Welcome back to royal Jewelers
here in Saint Matthews,
catching up with Mark Lampkin.
You know, let's talk some
money figures, right, right.
While we're here spending all our money,
of course. Right. I feel like,
Mark, there's just been a lot
of financial news here recently.
You know, it's the holiday season.
People are out shopping.
I mean, it seems like consumer
confidence is really up.
You know, nobody's went broke.
But against the American consumer,
right, the last couple of years,
Christmas spending has been up 10 to 13%.
Little bit wobbly. This year,
it's only expected to rise 6 to 8%,
but with everything that we're
facing right now is 6 to 8%.
There's a on a billion dollar
number is a really big deal.
So consumer confidence is up
and prices are starting to
come back down a little bit,
you know, and and big headlines,
those gas prices were starting to see
kind of inch down and I feel like
that I see those gas prices come down.
I'm like OK, maybe I can book that trip,
maybe I can make it to you know,
next year I can make big plans.
There's going to be more
automobile traveling.
You know jet fuel and
diesel prices are way up.
So gas prices are down.
So they'll be more not not as many flights,
but people are still going to travel,
people are still going to spend money.
People are still gonna do Christmas,
but maybe not the high end items.
We're seeing more of the mid to lower
level items that people are spending a
lot of money on and and and experiences.
People are spending time to travel with
family. You do that like instead of
your holiday shopping you said you'll do
an experience with the family. A trip.
That's exactly right. We don't buy
presents any longer for the family.
Not of course, Emma Grace. I do right.
You have to. But she's not going to
understand the experience just yet.
Wife and kids, we, you know,
we went to Mexico last year,
had a great time this year
I might have to go to Destin
and rent a trailer. That's OK.
It's still an experience.
When I see a picture of that,
I want to see you in a trailer. Weathers
experience or stuff,
but consumer confidence is still there.
And my clients are talking
about still spending money.
They're not scared.
They're they're cautious,
they're cautiously optimistic.
All year long you've been talking about that.
It's like, OK, don't go crazy, folks.
Let's just, let's just be be thoughtful
during the holidays. Take a breath.
And we talked about a little bit yesterday.
And if you shop right you know
they we talked about like the
Ebates which is rocky two you get,
you get that money back or RetailMeNot,
you get those codes off.
You can save 10 to 3040%,
go to your website,
look at our thing yesterday,
I'll save you thirty 4050% on
some of these items that you
can save a lot of money on. So
certainly to say well let's talk jewelry
because you know it's about jewelry.
I'm All in all out and I know that
when people want to buy a special
ring like an engagement ring they
know it's they know right up front,
OK that's going to cost me a lot but is it
also a good investment or should you keep.
Some things in mind when buying
expensive jewelry or the engagement
ring I got I gotta share this with you.
So back to beers. 1943, right?
Diamonds are forever the most successful
advertising slogan, even 77 years.
They went from $23 million in
sales in 1943 to last year of
2.1 billion using that slogan.
So and they actually came up with two
months of salary for an engagement ring.
And when they went from 20% people
buying diamonds for engagement
ring to 80% with just that slogan.
In that two-month salary,
about that isn't that funny.
Yeah. So investment wise,
I think I went and looked
this morning about 5% a year.
It's the normal average return.
But you got to be careful
where you're buying.
I mean, if you're buying them wholesale,
fine.
If you're buying them retail,
you're buying them for their wife
or your daughter or Christmas presents.
You may not make a lot of money on those,
but they're going to hold their value
because they're still becoming more rare.
And that's why we're here too,
at Royal Jewelers is like community matters,
you knowing the name and the
people that you can trust here.
Because I always get so
nervous when people say, oh,
I founded it like a swap meet or.
I'm like, OK, well, good luck with that.
Being real, right?
I mean, you know, it's not a good,
a good investment.
I was telling Elizabeth,
like Jennifer for the first year had
this beautiful cubic zirconia ring.
She didn't even know she took it to get
it cleaned and then I had to buy it.
Taking that off. Stop it.
But it was way cheap and beautiful.
Listen, you just put that out
there and Jennifer's thinking.
Mark is it. Royal Jewelers.
And he better come back. Am I right?
He better come back with something big.
I always do. How have to now?
I'll take care. Don't forget,
Grace and I are here, too.
Kim's here.
Everybody's here.
So you got about.
Is a great place.
I've been looking around
and there are a ton of stuff
here that I I could buy.
And I would go broke here if I
stayed much longer.
It's it's a great place
before we wrap up. You know,
we we are here because of the big UK,
UK, Michigan game.
And you have just an interesting back
story because you went to U of L But
everybody in your family went to UK.
Four generations
of women went to UK, both my kids,
my wife, I've paid for two UK
educations and I'm in red and black.
I'm the house divided.
But you know, if they play each other,
I'm a Louisville fan.
Other than that, I'm a Kentucky fan.
I love. I'll root for the cats all
day long and they're going to London.
They've never been in the regular
season. Very, very big deal.
When you have a lot of these teams,
they arrive there this morning,
they're practicing, they're warming
up ahead of this weekend's game.
I just think it puts us on the map, right?
Like everybody's talking about it.
Anything. We need every
University of Kentucky to do well, right.
1948 is the only time UK has been to
London to play basketball and that
was in during the Olympics and they
rode through the Olympics and so that
was the only time they been there.
But regular season,
they've never been Michigan and Kentucky.
This time they're 5050 on the bedding.
ESPN says Kentucky's got about an 85.
Chance of winning should be a one to
three-point spread favor in UK yeah and fact.
Jawan Howard the coach of Michigan
is the last time UK lost to Michigan
was in 1993 final Four and Juwan
Howard hit the shot to put him out
there you go make your bets now get to
buy and I like this ring I like these
earrings just hand dropping a hit there.
Hey if you want to get in touch with
Mark all you have to do is head over
to lamkinwealth.com stay with us.