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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show where our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. Do you know it's officially?


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[Assistant] The first day of summer today, how about that? The longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Oh, do I love summer. And by the way, you should hear me whine six months from now in deep winter. Oh, I can't handle the darkness. But with it being officially the start of summer,


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[Assistant] A lot of people are renting cars and I'm going to give you strategies for saving money. I'm also going to talk about.


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[Assistant] How you can do it if you're under 25, because the cardinal companies generally want nothing to do with you if you're under 25. There's actually a strategy


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[Assistant] Something you do not want to avoid as a homeowner? Insurance! Natural disasters, the cost to rebuild.


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[Assistant] Wow, it's really affecting the cost of insurance for your home all across America. We're going to talk about that.


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[Assistant] Ugly, ugly reports as travel has zoomed over the last six weeks of people showing up at the car rental counter and them saying, Oh, we don't know you. You don't have a reservation. Who are you? What are you talking about?


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[Assistant] Rather than just fessing up, they're out of cars. I don't know if I mentioned that when I was in Southern California, uhm, two trips ago, we show up at the rental place and I


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[Assistant] Have memberships in all the car rental programs designed so I skip the counter.


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[Assistant] Which is really, really valuable. I want to explain in a second.


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[Assistant] About joining those programs. So I go straight to the lot and I'm looking at this giant lot. I mean, just a massive lot that would normally have rental cars in it. There were two, two cars. That was it. And so I said, well, it's your lucky day that your express check in.


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[Assistant] So I ended up with a Toyota Camry and we were good, but as we were driving away,


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[Assistant] My wife Lane and I were talking about, what about all those people that we passed inside?


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[Assistant] And this is something you should know about. Uhm, I was in Phoenix four weeks ago.


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[Assistant] And I get to the car rental center there and express again I'm out in the lot and then another car rental brand


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[Assistant] I see this line of people that is about 60 people long.


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[Assistant] And I said to my son, Grant, I said, do you know what's going on there? And he was like, no. I said,


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[Assistant] They had all these people look for reservations. They show up. There's no cars and they're just stuck.


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[Assistant] Okay, so I'm gonna tell you what very frequent flyers are doing, uh, in a second.


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[Assistant] But I want to tell you what you can do even if you don't travel a lot. All the car rental companies have.


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[Assistant] These express rental programs and they are free to join. You register your driver's license number, the credit card you're going to use to pay for the rental, um, your preferences, all this stuff and


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[Assistant] Then when you book your car, even if you book through a third party site, like I usually book my car rentals through Costco travel because their car rentals offer you a free second driver so you don't have to pay the second driver junk fee and their rates are usually better


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[Assistant] Then you can find elsewhere, not always, I always comparison shop, but I'd say probably two thirds of the time I booked my car rentals through Costco travel. So then after I booked,


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[Assistant] I go to the car rental site, put in my confirmation number, first name, last name, pulls out my reservation. I add my express number there, whatever each car rental company calls it. Uh, Hertz calls it, uh, number one club. Avis calls it wizard, I guess. Uh, they all have these names for them. And so I then go and I.


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[Assistant] Uh, add my number there and usually I can do express check-in.


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[Assistant] Where you completely bypass the counters and you go straight to the lot, which gets you to the front of the line.


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[Assistant] Not the back of the line with all the people that are waiting when they're out of cars. You're going to move to the front of that at almost every airport, every situation. I said almost because I know somebody will say, well,


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[Assistant] I'm a member of this out of the other and didn't get me the car any quicker, but usually it will help. Now the thing that very frequent travelers are doing right now.


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[Assistant] That is just because of all the stories running on the frequent flyer message boards. Is there booking with multiple car rental companies?


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[Assistant] And that only increases the predictability problem for the car rental companies of how many people are showing up. But it is a defensive thing that's happened


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[Assistant] In a situation where I showed up and there were no car rentals and I've had to take Uber and Lyft for


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[Assistant] A day till I was able to get a car. And that's kind of a pain, but I've had to do that before. Quickly with the kids, with kids.


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[Assistant] My goodness, terrible thing to say. People who are under 25, car rental companies treat you as kids.


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[Assistant] Traditionally, you have not been a wanted customer.


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[Assistant] But I wanted to tell you that Hertz is doing a deal right now.


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[Assistant] That you can enroll in, we have the enrollment link at Clark.com where you can enroll


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[Assistant] as a recent college graduate and they will wave


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[Assistant] Oh, there have been the terrible, terrible, terrible scandals involving herds where they're so messed up at the back end.


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[Assistant] They've been having hundreds of people have been arrested around the country. Uh, people have been locked up. They now have criminal records because Hertz mistakenly thought they stole a car they've returned.


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[Assistant] Terrible, terrible problem, warrants for people's arrest. Uhm, the CEO of Hertz recently apologized for this, and it was a real apology, not a non-apology apology, but the fact is the damage has been done, and I hope that Hertz gets its act together on that.


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[Assistant] And you're under 25. USAA has a special program with budget car rental that works in most of the country that allows you to rent a car


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[Assistant] From, uh, under 25 without paying any of the huge under 25 junk fees like the Hertz thing they're doing for young drivers. Krista?


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[Assistant] Is the compromise that a lot of people use that if you have a medical issue like you've got with sciatica that premium economy costs


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[Assistant] Obviously, significantly more than coach, but much, much less than, uh, what overseas is now. There's really very few flights that have.


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[Assistant] When you're walking through a cabin on a flight in the United States.


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[Assistant] The mileage redemptions, if you have a lot of frequent flyer points, the mileage redemption that you would have for going uhm,


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[Assistant] Premium economy is substantially less than it is for a business class.


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[Assistant] One thing in particular you mentioned that you're going to Milan. Wanted to tell you about Milan. That there are much lower fares out of New York to Milan.


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[Assistant] In any other airport in the United States, almost always, Milan has a unique situation out of New York, something that American and United and Delta hate is it has a fifth freedom flight from Emirates.


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[Assistant] I'm not going to get in all the technicalities of fifth freedom, but they're allowed to fly passengers from New York to Milan, buy fuel there and go on. And so Emirates has really, uh, taken a huge


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[Assistant] Has had a huge impact on what the airfares are from New York to Milan versus most anywhere else.


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[Assistant] It's good to look from New York. You won't necessarily be flying on Emirates. You'll just benefit from the lower fares.


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[Assistant] That they have brought into that market. So you can fly from Minneapolis to New York really pretty inexpensively and then the flight from.


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[Assistant] New York to Milan, you might save a lot of money doing that as two tickets.


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[Assistant] Okay, so Barcelona is a fantastic walking city. If walking all around is more than you are comfortable doing,


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[Assistant] There is a hop on hop off bus service as I remember.


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[Assistant] I think it was 30 euro a day for it but you could find that pretty easily looking online, looking on TripAdvisor.


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[Assistant] And you can look at the top things to do in Barcelona.


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[Assistant] And it will certainly be one of the things that will be on there.


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[Assistant] On the TripAdvisor Barcelona City Guide, essentially what it is, is for Euro,


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[Assistant] You wanna use your ATM card to get euros. This is true for anywhere you go in Europe. You wanna make sure that the ATM card you use is fee free to use an ATM. Uhm, really important.


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[Assistant] And that they don't charge you at your financial institution any foreign currency junk fees.


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[Assistant] When you get ATMs out, but you get a much much better rate.


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[Assistant] When you get euros out of an ATM, then if you go exchange.


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[Assistant] at a bank or one of those money changing things in the airport.


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[Assistant] At one place you should never, never, never, not ever


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[Assistant] Change money from US dollars to any foreign currency is in any American airport unless you just hate your money and you want to throw it away. The exchange rates that you get


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[Assistant] In an international terminal, as you get ready to depart to Europe, Asia, South America, whatever, the exchange rates you get in a US airport are the world's worst.


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[Assistant] So you wait till you get to your destination.


