PennyWise: Personal Finance & Travel Tips Lee Enterprises Podcasts

Travel booms during the holiday season and between winter weather and large crowds, delays and cancelations are to be expected. U.S. airlines are not required by law to compensate passengers for flight delays, and refunds are only guaranteed for flights that are canceled. There are, however, things you can do to get some compensation for travel disruptions. On the latest episode of PennyWise, host Nat Cardona is joined by Sally French of NerdWallet who shares the script that worked for her to get compensation from airlines for cancelations and delays. 

Read more on NerdWallet here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise, a Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm your host Nat Cardona.

Ah, air travel. It's stressful at times, especially when you're hit with seemingly endless delays or a cancellation that will leave you sitting in an airport chair staring at that God awful carpet pattern while you wait. Nerdwallet Traveler Awards expert Sally French joins us today with two personal flight anecdotes that prove maybe, just maybe, you can be compensated for your time in trouble through your airline if you follow her script.

Sally we're talking about flight delays and two experiences that you had going off of a script to get compensation because of those two flights. So flight delays and cancellations happen. They seem like they're happening more and more often or more. Maybe people on social media are complaining about it. Whatever. Have you. So you're in the airport, your flight's delayed and delayed or delayed.

Let's talk about your anecdotes first and we can just pop in tips along the way. So just go for it.

Yes. So I've been caught up in two fairly significant flight delays this year. The first one happened because I was trying to fly from my home in Oakland, California, to Saint Louis, and I had a layover in Denver. So what happened is the flight departing from Oakland departed late, and it turned out that it ended up being so late that we missed the connecting flight to Saint Louis.

We missed it by just barely. In fact, 20 of my now closest friends who were also trying to make that connection. We ran off the first plane and we saw the plane taking off from the jet bridge and rolling on to the tarmac just there, and they couldn't wait for us. So what ended up happening is we got rebooked on the next departing flight.

But that meant an irritatingly long layover, many hours in the Denver airport, plus a 2 a.m. arrival time in Saint Louis was not ideal. So my question was, what can I do? What can I get out of this other? The flight was on Southwest and they did automatically rebook me to my next flight, but it was still pretty annoying.

So I headed to the customer service desk and I basically said, Hey, it's because this flight is leaning so late, my ride isn't going to be able to pick me up. Do you offer any sort of compensation? And they said, No, we can't get you a ride to your next destination, but how about we offer you an $100 voucher?

And I was like, You know what? I'll take it. I'm rebooked. Anyway, this sounds like a good deal as they're printing out the voucher. I said. Can you offer any food as well? And they also sent me a voucher so I could get dinner up to $14 in the airport to tide me over until the flight. So that was my first.

That Southwest experience. It ended up being not too bad. I got $100 out of it and I had to stay at the airport for like a bonus for hours. But it seemed to work. My second situation was the United flight melt down during 4th of July weekend. I was headed to again, I was actually headed to Colorado. And as I was just

'Tis the season — the season for shopping and massive sales. With the holiday season in full swing, many people are counting down and plotting their plan of attack for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On the latest episode of PennyWise, show producer Ambre Moton is joined by Kimberly Palmer of NerdWallet who shares the top items to buy, what to skip and a few other tips for navigating two of the biggest shopping days of the year. 

Read more on NerdWallet here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm Ambre Moton, the producer and editor of the show filling in for Nat Cardona.

'Tis the season, the season for shopping in big deals anyway. While shoppers have already seen early Black Friday deals in October from retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart, a survey reported that only a quarter of verified buyers during Amazon Prime Big Deal days purchased holiday gifts waiting for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, maybe.

And are those deals even really worth it? Joining me today from NerdWallet is personal finance expert Kimberly Palmer to go over what to buy and what to avoid on two of the biggest shopping days of the year.

Kimberly, thank you so much for joining. Let's just go ahead and dive in. My mom mentioned that she's had a TV every year that isn't working properly. Should I plan on waiting for Black Friday to get her a new one?

Yes, Black Friday is actually a great time to buy big electronics like televisions. You have another opportunity in February or on the Super Bowl. So if you missed a chance, it's okay. You have another chance to get great TV deals. But it sounds like your mom might need it sooner. And Black Friday is such a good time because we see those prices on big electronics, including televisions, drop on Black Friday and the days surrounding Black Friday.

