In this episode of the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily, host Mike Milligan (CFP) and co‑host Gary Nolan dissect the marketing tricks retailers use on Black Friday to provoke impulse spending. They explain how scarcity (limited‑stock claims) and urgency (time‑limited deals) manipulate shoppers, leading to credit‑card debt and financial stress. The hosts advise listeners to counter these tactics with a pre‑planned budget, intentional purchases, and by viewing Black Friday as an opportunity for strategic, wealth‑building buys rather than a trap. Throughout the segment they promote the One of a Kind Financial Plan—a comprehensive, no‑cost financial‑planning service covering taxes, retirement, investments, long‑term care, and legacy—and a new on‑demand Personal Financial Planning course developed with Old Dominion University. Multiple calls‑to‑action provide phone numbers, text keywords, and website URLs. The episode ends with a standard disclaimer that the hosts are not providing investment advice and that listeners should consult a licensed professional.
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Welcome to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily with your host, Mike Milligan. This is episode 50. Boy, time flies when you're having fun. It also happens to be Black Friday, and have you planned or failed to plan for this day? Marketers use Black Friday as a way to use different strategies and techniques To get you to overspend, go in credit card debt, and ultimately start next year on a bad foot. We have some of those gimmicks, some of those strategies outlined in a segment we recently did on the One of a Kind Financial Show. So if you're out in line right now, whether that's at Walmart or you are maybe just out and about shopping, I want you to look for these. And also, for those of you who are listening to this on YouTube, comment below on this podcast about things you have seen on Black Friday that just absolutely shock you. For me, I didn't go to Black Friday often, but when I did, I saw people taking things out of other people's carts. I saw families getting in arguments over, should we buy this or should we buy that? See, guys, Black Friday represents really the beginning of the Christmas season, a time spent with giving something from the heart that matters. And so I want you to, I want you to listen to this with clarity and understanding. Comment on what you see, and I'll see you on the other side in December. Be one of a kind.
Welcome back to the One of a Kind Financial Show. I'm Gary Nolan with our financial guide, Mike Milligan, CFP. And Mike, Black Friday is here. People are caffeinated, wearing sneakers, ready to run into the stores like it's the Olympics. First of all, are you a Black Friday shopper? Did you get up in the middle of the night and go or no?
No, not at all. Right. Uh, I, uh, Black Friday in the Milligan household is normally sitting around watching Star Wars. Like, we like Darth Vader Friday, or, you know, we've also done like, you know, we, we, we gender watch, just sit around and binge and watch a lot of movies on one day.
Right, right. Gotcha.
It's, uh, you know, we, we've got that, that, that tryptophan effect that has lingered on.
Sure.
No, like, uh, no, we're not, we're not big on Black Friday. Now, my brother, when he was alive, he and his wife would go out and they would wake up like Midnight, they would head down to Myrtle Beach and boy, they would head down and they would do a lot of that sitting at the door. And it was like part, they loved it. It's not for me though.
Yeah, some people really love it. I know my sister-in-law was like that. They'd get up at like, you know, at midnight and hang out and the store would open at 4 o'clock in the morning and they'd rush in and, you know, it's like a game to them, you know, grab the last TV that Walmart has or something, you know?
Well, you know, they'll say like Walmart or wherever the store will say, we only got 3 at this price. And then when those 3 are gone, there's 25 more in the back just waiting to come out, right? Because Black Friday is a masterclass in money mindset.
Yeah, we're going to talk about that too. So Black Friday is actually a lesson in financial psychology. So Black Friday is built to manipulate your mind. Am I right, Mike?
It is. Retailers design the entire event around scarcity and urgency. They line you up at the door. 2 emotional triggers that make people spend more money is scarcity and urgency. So they line people up at the doors. You know, they say, we're going to open this door at this time, so it makes people get there earlier. And then they say, like, there's only 5 left.
Right.
Prices drop in 30 minutes. Today only. These tactics override logic. They're engineered to push you to buy things you didn't plan for.
Right. It's emotional spending. So I've fallen for the 3% trick, 3 left trick, where there's like 300 in the back. I've fallen for that a couple of times, Mike, myself.
Exactly right. Because if your mind is only seeing something in front of you and somebody's telling you that, we generally trust people and marketers have this mindset to build scarcity. And so when emotions take over, cash flow suffers. Every dollar impulsively spent is not only lost today, it's lost for future growth. And so when we look at this scarcity, And the urgency to buy. What one of the things that we encourage people to do is avoid emotional spending by using a pre-planned budget. Uh, anything that is spent disrupts long-term care goals. And then if you end up in debt, holiday debt increases vulnerability and stress as we enter a new year.
The show is the One of a Kind Financial Show. I'm Gary Nolan, your consumer advocate. With us each week at this time is Mike Milligan. And once again, on the calendar, get you all set up with that comprehensive plan. There's no cost, there's no obligation. Get that one-of-a-kind financial plan that Mike talks about. It starts by picking up the phone this Thanksgiving weekend and dialing this number, 800-748-1838. 800-748-1838. Or text the word ideas to 600-700. The folks at Warnock Financial standing by this weekend. Get on the calendar, get you all set up with a comprehensive plan. We're almost at the end of the year. You've been thinking about doing this for a long time, but you keep putting it off. Now is the time to act. 800-748-1838. Or text the word ideas is $600, $700. A deal isn't a deal if you don't need it. Mike, always people say you aren't saving money on Black Friday, just spending it differently. Explain that to me.