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[Assistant] Get those euros. Now in Barcelona, you're going to find almost everywhere you go, they'll take your credit cards.


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[Assistant] Even you go to an inexpensive place to eat, almost always they take credit cards.


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[Assistant] So it's important before you get to Barcelona that you check which of your credit cards does not charge foreign currency junk fees. And you've got plenty of time between now and September that if you don't have a credit card that waives foreign currency junk fees that you get a card that does


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[Assistant] So that you don't waste that money on your trip and have a great, great time. Love Barcelona.


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[Assistant] Well it's funny because I use Charles Schwab because there's unlimited ATM withdrawals fee free. I do too. But inevitably with Schwab, doesn't matter if I put in a travel alert, they still decline my...


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[Assistant] The first time I tried to use an ATM overseas and the beauty with Schwab is you just call them, collect from anywhere in the world. They accept the call and they verify you're really overseas and then they go ahead and approve.


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[Assistant] I don't know why they have you do the travel alerts since they don't seem to pay any attention to them.


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[Assistant] Chuck, you could fix that. You know, there you are in that beautiful...


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[Assistant] Home on the big island of Hawaii. Remember that home of his?


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[Assistant] Chuck Schwab, I mean, man, saving people money on investment, sure make them a lot of money. That is one of the most beautiful settings. His home I've ever seen in my life. Oh, well. So.


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[Assistant] What do you have to do if you live like he does? You gotta worry about storms, right?


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[Assistant] Oh volcanoes, didn't even think about that. Cause there's a big volcano on the big island where he is as active. Anyway, we're gonna talk straight ahead.


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[Assistant] About what's involved today with insuring your home. What are the things you gotta know? How are you gonna protect that wallet of yours? Buying homeowners insurance is really not for the faint of heart anymore.


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[Assistant] There's such a change in the market where


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[Assistant] When companies used to sell homeowners insurance, it was comprehensive. You bought a policy and it covered pretty much all occurrences.


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[Assistant] And then that steadily started being chipped away as insurers decided they weren't in the insurance business anymore, they were in the risk management business.


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[Assistant] And so things got, uh, little more restricted.


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[Assistant] More than a generation ago when insurers started excluding flood.


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[Assistant] And then the federal government came up with the federal flood insurance program.


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[Assistant] And now insurers are excluding earthquakes unless you buy extra coverage and thing by thing.


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[Assistant] Risk by risk, insurers are saying, it's not worth the risk to us. We're out of that business. This is all you get from us now.


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[Assistant] And you gotta buy these other supplemental coverages. And now there's such


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[Assistant] It's almost, it's not a part time job, but it requires more than just calling and getting quotes. You really have to think about the risks that you're taking on and how to manage those risks. And I'm looking at a brand new chart


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[Assistant] That was developed by something called First Street Foundation that shows the fire risk that now exists.


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[Assistant] In different parts of the country. So we already have this thing where we know about California with the brutal fires, but then we're hearing about these.


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[Assistant] Ugly out of control fires in more and more places. It was just when a while ago in New Mexico there was really bad. Colorado's had some and you look at the map.


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[Assistant] And where is there more fire danger with great population than anywhere else in America? Florida. Yeah, and particularly


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[Assistant] South Florida, both the East coast and the West coast of Florida, terrible, terrible enhanced fire danger. Guess what else happens?


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[Assistant] In that part of Florida, extreme hurricane risk, windstorm damage, whatever you want to call it. And so we as homeowners or as prospective homeowners face more and more of a challenge with being able to find good homeowners insurance from reputable companies at premiums we can afford.


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[Assistant] And so when you're in an area subject to things like extreme fire danger, fire risk, uh, flood risk, hurricane risk,


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[Assistant] A bathroom in the primary bedroom? I mean, man, look at this bathroom. It's like we're living in a palace. I mean, that's the stuff we look at because a home is our dream.


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[Assistant] But I hate to intrude on that with a little bit of the reality, you really gotta think through what all the costs are going to be. Now, the number one recommendation


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[Assistant] I have for you, if you're going to buy in a market


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[Assistant] Where homeowners insurance is going to be really pricey. That the leverage you can pull


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[Assistant] A smart thing to do anyway is to lower the premiums by having a higher deductible because the other facet of you buying a home, owning a home is that the insurer doesn't want anything to do with you if you make a claim.


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[Assistant] Uh, often it's referred to as use it and lose it.


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[Assistant] The purpose of homeowners insurance has changed.


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[Assistant] You cannot use it for routine kind of events.


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[Assistant] You have to use it only for a catastrophic occurrence because if you have a pattern of using it for smaller claims, they're going to give you the heave ho.


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[Assistant] And then you've got to think about these layers I was talking about, and that is


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[Assistant] What does a homeowner's insurance policy actually cover more relevant? What does it not cover? Do you need to buy flood insurance based on where your home is? Do you need to buy specialized


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[Assistant] Windstorm coverage, hurricane coverage, do you need to buy based on where you live, earthquake coverage, because remember,


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[Assistant] What I started with more and more of these insurers are cutting out coverage.


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[Assistant] And one last brief mention of something I talked about a while back. The new federal flood insurance system is phasing in.


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[Assistant] And there will be people that see lower premiums, and there will be people who


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[Assistant] Expensive, but if you are in an area prone to floods, it is well worth having. To my right, my long-term producer, Krista.


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[Assistant] You in 2009 experienced a thousand year flood, what was known as a theoretical thousand year, not a hundred year flood, thousand year flood that destroyed your home.


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[Assistant] And you went through a emotional and financial challenge that was unbelievable. And I saw how strong a person you were from how you were able to navigate what seemed like an impossible situation.


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[Assistant] But hear me now, believe me later. Have the coverages you need to have.


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[Assistant] But have that high deductible so you're never tempted for those smaller claims.


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[Assistant] I only want to, uh, I don't even want to characterize what smaller claims are because I don't want people to have a hard event or pass out if they're standing instead of sitting.


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[Assistant] Alright, Sue, thank you. Thank you. This hasn't come up, I don't think it's come up in the last two years.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of situations with insurers that if you have an inspection done, some of the insurers will provide an inspector for free. Some on higher value policies mandate an inspection.


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[Assistant] And there will be things that they may suggest you do, some they'll require you do.


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[Assistant] Uhm, in situations like in Florida, they may not even be willing to insure you unless you do some of those things. But in many cases,


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[Assistant] Doing the mitigation things that you're asked to do by the inspector will qualify you for a lower premium because you're lowering the risk to them of being your insurer.


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[Assistant] Not so much, that could occasionally happen, but we have actually tested at Clark.com a number of these survey opportunities.


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[Assistant] And we've only tested ones that are legit, that are not scams. And you're not gonna make a lot of money. Uhm, the promises that you can get a huge dollar value in free products or that you can earn a lot of money per hour, they are not true. It is true though that there are survey companies that will pay you effectively. Gosh, I mean they work out typically to be less than minimum wage.


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[Assistant] If you were to calculate on an hourly basis what you will learn, but there are legitimate ones. If you want to see it, just go.


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[Assistant] To clark.com in our search box put in surveys for money.


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[Assistant] And skip all the ads that'll pop up right there and go to our article about the survey companies we've tested and what we were actually able to make is we tested them for you.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, so Elon Musk has nothing to do with this. And gosh, people want to, uhm, either credit or blame Elon Musk right now for everything, don't they?


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[Assistant] Have you seen, by the way, how much his income, how much his net worth has dropped?


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[Assistant] Okay, he's, he's had a drop in his net worth in


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[Assistant] The last little while since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that is more than most


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[Assistant] Any thousand people who are very, very successful in the world at it all together, they will never.


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[Assistant] Have as much money as he's just lost recently. He's lost 40% of his net worth. Anyway.


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[Assistant] I digress, Elon Musk did not advance the Plootsie bug, and there are all these devices out there that claim


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[Assistant] That they are able to get rid of mosquitoes, kill them for you.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so this one is not supposed to be, uhm, even though it's touted as something magical, there are many others that people tout as magical, and I don't know of any that have been


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[Assistant] Incredibly successful. A lot of people.


