Episode 11: Financial Planning's Black Friday: Are There Deals?

Black Friday isn’t just a retail circus. It’s a masterclass in consumer psychology—and a perfect window into how people think about value. In this episode of The Financial Huddle, Ed, Ryan, and Brian break down the real lessons hidden inside the biggest shopping event of the year and translate them directly into smart financial strategy.

They open with the cultural shift around Black Friday, the rise of online shopping (nearly $11 billion in U.S. online sales last year alone), the explosive growth of the Cyber Five, and how Americans now average roughly $650 in Black Friday spending. From chaotic door busters to mobile-driven purchases, the trio explores the behavioral trends that drive this annual frenzy.

Instead of chasing retail “deals,” the hosts highlight the actual financial bargains most people overlook:

• Taxes at historic lows and why after-tax contributions to Roth IRAs, Roth 401(k)s, and Roth 403(b)s may be one of the best long-term opportunities available today.

• Roth conversions as a strategic move to eliminate future tax risk and avoid painful RMDs.

• Triple-benefit strategies including HSAs and properly structured cash-value life insurance.

• The overlooked “BOGO” of finance: employer 401(k)/403(b) matches—free money most workers never fully capture.

• The real Black Friday of investing: buying during market downturns, staying invested, and avoiding the catastrophic mistake of missing the market’s biggest recovery days.

• Dollar-cost averaging as the long-term antidote to emotional decision-making.

The episode closes by reframing the season: instead of focusing solely on spending, this is the moment to reassess savings habits, tax planning, employer benefits, and investment opportunities. The message is simple: don’t leave money—or long-term upside—on the table.

Clear, grounded, and packed with straightforward strategies, this episode helps listeners translate Black Friday psychology into smarter financial decisions all year long.

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Disclosure: Information contained in this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only, and should not be considered as financial advice. Financial Planning and Advisory Services are offered through Prosperity Capital Advisors (“PCA”), an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Keystone Financial Group and PCA are separate, non- affiliated entities. PCA does not provide tax or legal advice.

Transcript

Announcer: 0:00

The financial huddle does not provide tax, legal, financial, or other professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with their own advisors in these areas. All right, everybody, huddle up.

Brian Minier: 0:08

Play calls in. This is the Financial Huddle. Ready.

Ed Beemiller: 0:14

Welcome back, Huddler Nation, to our next episode of the Financial Huddle Podcast. As usual, I'm joined by my partners in crime, Mr. Ryan Fleming. Everybody. Hello. And Mr. Brian Baner. Howdy, howdy.

Ryan Fleming: 0:27

Thanks for joining us.

Ed Beemiller: 0:28

Yes. Well, I just have each of us take a deep breath because we are about to move head forward straight on into the holiday season here. Oh boy. To uh what what I say is is probably the busiest day of the year, at least for retailers, Black Friday.

Ryan Fleming: 0:47

Oh boy. Here we go.

Ed Beemiller: 0:49

And that is the official kickoff of the I'd call it more the Christmas holiday season, although you know, holiday season tends to be, you know, we forget about Halloween and Thanksgiving nowadays. I mean, I'm I'm seeing Christmas ads the beginning of October. So I I think the holiday season is officially Christmas. And uh, you know, we talk about Black Friday, and uh, you know, everybody has uh, I want to say memories or you know, maybe uh family traditions, and uh some of them are older, some of them are newer, but it seems like everything's gotten moved up nowadays. You know, like I said, it's it's not, you know, hey, let's have the Halloween holiday, let's take some time, let's then do the Thanksgiving.

Ryan Fleming: 1:31

The beginning of Christmas songs. Is that is that November 1st? Is it before Thanksgiving? What is it?

