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Correct, me too. But, but that one also was started by a professional.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Really?

• 32:40Speaker 00

  I think it was a CPA that started that.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  And he, he started with like selling some trees. I think if it's the same person still, they started selling trees, Christmas trees.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  And then eventually he moved it to Thanksgiving.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  You would think that'd be a type of a money pit.

• 32:55Speaker 00

  It's not.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  But I've, I've heard, you know, there's

• 32:57Speaker 00

  So.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand just for that week or two.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  What?

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, the Christmas, the Christmas trees, I think, was a net profit of about, just, just that month, sixty, seventy thousand dollars. This is fifteen years ago.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Of the operator I knew operated that.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, when you, when you mentioned that in the beginning of the show, I didn't even realize how big of a consumer spending went into Halloween, you know, or the month of October. Thirteen point one billion last year and expected, what, thirteen?

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Point five.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Point five this year?

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, with four point four of that going just to costumes.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  That's insane.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  About four billion, another four billion dollars going to candy.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Back in my day, you know, forty dollars would get us a Halloween costume. Now it's like eighty-five to a hundred for a cheap one.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, that's the kids. I mean, go and look at the adult costumes. Hundred fifty, two hundred dollars.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  My son came home on the weekend and said he wanted to be a cowboy.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Macy's, whatever, suit.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  That's why, that's why I got my 3D printer. I'm gonna start printing my own suits.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Genius.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  There you go. There you go. What else do you print there, Frank?

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Just that. Nothing else.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  No, I, I printed some office supply things, like a little backpack holder off the table. That was pretty nice, yeah. An iPad holder.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  I had a friend of mine back in the day that had five of those and I'm like, what are you printing with five of these? Like, don't worry about it, Sammy.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Don't worry about it.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Don't talk to the girl in the corner.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's amazing how much money is spent in that, in that month. And now, again, with the start of the season, we got this war, price war going on between Walmart and Target.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  And, and the seasons, it seems like the season, the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier every year.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  You, yeah, you talked about it, about going to Costco and everything. It's like, as soon as October hits, like, I feel like-

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Sometimes in August, you see these Christmas things at Costco.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Why? Like, what, what happens?

• 34:50Speaker 00

  Because they wanna capture the early buyers because they wanna make you feel like you're getting a deal on something.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  And, and I was asking myself, well, a price, a war is going on. How can I profit from this? You know?

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  Like, I'm talking about Walmart and Target, nothing else.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, not the, not the other war.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so, so I've asked myself, how can a consumer take advantage of this? Right? And, and I think there are ways of taking advantage of this. If you're a Target shopper or Walmart shopper, well, these two have some, some type of a price match guarantee. So if you're going to buy something, do a little bit of research on your phone. You have your phone. You have probably unlimited data. Take a look at that item and see where else that item is being sold and see if you can get a discount. And you don't have to drive. You just show that to the desk, whatever the consumer information desk, whatever they have.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  And they'll give you a price match for that.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Sometimes the price at the shelf and the price online are sometimes different with cheaper online version. But again, if you don't ask, you don't, you don't get that.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that's, that's the real leverage right here. It's like, these, these companies will do what they need to do to make that sale at the end of the day. So don't be afraid to ask and be like, hey, look, like, you know, I noticed the same product being offered cheaper.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  You know?

• 36:11Speaker 00

  And the other thing, too, is if you have a list, stick to that list. Sometimes we see prices that are appealing and you buy an item and you just stick it in one of the closets at home and you really don't need it. Right? And so create the list, have your list and stick to, stick to that list. Um, and, and with the list, come up with some type of a budget. And hopefully, hopefully, we've been preaching this since the beginning of the year.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  You put some type of, like, a dollar amount on the side every month for just Christmas shopping because it does break the bank. A lot of people wanna make their kids happy. I understand that. So hopefully people have been saving for Christmas, for Halloween. Always, always really, really good to put some type of a savings account and put things away or some dollars away every month in order for you to pay for these things without breaking the bank or without using your credit cards and pay twenty-one percent interest.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, that just reminded me of this new app that I saw. Uh, I can't remember the name of it. But it, it basically like-

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Who's the old guy now?

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, right?

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. I know.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  But it's like, um, it, it's a grocery budget app.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  It's talking about MySpace.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  What's, what's MySpace?

• 37:31Speaker 02

  No, but it's cool because you can say like, uh, I wanna make lasagna or something, whatever. You, you put it in and then you, you list the ingredients that you have already. And then it goes through the, the system and the databases from all these different, uh, retail stores. Costco, Targets, Walmart, Sprouts, anything and everything that sells these ingredients. And, uh, based on the missing ingredients that you have, it'll say that, oh, you know, Costco actually has the lowest price for the, this amount of list of items. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right? So you're like, you don't have to go to the, the store that you think you need to go to. It's like, if you use this app, it'll tell you.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  It's like that, uh, Gas Bu- Gas Buddy.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Thing that we use for gas stations. Seems like very similar, but now for a bunch of, bunch of items at, at, uh, different stores. You've, uh, you've, uh, mentioned Costco, uh, and, and this weekend, Stephen, I went to Costco website and I bought those, uh, dried or, or foods that come in a bucket in case of emergency.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Okay, you, we were talking about that last week.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Correct. So I went, I went ahead and I pulled, pulled, pulled the trigger and I got a couple of those, a couple of those buckets just because, did you see what's going on in Orange County and Newport Beach? With-

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Buying everything up?

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I mean, I don't wanna be a hoarder, but these things can last forever. And I think in a state like ours, I, I find it was like, you know what? It makes sense for, for me to have some type of an emergency food stock. And these things, like I said, they're, they're protected, they're in a bucket, you know? Sher- Sher even eats them from time to time.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Sher was saying he doesn't let it run out.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  They'll have like family night where they eat these canned foods that, so they don't run out. I get it. I've seen those actually at Costco.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  And they're kind of boxed up like the end of the world.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Good, that's correct. That's correct. So, so to me, I mean, I'm, I, I pulled the trigger, just, uh, I'm not saying, hey, we need to do this. But we live in a state where we have earthquakes and now we have this thing with, uh, what is it called? El Nino or El Super Nino this year.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. You see, you see all the, the news and videos of like San Diego, even Las Vegas. Las Vegas is flooded, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, we were expecting some rain here, but I, I don't think it's, it's, it's happening on the forecast, so. So good stuff. Very good stuff. Very good, uh, very good guest today, Stephen. Thank you very much. Uh.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  You know, I, I, I took Theo, before we get off air, I took Theo to Costco. This just reminded me, uh, for his first time last weekend. And he was just like, cuz he saw all the decorations. He's just like, every aisle is like, wow.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Wow. Wow.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Are we?

• 40:24Speaker 01

  That sounds like me and Sammy anyway.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  That's right. That's right.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  But like, I'm worried when, when he gets to the point where he's like, I want that, you know?

• 40:30Speaker 00

  We don't have a show tomorrow. We're doing our best of, uh, tomorrow, Stephen. Is that correct? We're back here on Wednesday. Who's, who do we have on Wednesday?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  We have Steve Murray along with, uh, Sher and Seth. But until then, be smart, be safe.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Be money wise.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.