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[Assistant] Use those services that basically uh, spray fog your yard.


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[Assistant] And then there are people that are worried about environmental issues with that. The mosquito thing's a tough one.


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[Assistant] And I don't have a perfect answer for you.


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[Assistant] And how to get rid of the mosquitoes. Mosquitoes don't seem to like fighting me. Do they seek you out?


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[Assistant] Okay well I've been fortunate that way and by the way I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast and if you're not aware we offer free and we've done so for nearly 30 years


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[Assistant] One-on-one consumer advice, information and guidance. It's available 30 hours each week.


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[Assistant] You can see how to talk with a member of the Team Clark Consumer Action Center one-on-one for free if you go to Clark.com slash CAC.


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show, where our mission is to serve you and empower you to make better financial decisions in your life.


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[Assistant] It's going to be a rocky summer for energy for our homes and businesses. Are you prepared if there's a blackout? I want to talk about what you need to know, how you can be prepared.


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[Assistant] And later, something I love, free stuff. How to get the media you consume for free and do it legally. I like the legal and free combination. We're going to talk about it. This I'm nervous to talk about because you don't know


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[Assistant] How alarmist things can be that turn out later not to be true, but there's


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[Assistant] An organization whose job it is to assess.


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[Assistant] The robustness, the strength of the nation's energy grid. And we got some problems right now.


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[Assistant] We've got the issues with predictions that say it's going to be a hotter than normal summer.


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[Assistant] At the same time, we've had extended periods of drought in a lot of the country in areas that depend on hydro.


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[Assistant] And Hydro is not going to be able to do its job. At the same time, we face an ever-present danger that the Russians are going to attack


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[Assistant] Our underlying computer systems that operate the energy grid.


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[Assistant] In different parts of the country, it's a pretty decentralized thing.


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[Assistant] And it's a risk that people in the power industry internally are well aware of, that a state actor could attempt to disrupt normal life in the United States, at least in sectors of the United States, by attacking the grid.


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[Assistant] We also have potential because of the very, very hot temperatures of those predictions come true that will outstrip


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[Assistant] The ability for power companies to produce enough kilowatts.


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[Assistant] The people that are into politics will start, uh, slinging arrows at different political parties and philosophies and all that about energy and, uhm,


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[Assistant] I'm staying out of that whole political side of this, but.


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[Assistant] The reality is we do have vulnerabilities that exist for a number of factors, but mainly


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[Assistant] If the higher temperatures do turn out to be true,


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[Assistant] It's going to cause spot issues in areas of the country with the power grid. So I'm not trying to...


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[Assistant] The alternatives in having a home generator.


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[Assistant] And the advantages of having potentially a home generator that is one of the big ones that's installed at your house, having uhm,


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[Assistant] You can have a relatively small portable generator that


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[Assistant] These are available now and they tend to cost more in the range of a thousand to two thousand dollars. They are battery powered generators.


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[Assistant] That you, uh, charge up the batteries, and they have solar panels.


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[Assistant] That if you have a power outage and the battery power is draining, you regenerate that power with the solar panels.


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[Assistant] I have one of those that is,


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[Assistant] Uh, pretty heavy portable unit to call it portable. It takes two strong people to carry it, but it is relatively small.


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[Assistant] Is fully charged, the batteries are fully charged and it comes with these solar panels that fold out and regenerate the power as the batteries drain. What will it run?


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[Assistant] But it's not gonna run your whole house. What it will run,


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[Assistant] It'll keep your refrigerator stuff from spoiling. It'll run your microwave.


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[Assistant] One of these portable generators. And that's about it. You're not running the air conditioning in your home. You're not running, uh, in winter, you're not running the heat in your home.


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[Assistant] All it's doing is keeping basic systems.


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[Assistant] Operating. You know when you think about when you have a power outage, you have to throw everything out of your refrigerator and freezer.


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[Assistant] How much money did that cost? I mean that's really bad ugly.


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[Assistant] And so having a generator, because modern refrigerators hold so little energy now that you can run them from one of these devices.


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[Assistant] I have a situation where you're in darkness and you're watching food rot right before your eyes and things like that. Taking care of the most basic things doesn't involve having to buy a big whole house generator or anything like that.


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[Assistant] And if you do buy a generator that's powered by, uh, fuel.


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[Assistant] Be very aware of the carbon monoxide risk with those no proper placement of a portable generator that runs on fuel. Not an issue with the battery powered ones. Krista?


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[Assistant] Did you ever get the generator you and your husband were talking about?


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[Assistant] Definitely not, because then it's not the mortgage company that's singing the blues. You are. You own the house free and clear, and if you have a catastrophic loss at your house,


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[Assistant] Uh, that's an ugly event that would then come out of your pocket. So if you've worked for a long time manual,


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[Assistant] Uh, Manuel, whichever it is, um, in order to own this house free and clear, you don't want all your hard effort and work and years of paying this off suddenly to be wiped out. I know when Florida homeowners insurance is so frightfully expensive.


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[Assistant] Because the insurer knows there will be no what they consider to be nuisance premiums against the homeownership, homeowner policy.


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[Assistant] It'll only be nuisance claims. It'll only be for major events.


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[Assistant] Okay, so Michael, what actually happened in this case is both salespeople lied to


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[Assistant] To your sister-in-law. They were not fiduciaries.


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[Assistant] There's no way, uh, the person working for the insurance company, they don't have fiduciaries. They only have commission salespeople.


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[Assistant] Yeah, no chance. No chance that person was a fiduciary. Thanks.


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[Assistant] As a general rule, do not enter into a fiduciary relationship with you at all.


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[Assistant] Would take advantage of a grieving widow and lie like that.


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[Assistant] Just just hideous, atrocious, a real fiduciary will sign a legal agreement with you that


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[Assistant] Details that they are fiduciary and they are there to represent you. On Clark.com we have


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[Assistant] A guide to how to hire a fiduciary and there are certain organizations that


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[Assistant] We talk about where you can find a legitimate person who actually is a fiduciary.


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[Assistant] Philosophically or personality aligned with you, but that's the minimum standard is to make sure that you are hiring an actual real fiduciary instead of the two sleazoids who lied to a grieving widow. Shame, shame, shame on them. The bank.


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[Assistant] And the insurance company those two people work for.


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[Assistant] The question with any of the employer plans that allow excess contributions, how are they ultimately taxed? If the money that goes in beyond the normal statutory limit is not


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[Assistant] Money that grows tax- it grows tax-free.


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[Assistant] But then can't be spent tax free, that the contributions are tax free, but the earnings are not.


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[Assistant] Then it's not worth doing in the case of the backdoor Roth and that's why you've got to know exactly what the employer is allowing.


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[Assistant] With the excess contributions, how they are treated tax-wise. With your backdoor Roth, which is something kind of technical.


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[Assistant] That only applies to you if you make big money that makes you ineligible for putting money into a Roth IRA each year.


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[Assistant] Backdoor Roth is a way you contribute something known as a non-deductible IRA and then re-characterize it as Roth.


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[Assistant] Why the tax code has this weird complication it does. If that, you know, going through the double step.


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[Assistant] That is money that grows tax free and is spent tax free.


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[Assistant] If the employer money is also money that can grow tax free and be spent, spent tax free.


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[Assistant] I love that you're saving the max you already can with your employer.


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[Assistant] Getting entertained for free. Isn't that cool? We're going to talk about how to do it. We spend so much money now on digital media, uh, movies, TV.


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[Assistant] Books, you know, reading electronic books, audio books, music. And so there's a temptation of people to steal those things, but there's a better idea. And that is to look for ways to get all the media that you could possibly ever consume


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[Assistant] For free and do it legally. It means so much to me that people not steal content. And at the same time, I want you to get better deals that I've got guides for you.