Ed Beemiller: 1:36

Well, yeah, yeah, there's a certain radio station here in town that uh I believe um I don't know if it's the beginning of November or right around Thanksgiving, that literally starts playing 24-7 through the Christmas holiday. All they do is play Christmas songs 24-7. So uh we we actually even got um our lights put up um here. We we got a discount if we had the lights put up uh before Halloween. You're so our Christmas lights on the house are already up. Oh my goodness. Um but we all have black Black Friday uh stories, so what what why don't you guys throw in your your two cents on uh on what Black Friday happens in your household?

Ryan Fleming: 2:18

I mean, well, early on I we didn't have any money to go to Black Friday shopping, but uh um I one of the things that I remember is that we would go over to my wife's in-laws every single year for Thanksgiving, and invariably after we'd all stuff our face with you know turkey and s and and stuffing and pie and everything, but the women would shuffle off to the corner of the uh room and a big round table and and out pop the ads. And uh the guys just looked at each other and said, Well, I think we got a couple hours to ourselves because they uh they dove through those ads like animals, cutting out everything, planning out their next day. And you know, that's that's what I remember. It just allowed me to go lay on the couch and watch some more football.

Ed Beemiller: 2:58

There you go. Do you partake in Black Friday? Well, I I do not partake in Black Friday. I uh I've never done it.

Ryan Fleming: 3:04

I've never done it.

Ed Beemiller: 3:06

Well, what's also come about is you know, internet shopping. So you you get these Cyber Monday Black Friday deals. You don't even have to leave your home anymore, but my my sister-in-law, our whole family gets together at either our house or my my brother's and sister-in-law's homes, you know, on Thanksgiving. And several years ago, she literally started going out. She would go out at about 11 p.m., closer to midnight, because there were stores opening like Walmart, not a lot of the retail, but the big chain retailers were literally opening up and they had these, you know, 36-inch TVs, you know, that were $100 off, and like people would, you know, get in line of 50 people grabbing, you know, trying to get a hundred dollars off on a TV, you know. Yeah. I I I said, hey, you want to go, go ahead. I I said, you know, I I got that tryptophine from my turkey and I'm I'm just laying there about ready to take a nap.

Brian Minier: 4:04

That's right. Well about you being here's my Black Friday tradition. Ryan, what is what is the Monday after Thanksgiving known for? Cyber Monday. Well, there's something else that it's known for. Tell me. It's the first day of gun season for deer.

Ryan Fleming: 4:16

Oh, you're going down that road.

Brian Minier: 4:17

So Friday, my Black Friday is to go in and sight in my gun so that I'm ready for Monday. So my son Daniel Boone. Well, my son's home from college. Love it. Him and I go to the range, and that's what we do on Black Friday.

Ed Beemiller: 4:30

Oh, there you go.

Brian Minier: 4:31

There you go. I love that.

Ed Beemiller: 4:32

You know, with with shopping madness, you know, I I kind of call the whole Black Friday season. It's the greatest marketing and advertising campaign that was ever created, I think, by retailers. Um but Ryan, I think uh you know what time it is.

Ryan Fleming: 4:48

Let's hear it. It's stat time. It's that time, ladies and gentlemen. So, you know, we always like to put a little uh stat and uh analytical data in front of our listeners. So uh I was tasked with that this week. I mean, this is insane. Obviously, uh Ed, you're right. I mean, this is a massive, massive consumer event in our culture. Um, you know, just consumer behavior just is super erratic. But let's listen to some of this stuff. So last year, just online sales alone in the U.S. on Black Friday reached almost $11 billion. Um that was up over 10% from 2023. Who knows what it's gonna be this year? We're gonna find out. I have a feeling it might be up. Um, you know, there's this there's something that they call the cycle, or the excuse me, the cyber five. The cyber five. You guys know what that is? The cyber five is the period from Thanksgiving all the way through Cyber Monday. They call that the Cyber Five. Just alone on online spending in the United States during that uh cycle there, $30.2 billion.

Ed Beemiller: 5:51

Compared to what what was in store, you said a little bit?

Ryan Fleming: 5:54

This is just online.

Ed Beemiller: 5:55

That's online. So that is almost triple?