So it's the perfect time to buy.

What are some of the other good things to buy during those post-Thanksgiving sales?

Definitely. Anything in the electronics category, which includes appliances, both large and small appliances. So if you are in the market for anything like a vacuum, a coffeemaker, anything like that around your house. Black Friday is when we see the lowest prices on those items. So it's the perfect time to pick those up. And then if you need to stock up on any winter clothing, winter jackets, any of that winter gear, it's also a great time to buy on Black Friday.

So basically, those are the highlights. You want to think electronics, big electronics, small appliances, large appliances and then winter clothing.

Awesome. I am definitely in the market for a new winter coat, so I will hold off until Black Friday to go looking for a new one.

Yeah, you'll see some great deals.

Okay, so how about what do you think should be avoided?

The biggest category to avoid on Black Friday is toys and holiday decor. And that is because the prices on those items keep dropping as we get closer to the holidays. And so you don't want to make the mistake of buying them too early because you will pay more. However, you do want to keep in mind that if your child or the children in your life want a specific toy, we do start to see inventory really drop as we get closer to the holidays too.

So it might be worth paying a little extra just to make sure you get that one item they really have their eye on. But in general, you want to wait on toys and holiday decor and then also sporting goods. So we do see lower prices for sporting goods as we get closer to Christmas as well. So if you can you want to wait on that.

And then tools and home improvement items is anot

Disaster strikes — your washer is making a weird noise and won't drain. Do you fix it or replace it? On the latest episode of PennyWise, host Nat Cardona is joined by Kimberly Palmer of NerdWallet with tips when to repair and when to replace your large appliances.

Read more on NerdWallet here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise, a Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm your host Nat Cardona.

A disaster strikes. Your large home appliance is making a funny noise and not working how it should. Maybe even water is involved. Choosing whether to repair or replace major appliances can be more complex than you would expect. Nerdwallet personal finance writer Kimberly Palmer joins us today as a living, breathing financial guide to paying out your appliance repair or replace options when to repair or replace your appliances.

I just went through this myself and the picking and choosing of what you're going to do and what's most cost effective. Talk about really having to work really hard to figure things out. So let's go into this. I mean, where should we start?

Well, the interesting thing about appliances is that sometimes when you actually buy a new one and replace one, even though it's so expensive, you can save money in the long run. And that's because these newer appliances are so sophisticated, energy efficient. You know, if you have a 15 year old fridge, it might be taking up more energy than a newer model.

And the same is true for other big appliances. And so that is a way of kind of, you know, justifying that shopping spree. If you do need a new appliance.

Or the one thing that's mentioned in this article, let's talk about those smarter appliances that they've got fancy buttons and they hook up to I and this and that, but maybe that's not always necessarily the route you want to go.

Exactly. These new appliances are I mean, they're really amazing. They look like, you know, what we would have thought of as the future years ago. You can have a TV screen on while you are on the front of your fridge, while you're making dinner. You can have a camera inside your fridge that you know, when you're at the grocery store and you're not sure if you're out of milk, you can just log in and have an inside look at your fridge.

So it's really incredible the directions of all these new appliances. The downside, like you alluded to, is the fact that first of all, they're more expensive and then also they're harder to fix. So if something does break down, you might need to hire someone with really specialized knowledge of your specific appliance for them to fix it. And those the cost to fix it can actually be a lot higher than you might be anticipating.

So it's something to keep in mind if you do buy one of the more complicated appliances, you always want to ask about those repair costs because sometimes they can be really steep.

Yeah, like I mentioned at the top, this there's literally three of our appliances went in two months ago. They all went in within the hour. Now, it was insane. And so we had a lot of the decisions to make and that between research and talking to store specialists, I found out there's a couple brands that they can't just be you can't call your local handyman to do and fix in, you know, five years if something happens that, yeah, the more specialized that you need, that specialized scalp.