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[Assistant] On Clark.com divided out by content area, free movies, free TV, free books, free audio books, free music, because I want you to be able to get the content and be complying with the law. Now there is a catch with the TVs and movies most often.


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[Assistant] It's that the free sources are going to be ad supported music most often free music going to be ad supported.


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[Assistant] Dad, only old people listen to that. I listen to Pandora and listen to the ad supported version of Pandora. And.


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[Assistant] You know, two ads every, seems like two ads every five songs? Something like that.


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[Assistant] I'm happy to do it. I, I, I don't, I kinda zone.


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[Assistant] When I'm out exercising anyway, it's just nice having the tunes, but anyway,


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[Assistant] I want you to know that if you feel like your budget's being overwhelmed,


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[Assistant] And you're spending money on the things I'm talking about. Why not figure out how to do them for free? And while we're on that topic.


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[Assistant] I'm shocked that there are still people that listen to SiriusXM and pay all that money


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[Assistant] A music service you're streaming on your smartphone.


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[Assistant] I mean think about all the ways you can pull expenses out of your life.


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[Assistant] And still have the things you want.


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[Assistant] And as I shared with you about six weeks ago, the hottest trend in video


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[Assistant] Is as companies are seeing subscribers discontinue as they've gone from being at home and they're out and about more, the video services for TV and movies are


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[Assistant] Going as fast as they can to roll out ad supported free services to try to keep people from firing them completely.


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[Assistant] And so you're going to see more and more.


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[Assistant] With media content where you're going to be able to get the stuff for free simply by being able to put up with ads. You know the next sector I think is going to go to this forever ago.


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[Assistant] Way and way long ago, long ago and far away, this is going to be a shock to anybody who's younger.


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[Assistant] Used to have to pay every time you made a long distance call and long distance calls were very expensive and I used to use a service.


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[Assistant] From Maryland, it was national service, but it was one where you listened to 15 second ads.


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[Assistant] In every 15 second ad you listen to, you got two free minutes along distance and


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[Assistant] I think we're gonna see, but instead of being listening, you're gonna have ads you have to watch, and that will get you more data.


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[Assistant] Cause calling is basically completely free now and people wouldn't see value add.


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[Assistant] To that, because you have to pay like nothing for calling and texting. But.


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[Assistant] Getting free data in return for watching, uh, television like commercials on your phone. That is absolutely gonna happen. Krista?


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[Assistant] So, you're asking for a very tough crystal ball from me?


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[Assistant] Our housing price is going to crash. Very unlikely.


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[Assistant] I don't see that happening. Are housing prices going to soften?


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[Assistant] During the twenties, yes, there will be a softening of housing prices.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so is interest rates move up as the economy will be forced to slow to squeeze inflation out of the economy as hopefully at some point the inventory mismatch between


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[Assistant] The supply of houses and apartments and the demand for them as it gets to...


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[Assistant] Equalize, you're gonna see that housing prices start to trail the growth of the economy, uh, if not go slightly in reverse. It will be the rare circumstance and rare situation, uh,


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[Assistant] Is we had a surplus of housing units. Today we still have a shortage.


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[Assistant] And then be committed if you needed to, to own it another seven. If that's a bridge too far, then I think you rent don't buy.


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[Assistant] Karen, congratulations, iBonds are such a great way to keep up with inflation right now, paying huge interest rates versus anything else. You can buy up to 10 grand of them in a year.


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[Assistant] Between now and the fall that it makes sense to go through the effort of putting that money into a 529. And it's nine point what, Krista?


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[Assistant] 9.62%. It's a pretty good rate right now, isn't it?


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[Assistant] You know, the reason is the U.S. Treasury doesn't want to do these small accounts. To them, they're just like a big hassle. They don't put the effort into them, but the optics look really bad.


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[Assistant] If they only make the sale of US debt available to, uh, institutions and billionaires. And so they have way under invested.


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[Assistant] In the website, which is obvious when you try to use


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[Assistant] The treasurydirect.gov website and savingsponds.gov.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Arizona Lou, uh, good luck to you in your career as a comedian. My daughter who just graduated from college is now working for the Groundlings, which will mean something to you, Arizona Lou. So.


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[Assistant] Who what he or she does is real estate work. Um, Arizona, like a number of states, closings are not done by real estate closing attorneys. They're done by.


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[Assistant] Uh, escrow companies, title companies, whatever they call them in their states that are


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[Assistant] Why are closed States and there are others that are done these other ways. You need someone who understands.


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[Assistant] Real estate law, not just a lawyer who's a general practice, who will properly prepare the, the deal for you selling to the tenant properly, prepare the mortgage and all those documents. And that's, yes, that's going to be an additional expense and the sale of the property. But if the agreement is not done properly, there's real risk to you. Now you're a second thing about putting money into a REIT.


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[Assistant] What you're doing with an individual rental property as there could be. It's almost like buying a stock.


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[Assistant] In this case, it's a stock of real estate and speaking of which there are a lot of funds you can buy that own


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[Assistant] Pieces of many different reads instead of you being subject to what happens with a particular read.


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[Assistant] And you can look at any of the low cost companies and look at the re


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[Assistant] Is return of capital that you have put in and hopefully income and


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[Assistant] If you do decide you want to go linearly into an individual read, you need to really, really study that read in terms of the expenses you're going to have to absorb.


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[Assistant] How diversified that read is so you're not in one that is structured way too narrowly. And I want to tell you,


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[Assistant] Is written from the right place, the heart and the head to give you a step ahead in life. So check out Clark.com and if you're looking for the best deals of the day, check out ClarkDeals.com.


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[Assistant] Welcome to the Clark Howard Show and this is our kickoff to your July 4th holiday weekend.


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[Assistant] Our mission remains the same though, even on a holiday weekend, and that's to serve you and empower you so you make better decisions in your life. And since it's Friday, you know what that means. It's time for.


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[Assistant] Our Clark Sink segment where you get to hear how much I've stunk it up. And later.


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[Assistant] I talked the other day about the changing landscape for employees.


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[Assistant] Today I want to talk about what makes the real difference for you as an employer.


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[Assistant] In keeping your employees, getting that loyalty out of them so that they will hang around instead of giving you notice or just suddenly stop showing up and


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[Assistant] I want to say something leading in before you get into Clark Stinks. You know that, uh, you may remember.


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[Assistant] That the fourth of July is my favorite American holiday. I feel so privileged and grateful to live in this great land of ours. I am the grandchild


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[Assistant] Of four immigrants to the United States, all four of my grandparents born overseas. And the opportunity that this country has afforded me, it's just unbelievable. And you know, it said that life is what you make it.


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[Assistant] But not necessarily because a lot of people where you're born controls so much about what you can become.


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[Assistant] In this country of ours, we're not perfect. There's a lot of things that


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[Assistant] It was the principles it was built on and what it's become. I think it's really important to acknowledge there are things we've got to got to do better.


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[Assistant] But we're doing a pretty great job overall. I want to give one example before you go to Clark Stinks. So the other day I was driving along on a highway, uh, and witnessed


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[Assistant] Uh, just very violent one vehicle accident.


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[Assistant] And I was coming the opposite direction, but was looking straight at this accident happen. And there were four cars that people witnessed the accident. All four cars stopped.


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[Assistant] And it was amazing. One was a family doctor, his wife and son, a young lady who had just graduated from high school.


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[Assistant] And a woman who is manager of a fast food restaurant and me and the first


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[Assistant] At the fast food restaurant manager and she had just ended her shift and she went running into the vehicle and run off the road, into embankment, into the woods and you couldn't even find the car.


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[Assistant] And she went right in there like she, like she needed a machete to get through and scraped herself up getting in there, got to the two people first and they, they both


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[Assistant] Were amazingly the, the SUV completely totaled. I don't even know how a tow truck could get it out of where it ended up.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the doctor immediately started attending to both of these kids. They were high school students. And they were okay.