Announcer: 5:57

This is this is these numbers I just gave you, the the the almost $11 billion and the $30 billion, those were just online sales.

Ed Beemiller: 6:04

Oh, even the $11 billion was online. Yes. Oh, good.

Ryan Fleming: 6:07

Oh, really? And 79% of all consumer shopping was done from mobile devices. I I mean that that that's incredible. So another stat that I thought was uh interesting to for listeners to understand is that the average, what do you guys think? The average U.S. consumer is expected to spend how much on Black Friday? What would you guess?

Ed Beemiller: 6:27

How much on Black Friday?

Ryan Fleming: 6:29

God.

Ed Beemiller: 6:30

$2,500? I was gonna say a couple grand.

Announcer: 6:32

$650. Only $650. $650. Right. So right. Yeah, this that was a survey by uh Deloitte, you know, the accounting firm Deloitte. So, you know, end of the day, um people are going to spend on average $650, you know, maybe $1,000 or more, like in a just a blip of an eye. And um, and that's not even including the in-store purchases. I I I thought the I thought the online purchase uh metrics were just insane. Uh, in-store purchases, those uh the block stores are a little bit less.

Ed Beemiller: 7:02

Yeah.

Ryan Fleming: 7:02

Um, but just that makes sense in our culture with the phone and you know, Amazon and things like that. So um massive event, massive consumer event. Um and that obviously controls a lot of uh people's finances and you carry over debt and all this good stuff that we can talk about. So hey, they're out there finding deals, I guess.

Brian Minier: 7:20

It's interesting if people are really getting the deals that they think they are. I mean, that's why they do it, because they're looking for a deal. Yeah. I wonder if they're if they actually get the deal.

Ed Beemiller: 7:28

There's a whole mental aspect to it where you think, well, it's Black Friday. I have to be getting a deal, right?

Ryan Fleming: 7:33

Or are you shopping because you need it? Are you really getting the deal or do you need it?

Ed Beemiller: 7:37

You know, it's just I think it's more of a want-based shopping SSH.

Brian Minier: 7:41

It's an adrenaline.

Ryan Fleming: 7:41

It's an adrenaline rush.

Brian Minier: 7:42

Well, I think that dovetails nicely into what we're going to talk about today. When you think about financial planning, there's obviously uh an emotional and psychological component to that. And so it got us wondering speaking of Black Friday, are there deals to be had in the financial services field? So think about that. People tend to buy when they think they're getting a deal. If they don't think they're getting a good deal, a lot of times people will hesitate. So, how does that translate into what we do? Are there deals to be had? What do you guys think about that?

Ryan Fleming: 8:14

Well, the first thing I'll jump in with is um I I think one of the biggest deals, whether people know it or not, is identifying as many tax advantage strategies as possible. You know, a lot of experts, uh, a lot of evidence is pointing to that taxes are on the sale of a lifetime. You know, uh if you if you look at the um income tax brackets as they stand today, we are at or near historic lows. And you know, when you look at the statistics of the unfunded obligations of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the interest on the rising national debt, um we it's just an unsustainable trajectory that's that's gonna be facing us for for many years to come here. So uh the chances of taxes going up in the future are relatively high. So one of the biggest deals, I think, is identifying as many tax advantage or tax-free planning strategies as possible. So for example, Roth IRAs, Roth 401ks, or Roth 403Bs, those allow you to put money in after tax at a point in time in history where taxes are at or near historical lows and then never pay tax ever again. In other words, you're you're kind of getting off the radar from the IRS.

Brian Minier: 9:23

Um things like the deal in that regard would be we pay the taxes now because they're gonna be more later.

Ryan Fleming: 9:29

Yeah, you know the the deal is you you you pay tax now, so you avoid the higher ones. Yeah, overall less taxes.

Ed Beemiller: 9:35

Yeah, pay pay taxes on the seed, not the harvest, and take advantage of the the current tax environment that we're in. A lot of people which is really a very attractive.

