If you still haven’t booked your holiday travel plans, take note: Prices tend to rise the closer you get to the days you’re looking to travel. 

To afford holiday trips, about 50% of respondents are cutting back on other expenses while 49% are picking up discounts and deals, according to the 2024 Holiday Travel Outlook by Hopper, a travel site.

Some last-minute holiday travelers are leaning into so-called “Travel Tuesday” — or the Tuesday after Cyber Monday and Black Friday — which falls on Dec. 3 this year.

Search interest for Travel Tuesday rose more than 500% from 2021 to 2023, according to a recent report by McKinsey and Company.

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There’s a reason why shoppers are searching for the term.

Last year, 83% more deals were offered on Travel Tuesday versus Cyber Monday and 92% more than Black Friday, according to Hopper data.

Yet, there may be some limitations on the deals available, experts say.

“The challenge for a lot of people is, ‘Do I wait?'” said Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet. 

For travelers who are set on specific days and places to visit, the answer might be “no.”

“While airlines and online travel agencies are going to offer flight deals on Travel Tuesday, there is no reason to wait,” said Phil Dengler, co-founder of The Vacationer, a travel platform.

How much you benefit from potential discounts on Travel Tuesday will depend on your flexibility, experts say. 

“If you have zero flexibility,” said Hayley Berg, economist at Hopper, then “if you see a good deal before Travel Deal Tuesday, feel free to book it.” 

Crypto investors could face higher taxes amid the surging price of bitcoin. But if you’re in the 0% capital gains bracket, you can reduce future taxes with a lesser-known strategy, experts say. 

The tactic, known as tax-gain harvesting, is selling profitable crypto in a lower-income year. You can leverage the 0% long-term capital gains rate — meaning you won’t owe taxes on gains — as long as earnings are below a certain threshold. The 0% bracket applies to assets owned for more than one year.

“That’s a very effective strategy if you’re in that bracket,” said Andrew Gordon, a tax attorney, certified public accountant and president of Gordon Law Group.

The income limits for 0% capital gains may be higher than you expect, Gordon said.

For 2024, you qualify for the 0% rate with taxable income of $47,025 or less for single filers and $94,050 or less for married couples filing jointly. The brackets are higher for 2025.

You calculate taxable income by subtracting the greater of the standard or itemized deductions from your adjusted gross income. Your taxable income would include profits from a crypto sale.

For example, if a married couple earns $125,000 together in 2024, their taxable income may fall below $94,050 after they subtract the $29,200 standard deduction for married couples filing jointly.

The price of bitcoin was hovering around $90,000, up more than 100% year-to-date, as of the afternoon on Nov. 18. The value briefly hit a record of $93,000 last week in a post-election rally.

It’s obviously hard to predict future price increases. However, some investors expect a boost under President-elect Donald Trump, who promised pro-crypto policies on the campaign trail.

John Healy began investing in exchange-traded funds when he was about 18 years old.

Back then, Healy said he worked as a security guard in a beach club earning an hourly wage of “$12 a pop” and relied on message boards on the internet to figure out what to buy or sell.

Today, Healy is a 25-year-old law clerk in New York City with a financial planner guiding his investments.

What hasn’t changed? His interest in baskets of securities designed to closely track an index.

“ETFs are still a vehicle for me to get action in the stock market,” Healy said.

He’s not alone. Young investors are tapping into exchange-traded funds at high rates.

According to an annual report by Nasdaq, millennials and Gen Zers are the two most likely generational groups to have ETF holdings in their retirement accounts, at 81% and 75%, respectively. 

The survey polled 2,000 U.S. retail ETF investors in March. The report defines millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996, and Gen Z as those from 1997 to 2021.

The trend been growing for the past three years, or since Nasdaq has been conducting the report, said Alison Hennessy, head of exchange-traded product listings at Nasdaq.

“The continued growth of retail investors investing in ETFs is certainly not going away,” she said. 

ETFs listed in the U.S. hit a record-breaking $900 billion in inflows and about 600 ETF launches this year, according to ETF.com.

The investment vehicle has been growing in popularity among investors in general in part due to the lower associated costs, tax benefits and accessibility compared to mutual funds, experts say.

“What really attracts investors to the ETF structure in general is, they’re easier to buy and sell directly on a brokerage account,” Hennessy said. 

The same can’t be said for a mutual fund, experts say. 

If you’re an active investor, you have the ability to make intra-day trades with an ETF, whereas a mutual fund won’t actually process your buy or sell order until after market close, explained Tommy Lucas, a certified financial planner and enrolled agent at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida.

Meanwhile, associated fees with ETFs tend to be much lower compared to mutual funds and other index funds.

Index ETFs have a 0.44% average annual fee, half the 0.88% fee for index mutual funds, according to Morningstar. Similarly, active ETFs carry a 0.63% average fee, versus 1.02% for actively managed mutual funds, Morningstar data shows.

And ETFs do not typically trigger capital gains taxes, Lucas said.

“That’s what makes them so tax efficient,” he said. “For younger investors, you know really what you’re getting and there’s no surprises.” 

When Healy began investing as a teenager, he was mostly driven to do so by his parents, who instilled in him the value of saving and investing his money, Healy said.

“Now I’m living on my own, and I have my own personal finances to worry about,” he said.

Gen Z investors who are starting out need to keep in mind two elements, according to experts.

1. Research what your exposure could be

There are more than 3,800 U.S.- listed ETFs available in the market now, and a perk to consider is their transparency, said Hennessy. 

“The vast majority of ETFs are disclosing their holdings,” or what’s held in their portfolio, she said. 

To find out what sectors, companies, industries or risks you may be exposed to, look up the information on the ETF issuer’s website, Hennessy said.

For example, say a fund’s name includes the term “international.” You may want to know what countries or classifications the fund focuses on. 

“You have the ability to really drill down and look at the exact holdings in the fund,” Hennessy said.

2. Take note of ‘wash sale rules’

Be mindful about so-called “wash sale rules,” Lucas said. 

The IRS guidelines essentially blocks you from writing off a loss if you repurchase the same or an identical security within a 30-day window before or after the sale, he explained. 

If you sell an ETF at a loss, and you buy it back or a similar one within that time period, you cannot get the benefit of the tax loss. 

It can be easier to get around wash sale rules with an ETF compared to mutual funds, but you need to be careful how you handle it, experts say.

“That loss that you would of taken just gets added to your cost basis to potentially take later,” Lucas said.