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[Assistant] I think one of them was a little injured but was so shook up, didn't even, wasn't aware, would realize later. But it was great having the doctor there, uhm, that we all did our part.


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[Assistant] No, I did not. I actually called the young lady's mom, making that phone call as a parent of three, making that phone call and having to tell a mom that her daughter had just been in an accident.


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[Assistant] And tell her the circumstances and all that. I mean, it was, uh, that was.


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[Assistant] No fun at all. I can't imagine being a police officer.


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[Assistant] Having to go tell a parent something like that. But anyway, I digress. I just wanted to point that out because we hear all the time about what


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[Assistant] Is wrong with America. What's wrong with our state? What's wrong with our community? What's wrong in our neighborhood?


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[Assistant] But over and over again, things that don't make the news.


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[Assistant] People who one by one and collectively.


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[Assistant] Make a difference to make society better. And right now Americans kind of down on America. We feel like, uh, we just don't have it together.


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[Assistant] The reality is we've lost some confidence, some collective confidence in this country.


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[Assistant] Or go somewhere uhm, to the lake or whatever you do over a 4th of July holiday weekend or week. Just reflect on what we do have that's good in this country. And with that.


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[Assistant] Strong, strong, strong advocates. But look at Mint Mobile, M-I-N-T Mobile. They have a family plan that requires three, two or more people to be on it.


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[Assistant] And you don't have to put everybody on the same plan. If you think about the standard playbook


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[Assistant] Of T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T.


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[Assistant] If you go on a family plan, everybody's gotta do unlimited when most people don't need that. Well, what they do at Met Mobile is you


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[Assistant] Get the family plan rate, but each person picks what they need. So.


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[Assistant] Two of you don't need unlimited data. You can go on the cheapest plan and then your daughter can be on the one with unlimited data.


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[Assistant] And you won't ever have to worry about overages and their prices are really, really cheap on the family plan.


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[Assistant] Right. Rebecca, thank you for pointing that out. And I want to mention something that hasn't come up in years because we're not a medical show. If you were a long time cigarette smoker, lung cancer caught early


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[Assistant] Is very treatable, lung cancer caught late.


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[Assistant] Is sadly almost always fatal, which is why it's the number one cause of cancer deaths


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[Assistant] But there's now a very simple scan that can be done of people who have a history of smoking or currently do smoke.


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[Assistant] That lung cancer caught particularly at stage one is almost always.


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[Assistant] That you have it generally till it's past too late. And so it does have.


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[Assistant] This simple process that's really only recommended, at least today, for people who do have a history of smoking.


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[Assistant] Wow, I never thought of that angle, but you're right that, uh, you have a car that's immovable.


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[Assistant] Then the police want that vehicle out of the roadway because it prevents follow on accidents and it allows the flow of traffic.


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[Assistant] Uh, now some police departments have those big, uh, battering things on the front where you can have them, if your car is really beat up, you can have them just push it off to the side of the road for you.


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[Assistant] But that is a really clever idea. You're going to have an insurance claim anyway. So having


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[Assistant] The towing on top of it or roadside assistance on top of it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Christa's from New York and you would never hesitate to give an opinion.


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[Assistant] No, but I, on the Starbucks thing, really it's just ingest.


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[Assistant] Cause you are what you don't know about Krista is Krista is very methodical about saving money. And I'd say in ways.


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[Assistant] That are incredibly sophisticated, how you have an account for this to meet this goal and account for that to meet that goal and on like that to make sure that you can track everything and make sure you're hitting.


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[Assistant] So you can do whatever you want with the rest of your money because you're so good at saving.


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[Assistant] I appreciate your sentiment Ian, but I actually liked that, uh, that post.


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[Assistant] Questioning why I would buy my wife nice jewelry. She loves nice jewelry and you really stated the point that it is about having the freedom to make the choices you wish.


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[Assistant] By already having saved the money you need to have financial independence.


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[Assistant] The value of that was I was able to say that. If you think back to how I responded on the jewelry, it was that, that that was


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[Assistant] Uh, choice of consumption I made that I was able to make.


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[Assistant] Because I wasn't borrowing money to buy the jewelry or anything like that and I have


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[Assistant] Money saved for life's needs. So I didn't see that as a negative.


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[Assistant] I appreciate that. This went back to me talking about what I did to my kids with cereal as a kid. And you point out


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[Assistant] A very valid reason why that's not okay. And I appreciate that so much.


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[Assistant] And by the way, how am I doing with coloring my hair?


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[Assistant] Do you know I get so many people come up to me who, who watch me on TV and say, and ask if I color my hair.


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[Assistant] Cause I feel like I got a fair amount of right now, don't I?


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[Assistant] Definitely not, but I just think that it's kind of funny because people feel so much like, like they know you so well from.


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[Assistant] That it's, they don't look at that as a weird question.


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[Assistant] I think that's really funny. I will. So coming up ahead, I'm such a believer


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[Assistant] And loyalty and how you create that loyalty in a workforce. And I want to tell you what a difference it makes.


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[Assistant] And my belief has been all through my career as an entrepreneur going back 40 plus years is that the core, the key is how do you


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[Assistant] Treat the people who work for your organization and


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[Assistant] You look at any of these mission statements from any big corporation and they all say the same malarkey about how much they value their workers and blah, blah, blah, blah.


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[Assistant] But it's what they really do or don't do that matters. And there's one thing in particular.


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[Assistant] That I've seen that really, really makes the big difference and that is when employees know that they have a direct stake in the game, companies that focus on


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[Assistant] Having employees have a direct reward from the success of the business.


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[Assistant] One of the things that's interesting about all the tech companies based in California where California long ago eliminated.


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[Assistant] Any restriction with covenants not to compete that people can


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[Assistant] Can work at a place and then go somewhere else the next day if they want, but.


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[Assistant] A lot of the tech companies in California have been able to develop a very, very fiercely loyal workforce. Why?


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[Assistant] Because people working there know that if the company does well, they get stock grants. And that has been the standard formula that has allowed


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[Assistant] As bright and well-educated and talented and hardworking as they could possibly be because they know


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[Assistant] If the company succeeds from their efforts, they succeed as well and can end up being very wealthy.


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[Assistant] Among everything that I talk about that employers would benefit from more if they did more of this, that, or the other for their employees, having employees see the if then that if you


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[Assistant] Do well, the company does well, you make more money. It's been a philosophy of mine forever. And so that's why I've always been into.


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[Assistant] Doing uh, bonuses based on the company's profit.


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[Assistant] Every year, something I did way back forever ago when I was in the travel business and so people knew that if they put in a little extra effort


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[Assistant] Forget my own example, let's look at one that Barron's wrote about a while back.


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[Assistant] And you may or may not have heard of this company. It's a regional supermarket chain called public supermarkets based in central Florida.


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[Assistant] And Publix that has supermarkets up and down the eastern seaboard is unbelievably profitable. Like Publix, according to Barron's,


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[Assistant] Tiny company compared to Kroger, which besides Walmart's the biggest grocer in the United States, Kroger's behind them.


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[Assistant] Publix has bigger profits as a tiny grocer. It's this little regional grocer. They have more profits than the entire Kroger does in the whole country.


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[Assistant] Their rate of profit is four times.


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[Assistant] That of Kroger and the other big national player Albertsons.


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[Assistant] And how do they do it? The company is owned by the employees. You and I can't buy stock in this unbelievably profitable company.


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[Assistant] It's gonna be merged really well, meaning that everything's displayed really well in the store. The employees have hustle.


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[Assistant] And if people are in too long a line to check out, even on a Friday evening.


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[Assistant] They will hustle to get people through those lines and get them out of the store because the employees


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[Assistant] Is that 90% of their employees participate in being owners of the company.


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[Assistant] To make that connection with employees, it doesn't have to be something


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[Assistant] As different as what Publix does where it's owned by the employees. It can be.


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[Assistant] How you treat your employees overall, everything you've done. I talked before about why is it that employees at Costco generally have that hustle in them?