Ryan Fleming: 9:46

Yeah, and a lot of people are gonna be in a position to consider another uh tax advantage deal, which is Roth conversions. You know, a lot of people don't fully understand that they could take pre-tax dollars like in a traditional IRA and pay the tax on that slowly over time and convert those dollars to forever tax-free. And the other thing that why those types of strategies are important is that by having those types of buckets, you avoid RMDs in the future. You avoid the required minimum distribution, which could be a tax bomb waiting to happen later on when you're you're like 73 or 75 years old. So um being proactive and paying tax at a lower rate, known rate now to avoid the higher, absolutely good deal.

Brian Minier: 10:30

100% as far as the implications of the taxes on your social security budget. On provisional income. It's huge.

Ryan Fleming: 10:37

It's not yeah, not it's not provisional income. Uh things like health savings accounts. Um, you know, that's kind of a triple tax benefit. You can you can put the money in uh and get a deduction, you can invest it if you wanted to, and you can uh defer the growth, the you know, defer the tax on the growth on that, and then you can use that you know for for qualified medical expenses. So that that that's kind of a popular one. Um certain types of cash value life insurance policies. We we sometimes we call those LERPs, life insurance retirement plans. Now they're all different, they have to be structured correctly, but uh that gets treated different than pretty much any other thing underneath the IRS tax code, and that could be a way for you to mitigate tax or you know not have to pay tax, rising taxes in the future. Uh and the last one that I would say as far as like a deal that that's out there is not a lot of people understand is that kind of the uh the golden sombrero as far as deals is being able to put money in pre-tax, like into a pre-tax 401k or pre-tax 403B. So if I put $10,000 into my 401k pre-tax, I get the deduction. Uh, I allow that money to sit there and bake in the oven, and I don't have to pay any tax on the growth, so I defer the tax on the growth. And then later on down the road, when I pull the money out, whether it be at RMD age or just when I want to after 59 and a half, um, I can have a lot of that money offset by the standard deduction. And that is the triple sombrero. That's a triple tax benefit that you that's that's it. That's the golden sombrero. You can't get better than that.

Ed Beemiller: 11:59

The triple sombrero. There's a phlegm is of course. Yeah, the triple sombrero. I like it.

Ryan Fleming: 12:04

That's actually bad in baseball. That means you whiffed and struck out three times in a row. All right. But the financial planning, that's what that's three good things right there. That uh those are great deals from tax advantage standpoint.

Brian Minier: 12:13

And that is all planning, knowing how to take your distributions. That's money that'll never be taxed for sure if you do it that way. Get off the tracks, get off the radar. That's fantastic.

Ed Beemiller: 12:22

Yeah, uh another thing that a lot of people um don't don't really pay attention to, or especially the the younger people, hopefully in our audience, you know, we talk about starting to save money as early as possible. So you know that makes it much easier than waiting till you're in your 40s and 50s. And you know, if you're lucky enough to have a company that has some type of defined benefit, defined contribution plan, you know, 401k, 403B, often these companies match. So it's kind of like this time of the year, November, is open enrollment. So let's say you've been working for a company for a while, and you were just like, I I need my money, I got bills to pay, everything else. But this is the time of year, you know, coinciding with this whole Black Friday. Well, the deal is, hey, you can sign up for your 401k, 403B at this time of the year, and it's like buy one, get one, right? Oh yeah. Well, the the buy one is you contributing. The get one is the company match. So something we always talk about, and you guys do the same thing, is hey, if we're looking at that and we go through, you know, a financial questionnaire, and you know, we're seeing, you know, okay, what company you work for? Do they offer a 41k? Yeah, but I'm not doing it. Okay, do they offer a match? Yes. Well, I mean, we we strongly encourage our clients at least contribute up to that match.

Ryan Fleming: 13:42

You could argue that's the best deal of all, right? Because it's that's it's free and it it's a 100% rate of return on your money. Yeah. That's that's the best deal ever.