So there is it was interesting and kind of sad or I was like, okay, maybe I'm not going to get the most fancy one because of that. You know, you have to think ahead and actually the another interesting thing that was mentioned here are, yeah, we know that thes

While it may still be early fall, the time to figure out your holiday travel is here. From flights to hotel stays to finally taking that trip to Europe to visit the Christmas markets, travel costs can add up.

On the latest episode of PennyWise, host Nat Cardona is joined by Sally French  of NerdWallet with tips when to start booking your travel for the holidays.

Read more on NerdWallet here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm your host, Nat Cardona. 

It may be the very start of fall, but if you plan to travel for the holidays, now is the time to do your research and pull out your wallet. We have Nerdwallet travel rewards expert Sally French here with some tips to save on holiday travel this year. Okay, so talking about holiday travel, you know, as people look towards the next couple of months, you've got Thanksgiving and then it seems around Christmas, people are flying here, they're everywhere. Is there any advantage to last minute flights? I know that last year that was a big thing.

Yes. In general, booking last minute flights is not something you should bank on. We typically see last minute hotel deals because hotels just want to fill up whatever available rooms that they have. But that's not really the case with airfares because people would be desperate to book a last minute flight. We actually see airfares get more expensive last minute.

So I don't want to completely write off the idea that you won't find a great last minute airfare. But the reality is you should plan to book your airfare now, especially for holiday travel there.

So a lot of that would entail tracking prices. So let's go into that.

Yes. So there are a number of apps that make it pretty easy to track your prices. One of the great ones is Google flights. And Google flights has a bunch of individual features that can make this helpful. So Google flights has a calendar display that will show the flight prices across all the airlines for any day of that month.

This is great for people who want to fly, let's say, for the holidays, but are flexible. If they fly out on Tuesday or Thursday, they don't really care. Google Flights Calendar View makes this really easy. Another thing that you can do is if you know you want to fly a specific airport, which is pretty common. If you're going to visit family for the holidays, you can enter in that airport versus your home airport.

And Google flights will send you an alert when it sees that airfares are cheaper than usual to that destination.

I am a huge believer in that calendar layout that you just mentioned. There's nothing more beautiful in my like, planning mind when it's you know, this says 380 on Tuesday and then a week later on a Friday, it's whatever, 300. I just love the breakdown. It's just all it's so neat how they do it right.

And, you know, you would be so surprised at how much the price is different just by adjusting your flight by a couple of days. And there are just a lot of people who automatically assume they're going to fly out one day because they think that's most convenient for them. But when you realize maybe extending by one day could save you $200 times all for people in your family, then this can be a huge savings.

So don't overlook that calendar view and see if you can change your trip gates by just one or two days to possibly save money.

Sure. And I just kind of want a ground back here. So for Thanksgiving, when would be a good time to book for that long weekend?

Yes. So definitely I would recommend booking that Thanksgiving travel by mid-October at the latest. However, Ne

It seems like every day there's a new warning about financial scams circulating, with the scammers getting more and more creative. Many people think that it could never happen to them, and then they find themselves on the phone with their bank trying to recoup their losses.

On the latest episode of PennyWise, host Nat Cardona is joined by Kimberly Palmer of NerdWallet with tips on how to avoid falling for common scams and what to do in case you do.

Read more on NerdWallet here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise a Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm your host, Nat Cardona. One of the biggest mistakes when it comes to protecting yourself from financial scams is thinking you're too smart to be duped by one. It can literally happen to anyone, regardless of age or circumstance. I mean, come on. There are a lot of sophisticated scams out there. But thankfully, Nerdwallet personal finance writer Kimberly Palmer joins us today with a few key strategies to help keep you safe.

Man, those scammers are really sneaky out there. Let's talk about that. If you get a call from your bank, probably not legit. Let's go into that.

Exactly. One of the most common scams out there is your bank or some kind of financial institution calling you. But it's not really your bank. It's someone. It's a scam artist, essentially impersonating your bank. And because they can be so convincing, they actually convince people who have picked up the phone to share their personal information, share things like passwords, Social Security numbers, all kinds of personal details that they then use to steal your money or steal your identity.

And so you want to be so careful whenever you get a phone call from anyone or a text message or an email you want to verify who it is. So actually, even though it feels rude, you want to say, I'm going to hang up and call my bank myself, and then you get the verified number on the back of your bank card or wherever you have it and call yourself.