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[Assistant] Do that where they, instead of it being a slogan that they care about their workers, they actually do? Man, does it make a difference.


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[Assistant] And what happens is more people shop at a place where the employees are treated well because the atmosphere is better.


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[Assistant] And so the cost of opening a restaurant potentially is a lot lower than it would have been pre 2020 and


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[Assistant] The deals are not as good today as they were last year, but if you can find a restaurant that is in a location you really like,


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[Assistant] That has equipment in it that's been abandoned behind kitchen equipment and all the rest that costs a zillion dollars.


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[Assistant] Of opening that restaurant by an enormous amount.


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[Assistant] Score.org, the service core of retired executives. It is a organization of retired entrepreneurs, retired business owners, retired corporate types who will help guide you in putting together your business plan


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[Assistant] For your restaurant. What's it actually gonna cost? Not just to open the doors.


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[Assistant] But to deal with the cash flow issues till you build up enough revenue that you're cash flow positive in that restaurant. And then the other great advantage


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[Assistant] Where, you have no idea where to go. I think the first place you go is score.org to the local chapter. And it's available near you.


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[Assistant] And depending on the score chapter, they may offer you a mentor where you have an individual who may be retired from the restaurant business or something like that who can guide you


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[Assistant] And the kind of things you gotta be aware of, how you build that business plan, what the expenses are you have.


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[Assistant] I want you to go spend a few months working in one because you will learn so much that will help you in forming that business plan.


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[Assistant] So, uh, T, first of all, Bezos does through his investment arm have


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[Assistant] Groups before. This one works very similar to others. You pay a 1% commission on the money you put in.


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[Assistant] Pass 10,000 or more dollars so that you are part of pooling money.


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[Assistant] To own individual real estate properties that are generally rented out. There are a lot of private equity houses


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[Assistant] That are controversial in some parts of the country because they've been


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[Assistant] Competing against individuals trying to buy homes.


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[Assistant] Buying properties and then turning them into rental houses. And that's what these people do. So you put in your money.


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[Assistant] You pay the 1% commission, then you pay ongoing expenses that


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[Assistant] Usually in these, I'm trying to remember if this one's 8%.


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[Assistant] Being involved as a real estate investor is a passive investor.


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[Assistant] And it is something that is not a scam. It's not a ripoff.


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[Assistant] It's a little expensive with paying the 1% upfront and the share you have to pay.


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[Assistant] What's the alternative would be going into a real estate mutual fund or index fund?


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[Assistant] Where you would be in a much more diversified portfolio, but there's nothing.


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[Assistant] And that proceeds that you and other investors receive.


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[Assistant] I'd like to thank you so much for joining us on this July 4th holiday weekend kickoff podcast next week. Well, I'm taking the holiday week off, so there will be no podcast next week.


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[Assistant] Hope you have a wonderful holiday week next week and we'll be with you on next July 11th.


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show. Our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. Today, I'm going to talk about what I consider to be a risky new trend in 401k accounts, buying Bitcoin through your employer plan. Also, we touched on this before, but tipping


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[Assistant] Has become a big conundrum for people because it spread to all kinds of areas that it didn't exist in before. And it's on people's minds. I want to talk about it.


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[Assistant] And try to do so without sounding like Ebenezer Scrooge. Wish me luck. So crypto.


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[Assistant] I'm asked all the time when I'm just out and about, people stop me wanting to talk about crypto. And so crypto has


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[Assistant] An enormous level of interest in a segment of the American people, particularly skewed younger.


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[Assistant] And people are looking at it as potentially a get rich quick.


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[Assistant] That's what it's been about. It's been a highly speculative thing in the early stages of electronic money.


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[Assistant] Electronic money in various forms is going to be more and more part of our lives over our lifetimes.


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[Assistant] Is still very, very rookie season.


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[Assistant] Fidelity Investments, which is, if I recall right, the largest administrator


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[Assistant] A 401k plans in the United States. If they're not the largest, they're right up there.


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[Assistant] And fidelity has always been cutting edge and innovative. And so they are making, uh, buying Bitcoin as part of owning a 401k.


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[Assistant] An option that employers will be able to choose whether to add or not add.


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[Assistant] In crypto at this point in its life doesn't fit that. I mean, if you look at the pricing charts for Bitcoin.


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[Assistant] And you see the moves wildly up and down in the value per bitcoin.


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[Assistant] In a matter of days, weeks or months.


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[Assistant] And then you look at other things and see the movements and them completely different.


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[Assistant] Because even Bitcoin is the most established of cryptos, doesn't yet have a clear consistent value. You will know that electronic money, digital money has matured and become a real part of how world economies work.


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[Assistant] This is a very high risk kind of thing and it is a speculative kind of thing.


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[Assistant] And not the kind of thing that even if your employer says later this year, good news, you now have the option of putting some of your 401k money in Bitcoin. I would not be excited about that. And I know that there have been some posts lately from really strong advocates of cryptocurrencies who have been very unhappy.


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[Assistant] With people like me who, uh, they look at it as, uh, pretending that they get digital currency, but at the same time telling people about the downsides of them. And so I'm guilty as charged.


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[Assistant] And if that makes people unhappy that are strong crypto advocates, fine. Because the reality is.


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[Assistant] We've been moving more and more towards digital payment systems.


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[Assistant] Since the 1960s, even before computers became so prominent, even before the internet became part of our lives.


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[Assistant] That we've been moving digital. We don't think of it this way, but if I pull out my phone and I pay for something with GPay or you pull out an iPhone and you pay with Apple pay.


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[Assistant] That is a form of electronic money.


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[Assistant] Essentially if you use a credit card to buy online, you're using a form of digital money. This is just another version of digital money.


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[Assistant] But one that is when you start talking about cryptos, but one that is not tied in to a specific government entity, but then neither is Apple pay or GPay or these other things. So it's just not there yet.


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[Assistant] As something that has predictable, reliable value that you can use routinely knowing what the value will be for everyday purchases or sales of merchandise, either as a merchant selling or a customer buying. And so that's why if you were to put any Bitcoin in a 401k administered by fidelity,


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[Assistant] Know that you want to just do essentially what in your mind would be the play money, that it would be the lowest.


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[Assistant] Um, share of what you did, if you did it at all and you don't bet the farm on something that is still incubating, that's still trying to find


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[Assistant] It's rightful place in our wallets. So fidelity. I know why you did it. It's just not ready for prime time. Krista.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Jerry and, and we are going to see what the investment class likes to call continued volatility.


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[Assistant] Which means we could see, uh, stomach churning declines in our investments. The U.S. stock market, other stock markets could see, you know, ugliness ahead and that's how stock markets play. The irony is that if you are mid or early career,


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[Assistant] It's actually to your long-term financial advantage.


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[Assistant] That the market goes through stomach churning times and the value of your 401k in the short term declines because every month you're putting the $500 in


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[Assistant] You're buying more shares of things. It's kind of like when we go shop and we go into a clothing store.


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[Assistant] Nobody goes to the racks that the clothes are full price, right?


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[Assistant] Everybody goes and buys at the bargain rack, the clearance rack, the sale rack.


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[Assistant] With investing, we think the opposite. We are comfortable putting our money in.


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[Assistant] In our 401k, every pay period or putting in a Roth IRA or whatever we're doing, however we're investing, we're comfortable when the market's going up and then we're paying full share price and we get nervous when the prices are essentially on sale. I'm such a believer in the intrinsic.


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[Assistant] Nature of the free enterprise system and capitalism that owners do what's in their enlightened self-interest to make a product or service that people want to buy and that they can sell at a profit. I mean, that's why societies improve over time. That's why wealth flows to owners that in your case, Jerry.


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[Assistant] I would say you want to keep doing exactly what you're doing because this marketplace long term serves you better.


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[Assistant] Yes, and uh, this bears repeating that several other countries in the world have required a system of payment portability.