Well, if it wasn't already part of your plan, it's not saving money. It's an expense. People go broke chasing deals that were never needs. Real saving only occurs when a purchase aligns with a preexisting intention. So like, for instance, if the plan for 2025 didn't include replacing your 55-inch TV with an 80-inch TV, well, that, that, that now $600 deal, right? So you can watch this weekend's football games in bigger clarity on a bigger TV. See, that's not a deal, right? Because your holiday spending should be a budget line. for the whole year that you've saved for. It's not a free-for-all. And then businesses can make strategic deductible purchases before year-end, but only if planned. So like, for instance, if you're a business owner and you had some expenses that you need to do on the year-end side, Black Friday could be a time to go get some things at a discount because even stores like OfficeMax and they all, they all do Black Friday deals, right?
Sure.
And then here's the thing. Just avoid the January credit card hangover. We've all at some point, most of us in our life have had that night where we've been out with our friends and we may have had one too many glasses of champagne or that extra bourbon at the end of the night. And the next day we're like, we're never doing that again.
Yep.
Well, Black Friday often creates that feeling of January when you get that statement.
Right. Couple of minutes left. Black Friday can be a wealth strategy if you use it right, Mike.
Yeah. Here's the secret most people miss. Black Friday can help you build wealth, right? Savvy shoppers use the day for work tools, technology that increases productivity, home essentials that make life easier, gifts they budgeted months for. Black Friday is powerful if you plan stronger. If your plan is stronger than the marketer's plan to get you to Impulse buy.
So the goal is not to avoid the sale, it's to avoid the trap. Mike, am I right?
Exactly. It's, it's about intention, not impulse. When you guys, when you live your life with intention, a well-written plan, it allows you to, in your daily journey, experience things clearer and more freely. And so like this, this kind of last point here is when you strategically purchase items that increase productivity and income potential, you're building wealth. When a planned spending limit protects your January finances, you're helping your cash flow. And then sometimes the best gift is funding a child's investment account or savings account instead of buying more toys. That's legacy planning.
Tell us about the One of a Kind Financial Plan, Mike. We got about a minute and a half left.
Yeah, the One of a Kind Financial Plan is something that I built that when we do segments like this around things like Black Friday and other things that come up through the year, The One of a Kind Financial Plan will help you address these impulse or marketing gimmicks or tools used to take wealth from you and give it to corporations. That's what Black Friday is, folks, by the way. It's just the money to help the bottom line of companies like Walmart and Best Buy. And so many companies have made money and stockholders have made money over the years of you doing impulse buying. Well, the One of a Kind Financial Plan will help you with that. There's nothing wrong with getting Christmas gifts or Hanukkah gifts for your family or Kwanzaa gifts for your family. The key though is to have a plan on how you do them that meets the life you want to live. The one-of-a-kind financial plan that we provide provides you strategy around taxes, retirement income, investment, long-term care, and legacy. And folks, if you build that one-of-a-kind financial plan and you follow it, It'll help you live a one-of-a-kind life.
Folks, there's no cost. There's no obligation. Get a better handle on your financial situation. Starts by picking up the phone and dialing this number, 800-748-1838, 800-748-1838, or text the word ideas to 600-700. The folks at One Oak Financial standing by ready for your phone call, 800-748-1838, or text the word ideas to 600-700.
Thank you for listening to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. We, address many topics when it comes to retirement, financial planning, tax planning, investments, long-term care, and legacy on the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. But we're also going to start talking about how do you start 2026 with fresh perspective and fresh mind. Starting next year, we're, we're going to make available to the general public a class that I teach called Personal Financial Planning. Personal Financial Planning will be an on-demand course where you can get real-world application and knowledge in a lively environment where you will have the information necessary to make key financial decisions as you move forward. It'll also come with a quarter full of, you know, a quarter's full, 3 months full of texting support, chat support, and ultimately an office hour where you can come and answer your questions. We're going to provide bonus material in that course. But if you're interested in finding out more about this personal financial course, go to mikemilligan.com. You'll find it in the educate section there. And until then, be one of a kind. Thank you again for listening to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. I've been your host, Mike Milligan. If you enjoyed the segment that you just listened to, I invite you to connect with us on Amazon. Google the One of a Kind Financial Plan. It's a bestselling book in the personal tax category, and I invite you to do that. Number 2, if you feel like you need more education when it comes to your own personal financial planning, we have a course that's offered through Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. It's offered virtually. And it's a self-paced course called Personal Financial Planning that I helped develop and I teach. It is 6 sessions, 90 minutes each, and full of recordings for you that you can start and stop based on what you need. It goes through the psychology and philosophy of money, the cash management, budgeting, and debt management. We talk about insurance, whether it's property and casualty like your homeowners, autos, renters, to the type of insurances you work on at, or you need to replace the biggest asset you have, which is your income. Then we move over and talk about, do a real big investment dive into the difference between mutual funds and ETFs. We go all the way from crypto down to individual stocks and bonds from an academic standpoint. Then we look at retirement planning, tax planning, long-term care, and legacy. Ultimately, with the idea that you can build a one-of-a-kind financial plan for yourself. Ultimately though, what it does is it equips you with knowledge that if you're ever in a conversation with a financial advisor, or a financial planner, you know the questions to ask. So I invite you to reach out to us. You can go to mikemilligan.com under the Educate tab and see how to register for that. We also put some resources behind that on school.com in our private closed group where you can ask questions and learn more. As always, just remember that I am an investment advisory rep not only with One Oak Financial but also Advisory Alpha LLC. Ideas by Mike, doing business as One Oak Financial, Mike Milligan LLC, and Advisory Alpha LLC, are unaffiliated entities, and thus all opinions The opinions expressed by me and Gary on the One of a Kind Financial Show and me on the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily are purely my opinions and does not reflect investment advice. Please consult with a licensed financial professional before making any decisions. Till next time, this has been Mike Milligan.
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