And that's the only way to really know who you're talking to.

Right. And just for clarity sake. Scammers can spoof numbers. I've had this happen personally where it says your banking institution, it's the exact same number, whatever, one 800 number calling you. But again, it's you should call that not the other way around.

Exactly. I'm so glad you mentioned that, because it can be so convincing. And also, when you get that call, they are often the most pleasant kind of sounding customer service reps you've ever spoken to. But it's all a scam. Just trying to get to trying to trick you.

Right. Right. And a lot of that comes back to general security practices, especially when you're banking online and on your phone and all of that jazz. Any tips there?

The most important thing is just to make sure that you are constantly monitoring your own accounts, because often the first sign of a scam is even a really small deduction, like a $5 deduction that you don't recognize. And it's a way for the scam artists to really test if they can go bigger and subtract more money from your account.

So you want to be regularly reviewing your credit card statements, your banking statements, most importantly, to look for anything you don't recognize. And if there is something that seems out of place, you want to call and investigate because then you can shut down. If there is a scam starting to take place, you can shut that down. And then also you want to just be sure that you have strong passwords across all your accounts.

Set up two factor authentication so a person can't log in with only the password but needs to get that code. Al

Want to travel around but don't have a travel buddy? Traveling alone can come with single surcharges and not having someone to share costs with can make solo travelers blow through their budgets quickly. 

On the latest episode of PennyWise, host Nat Cardona is joined by Sally French of NerdWallet with tips for solo travelers who want to be fiscally responsible while exploring the globe.

Read more on NerdWallet here!

About this program

Nat Cardona is host of PennyWise as well as Lee Enterprise's true-crime podcast Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to Pennywise Lee Enterprises podcast. I'm your host, Nat Cardona

Today we're talking solo travel. It's getting more and more popular these days, but let's face it- Traveling by yourself can get really pricey. Thankfully, we have NerdWallet travel expert Sally French here with us to give us tips on how to make the most of it all. 

Today we're talking about the topic of solo travel, keeping it fun and I guess financially friendly, you could say. 

Okay, I love it. First things first. From the Nerdwallet article, I read the amount of people opting for solo travel has gone up as compared to past years. Is that correct?

That is correct. So what Nerdwallet has found is actually based on Google searches for solo travel, they have increased 59% in the first half of this year versus the same period in 2019. More people now are interested in solo travel travel than they were pre-pandemic.

No, that's what they say. So what's the big difference that I guess people are just eager to get out there, huh?

Yeah, You know, I think there is definitely this uptake since the pandemic of people being okay out there, being solo. We spent so much time alone and now people are spread out. People have moved away, but people still want to go on trips. People especially want to take those bucket list trips. So sometimes the best way to take that bucket list trip might just be by yourself.

Yeah, there's a few steps you got to take first. Let's talk about the travel in itself, that airplane ticket. Any advantages to flying solo?

Well, this is actually an area where you can save money. So one of the challenges with flying solo or traveling solo is that it can be more expensive. You're not able to split the cost of that rental car, of that ride, share of that hotel room. But with airfare, in some ways, you can find a better deal. You might just be able to get that last available flight if seats are sold out for two.

That's not going to work If you're traveling with someone else. If you're by yourself, that can be better. Another thing is you might be more inclined to be okay with that middle seat. What we've seen is that airfare prices are actually down this year versus last year. They're down this year versus 2019. They're down this year versus what they were ten years ago.

And a big reason for that is because airfares have engaged in this practice called unbundling or bundling, where they'll charge a lower base airfare, and then they'll add all these extra costs, extra cost check bags, extra cost to board early. And one of those extra costs is to pick your seat, especially with families. People want to sit together.

And so we see a lot of air. Airlines will pay. A lot of travelers will pay extra to be able to take their seat to travel with their family members. But if you're traveling solo, you don't have any family members to travel with. And so you can probably skip that expense. The reality is you're probably going to end up in the middle seat, but maybe not a huge deal if you're a solo traveler looking to save money.

Seriously, at the end of the day, it's just tapping the person next to your shoulder. Got to get up quick. It's