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[Assistant] On the part of banks because electronic payments, ACH is automatic bill pay. And so there's the banks are all interoperable on that.


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[Assistant] And our government has not required what so many governments have overseas, which requires that when you would switch, let's say from this monster bank to.


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[Assistant] And then we got true number portability and suddenly people started going wherever the best deal was and prices.


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[Assistant] Payment portability in the United States. So yeah, you've got to spend about 20, 25 minutes sitting down, migrating your bill pays over if you use, uh, electronic bill pay, you've got to


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[Assistant] Remember the ACH's you have coming out of your account, you look at your statement, you gotta change those that doesn't take long either. If you set aside


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[Assistant] Uh, relatively short period of time, you can migrate all your bill pays and all your ACHs and have that monster bank in the rear view mirror and be at the credit union where life is usually much more friendly because you're amongst owners.


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[Assistant] So somebody who's a really, really good con artist set this up. All right. So Carlos.


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[Assistant] If you can, play this for your, your mom.


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[Assistant] Oh, you didn't say it's your mom. Oh, yeah. Your mom. So mom, you got this fantastic forest service pension. It should easily provide for the cost of living and you don't want to put your financial security at risk with five by night, um, promissory loan people. So let me tell you what this is. So how promissory loans work.


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[Assistant] Somebody will say, Hey, you're going to turn your money at 10% a month or 8% a month or whatever. We're going to offer you these great returns on your money and it's just a phenomenal thing. And so they.


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[Assistant] They tell you they're going to pay you this money and what you don't know how it's going to play is are they running a Ponzi scheme, which means that they're taking money from.


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[Assistant] Later people and paying interest payments to early people or what's going on or if they really are doing high risk lending which has a very high default rate and the odds are very high that you can lose


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[Assistant] Much or all of the money that you, I use the word loosely invest in the promissory notes. Promissory notes are extremely dangerous for you to get involved in with any money that matters in your life. Please don't do this. So.


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[Assistant] We'll see what happens next. It's, uh, and I want to tell you, Carlos, you're a good son trying to protect your 66 year old mom straight ahead. It's everywhere you go now tipping.


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[Assistant] Is being asked for even at places where that never applied before. And there's multiple sides to this.


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[Assistant] What are you supposed to do? How do you decide? And when is it you're being fair to yourself?


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[Assistant] And when is it you're not dissing that person who's right across from you? This is tough stuff we're going to talk about.


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[Assistant] And there's this, uh, I guess it's a meme floating around about how when you see the iPad at any place you go to be afraid.


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[Assistant] Just about anywhere and everywhere it's become part of what we're being asked to do.


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[Assistant] Well, you know, the reality is it works. I mean, the, that when you're on an app.


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[Assistant] And it suggests or already fills in a tip, uhm, when, uh, when you are at any kind of business and they flip the iPad around or the screen.


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[Assistant] It will have either already pre-filled tip or suggested tip. This is


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[Assistant] This is difficult because there are a lot of places we go to every day


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[Assistant] The tipping was not historically part.


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[Assistant] Of our lives, the people who were working there, hopefully were being paid a sufficient amount of money. Um, not necessarily, but it's like where, where does it start and stop? I have seen something recently.


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[Assistant] That I never would have imagined, but twice recently I've seen people attempt to tip flight attendants.


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[Assistant] Only seen it twice, one took the tip, the other did not.


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[Assistant] So this is, this is all tied in


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[Assistant] With an economy where a lot of people in service jobs.


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[Assistant] In the food industry, if you go to a sit down restaurant, you expect


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[Assistant] That part of it is your server is going to be tipped and that you will tip your server


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[Assistant] Generously for providing really good service, but I just saw it a sit down restaurant.


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[Assistant] Where the suggested tips were 20%, 25%, and 30%.


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[Assistant] But the bigger thing is when you go to a place that is a cafeteria style line or you go to a coffee shop or whatever, that we are now being expected at the sandwich shop or wherever where there's no table service. You go up to a counter, you order your food and you get it.


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[Assistant] Quick serve or cafe or whatever, likely or higher up the pay chain.


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[Assistant] But tipping is now becoming routine at those places and not at fast food. So I guess the next was when you go through the drive through at the burger King.


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[Assistant] That people are going to be asked on the thing if they want a tip. Haven't heard that yet or seen that.


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[Assistant] So, you just get consumed with guilt about this.


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[Assistant] On our boards, can we put one up with people commenting about tip?


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[Assistant] Where your head is on this and what you think we should be doing about something that is a really difficult thing to navigate these days.


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[Assistant] No, but that is true. One place people don't tip that I want you really to think about and do tip is


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[Assistant] A lot of people back out traveling again. When you stay at a hotel.


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[Assistant] The man or woman who cleans up your room, the, the housekeeper, they are so ignored. They're overworked. They are underpaid and please remember to tip them. You don't see them.


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[Assistant] So you don't think about it. Just, just leave some money in the room for that man or woman who does a job that


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[Assistant] Is not the nicest job in the world to have to do.


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[Assistant] Okay, so you, you just reading you.


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[Assistant] What Mani said, he said, you too are the best.


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[Assistant] Alright Monty, so thank you for mentioning this, I did not know that T-Mobile had added


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[Assistant] Takeover protection to their prepaid plans, that's fantastic.


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[Assistant] Uhm, what we're talking about here is where criminals try to hijack your sim service and suddenly your phone doesn't work because they're trying to take over your, uh, two factor authentication so they can empty.


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[Assistant] Your bank account 401k account brokerage account, whatever account. And so the cell phone carriers have not had the greatest security in there should be the type of security there should be.


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[Assistant] To allow any UFO to come and steal your cell phone service and account takeover protection that T mobile has sets up additional


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[Assistant] Verification steps before someone is able to steal your cell phone service.


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[Assistant] This is, uh, this is scary to me cause you'd pay an additional $34,000 into the timeshare


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[Assistant] And what happens if they go bust? What happens to your money? What happens to the promises? I would not feel comfortable giving that $34,000. I'd rather you pay as you go on the maintenance fees and even pay, not get the discount on the points rather than putting more money into this. That could be at risk if the timeshare developer.


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[Assistant] Does go insolvent. I mean, I can't imagine.


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[Assistant] This sounds like a real desire on their part to deal with the cash flow issue. That they're trying to get this huge amount of money upfront from you and from other people.


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[Assistant] Danny, I love your question and yes, financial coach is a term now being used very heavily by


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[Assistant] Insurance salespeople and commission based investment salespeople.


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[Assistant] And so these are people that are obviously not


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[Assistant] Living up to the legal standard known as a fiduciary. What I'd like you to do Danny


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[Assistant] Is reach out to people that are fee only financial planners in your area.


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[Assistant] You can look at uh, Garrett Planning Network, see who's local, uh, you can look at our guide to how you find a fee only financial planner.


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[Assistant] And go talk to people who do it. Find out what education they feel is most appropriate for you to get, what certification


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[Assistant] Whether it's being a certified financial planner or what it would be that they feel is the best path.


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[Assistant] And see if it really does is you talk to them about what they do every day, what they do, um, for their career, if it appeals to you and then.


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[Assistant] Go get the education you need, the certifications you need based on what you learned.


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[Assistant] And then you can get out there and you can truly be a real financial coach that somebody who's trying to help people without the hidden agenda of what would generate the most commissions for them. And good for you.


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[Assistant] So first of all, you always make it about you, not them. You say how much you've loved working there and you offer a significant notice. You say, uhm, I'd,


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[Assistant] I believe that the two week minimum is the absolute minimum. Today, a huge percent of people are quitting jobs and walking out the door right away.


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[Assistant] Bad news, that does burn bridges. But if you offer to stay for four weeks, let's say, twice what has been customary, you're not going to burn any bridges at all.


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[Assistant] And you make everything about what you're doing positive that you said it, you're looking for a fresh start.


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[Assistant] And you feel like this is the time in your life you should do it.


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[Assistant] Stay positive because anything, even an inkling.