Ed Beemiller: 13:51

Yeah. And it goes, you know, typically that money falls into, I know we talk a lot about, you know, on our podcasts, the whole bucket planning. That's more of a longer-term bucket. So, you know, that's not something that, you know, hey, I need that money right now. You may need it right now, but if you just put a little bit away, you you then get that power of continuous compounding or the compounding and growth over a long period of time, which can really help.

Ryan Fleming: 14:17

You got to contribute at least up to the that's a gift. You gotta do it.

Brian Minier: 14:20

It's free money.

Ryan Fleming: 14:20

How do you turn it down?

Brian Minier: 14:21

Yeah, you said it's 100% investment.

Ed Beemiller: 14:23

But a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of people don't. I mean, especially in the younger generations that are just starting jobs or even, you know, uh, you know, 20s, 30s, often, you know, life catches up with them. They're you know, all their money's going towards a house or starting a family, that type of thing.

Brian Minier: 14:39

But it's very important to and I get it, there's only so much money to go around, and sometimes you don't have it. But man, if you can take advantage of that match at least up to the match. Any anything, you know, anything's better than nothing. Right. Up to the match. You know, another one that that I was thinking about is when we have a market downturn at some point. I think it's inevitable. We kind of had one in 2022, the market bounced back pretty quickly.

Ryan Fleming: 15:02

Yeah.

Brian Minier: 15:02

But a lot of times when you think about the psychology of financial planning, people get very scared when the market goes down. They want to freeze, they want to move everything to cash, and that is the time to buy. That's the time to start investing. I think, Ryan, you said that is the Black Friday of investing. Because when do you want to buy? When things are are low, right? And that is the opportunity when you can buy it low. You have the discipline to keep those investments, and then over time as it grows, that's when you're going to start making your your rate of return. Yeah. So I I think that is key, is is when the market is low, that is the opportunity to invest as much as you can.

Ed Beemiller: 15:43

Yeah. And and I always I've used this comment before, you know, when we're looking at planning, investing in savings, for most people, it's not a sprint, it's it's a marathon. So when you talked about buying low, that gets into the whole concept of dollar cost averaging. That's right. And we've spoken before on previous podcasts where if you get your money out of the market into cash and you miss the the highest positive day within the recovery, the upswing, or the two, three highest, you're literally uh the the percentages are astounding. Your overall rate of return is gonna be a lot less. Oh, yeah, you're missing out of a lot of growth opportunity. Yeah, you were talking 30, 40 percent plus with that.

Ryan Fleming: 16:23

So yeah, when people are panicking, things are on sale, that's when you act. That's a black Friday deal. That's the Black Friday deal a life.

Ed Beemiller: 16:31

Yeah, so I I think in in summation, what we're really trying to do here is you know, Black Friday in our minds is kind of tied to consumer spending. We need to go out and buy goods and services, it's the holidays coming up. But it's also, you know, when we look at this, that this is a time not necessarily to spend, but also to save. Look at what you're doing, you know, and there are things that are on sale or you're able to take advantage of within within your financial. Smart ways to do it to optimize.

Ryan Fleming: 17:04

Yeah, that's what we want to help you with tax advantages, employer matches, buying, you know, buying when the market's low.

Ed Beemiller: 17:10

All comes down to don't leave don't leave money on the table or upside opportunities, you know, on the table. Facts, right? So facts. Well, we Hudlers, we appreciate you spending the time. As always, um, we would love for you to share this with friends, family, yeah, subscribers, co-workers, subscribe to the channel. You know, we once again we just continue to try to you know promote that financial literacy and really, you know, tackling some topics or events. You know, we're in, as I said, we're in the holiday season, so we thought we'd take a little bit of different spin on something that we all know a lot about.

Ryan Fleming: 17:47

Drop us a comment, give us some advice, some topics you'd like to hear, but uh definitely subscribe, like, follow us. We'd appreciate that a lot. Hit that notification bell.

Ed Beemiller: 17:54

Until next time.

Ryan Fleming: 17:55

Yep, take care, Huddlers.