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[Assistant] Of negativity you put out there will go towards burning a bridge. So this is about you, not them.


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[Assistant] You doing things with utmost character, positive character, and


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[Assistant] Being excited about this future that you haven't even necessarily figured out yet, but you feel like this is the time.


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[Assistant] And speaking of the time, this is the end.


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[Assistant] Of today's podcast, I want to thank you so much for joining us. Remember we serve you around the clock.


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[Assistant] At Clark.com and ClarkDeals.com with advice and info you can trust.


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[Assistant] My pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show. Our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. In this episode, we start out with Clark stinks. I can't wait.


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[Assistant] I'm also going to attempt to make the mundane exciting when I talk about something called strategic imports.


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[Assistant] But Clark Stinks, Clark.com slash Clark Stinks is something we've done for more than 20 years because I think it's really important when we're all in this together and I'm just a guy.


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[Assistant] That you have an opportunity to share with me where you feel, I'm not doing my job well. I'm not doing my job right.


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[Assistant] Or I could be more accurate with something I've said. Or there are times people said, hey Clark,


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[Assistant] I save three quarters of what I make, and so,


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[Assistant] If, if I want to do something nice for her on a special occasion or her birthday or whatever, I, I do it and so.


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[Assistant] No, no. I mean, his, his or her point. Assuming it's a guy.


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[Assistant] Uhm, is that if you're gonna be, uhm,


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[Assistant] Very careful with every dollar you spend. You're careful with every dollar you spend. And my philosophy is that it's not about


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[Assistant] Living an austere life is about living on much less than what you make, so you have the freedom


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[Assistant] To make the choices you wish to with your money. And so getting something nice from my wife


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[Assistant] Is something that is important to me and I wish to do.


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[Assistant] I always say synchrony and it's synchrony. Synchrony. Synchrony.


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[Assistant] Alright, well, former Cavalry Officer, thank you so much for your service to our great nation. And I remember I did a hundred push-up challenge for charity, uh, years ago, and I actually injured my right shoulder.


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[Assistant] Doing a hundred pushups, and so I guess I'm not a very good soldier that I injured this right shoulder doing a hundred pushups.


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[Assistant] Lance, thank you. Yeah, there's no doubt that the Hotel Motel Associations


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[Assistant] Around the United States and their equivalent overseas.


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[Assistant] Engaged in what are known as Astroturf campaigns. Astroturf campaigns are fake grassroots campaigns.


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[Assistant] To try to put in restrictions to eliminate competition.


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[Assistant] And that is 100% accurate that the hotels are astroturfing. So,


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[Assistant] Uh, the restaurants, to my knowledge restaurants have not been unhappy.


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[Assistant] About Airbnb, they've actually, in tourist-oriented areas, restaurants have actually been happy.


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[Assistant] A lot of these restrictions have come about because uh,


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[Assistant] The strength and the money of the contributions to politicians of the hotel lobby.


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[Assistant] But there's also been a clear trend in the Hawaiian Islands with homeowners associations locking out short-term rentals.


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[Assistant] And this has been true in many resort areas because


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[Assistant] People have liked the places they're at where they're empty most of the time and so they're pretty quiet.


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[Assistant] And they pass their own restrictions. That's why when I've talked about this, I've said the economics need to work.


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[Assistant] From an investor standpoint, you can make money on a property, long-term rental, that your whole business plan cannot be based just on you being able to make money as an Airbnb or VRBO renner.


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[Assistant] I wish there were 5 million empty unoccupied houses. I mean, you're describing the situation we had 15 years ago.


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[Assistant] That led to the cratering of the housing market, the wave of foreclosures, the homelessness problem that has never come back.


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[Assistant] To, I mean all these people that are homeless, it's such a upsetting thing all over the country.


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[Assistant] We don't have conditions similar to 15 years ago and we don't have a lot of spec built empty houses right now. I'm sure there are some that these Wall Street investors have bought in bulk.


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[Assistant] That are sitting there unoccupied but their goal is to occupy them with renters and not to have them sit empty.


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[Assistant] And when you look at reversion to mean in the housing market, it works differently than the stock market.


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[Assistant] Because most owners of homes become reluctant to sell during a softer market.


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[Assistant] And I think we're going to see softness in the housing market and in some localized areas we may see some declines in home prices. But overall what happens is housing prices kind of tread along for a good while.


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[Assistant] As people's incomes catch up to what's happened with home prices because people in a house


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[Assistant] Have specific economic incentive to stay there and not move. I mean, we talked about you, Krista, you got a 1.78% mortgage.


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[Assistant] I flip my numbers backwards. 1.875% 15 year fixed rate mortgage. You are not gonna move.


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[Assistant] In our economy, we take a brutal world war, something like that. Other than that,


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[Assistant] The housing market will just muddle along for a number of years.


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[Assistant] Cash back cards though specifically to attract customers to fidelity for investments, college savings plans, and Roth IRAs.


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[Assistant] Benjamin, thank you. I never ever mention that wrinkle of HSAs because when I look at the charts of what the typical unreimbursed medical expenses are of people,


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[Assistant] There are a substantial number of Americans that have chosen to retire outside the United States. Uh, Portugal has been a really end place of late.


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[Assistant] For Americans to retire, Central American destinations have been


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[Assistant] The reason is, is that someone with a modest amount of savings going into retirement can live a middle class lifestyle.


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[Assistant] Target, uh, by its published, uh, finances has a higher markup on its goods than Walmart, and Walmart has a much higher markup than the cost of goods at Costco. So, Target is


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[Assistant] Obviously an environment that people find much, much more pleasing.


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[Assistant] I mean, that's just a fact. And it's something that has been a thorn in Walmart's side forever, is that people find the environment of Target much more pleasing, much more appealing. Not to mention that there are a lot of women who just


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[Assistant] So there's just something about it that you started smiling right now talking about Target. I don't get it. Sorry. I walk in there as a guy and it's just like, and I have the five.


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[Assistant] Robert, thank you. The last two houses that we lived in, we had whole house surge protectors put in.


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[Assistant] And it was because of this reason. It's not cheap to put in a whole house surge protector. And so maybe


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[Assistant] Clark stinks. That's why we're all collectively members of Team Clark because we all learn from each other and


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[Assistant] There are times that I'll give advice that maybe is too linear and I miss that extra element. That's why we so appreciate it when you take that time.


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[Assistant] To go to Clark.com slash Clark stinks and post and coming up ahead, I want to talk about what's happening.


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[Assistant] With World Trade, what's gonna happen here?


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[Assistant] And more important, how's it going to impact your wallet and my wallet? Americans for a while have signaled their discomfort, unhappiness with the trade that we do with communist China and former president Trump put into place


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[Assistant] A lot of things referred to as trade war kind of things, the Chinese retaliate against us. And in the Biden administration, they have continued


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[Assistant] The restrictions on trade with China that the Trump administration put in.


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[Assistant] There's obviously a strong consensus in the United States that the thought of a generation.


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[Assistant] That as China became wealthier and wealthier, that


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[Assistant] They would also adapt more and more freedoms.


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[Assistant] That it would move not necessarily to a democracy, but steadily more democratic than it had been. Democratic with a small d. Well, obviously that was wrong.


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[Assistant] China is now much wealthier than it used to be uhm, is the world's


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[Assistant] Depending on how you measure it either first or second largest economy and now freedoms in China.


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[Assistant] We are going into a new era with trade.


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[Assistant] What turned out to be naive and I've always been an ardent free trader because I only looked at it from the raw economics of it, that free trade ultimately creates more wealth for the world.


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[Assistant] And if you look at it just from economics and you look at the whole world, the last 35 years oriented around free trade


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[Assistant] Have led to a huge lift of people out of extreme poverty around the world.


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[Assistant] Not just us, this is happening around the world, a full reassessment. And it's clear that the unfettered free trade system


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[Assistant] That the world used for roughly two generations is coming to an end.