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[Assistant] David in Virginia says I have a luxury car to sell. I'm not sure what's the best way to take payment from private buyers. It seems like there is possible fraud or forgery for every method except cash, but we're talking 50 to 60 thousand dollars.


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[Assistant] Someone suggested a broker who would sell the car, verify and take payment and take a commission. Is that possible and is it trustworthy? What are commissions typically? If I don't figure out a solution, I may end up selling to a dealer, Carvana or CarMax, all of which will undercut the price.


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[Assistant] I mean, surely though, certainly you wouldn't recommend that other people just meet at a house. You should probably meet at a public place or a bank.


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[Assistant] I bet that's a lot because of like Uber and Lyft and stuff too.


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[Assistant] Because our insurance change is over, we will be paying our doctor's office visits on my wife's parents' deductible.


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[Assistant] After starting on our own insurance, we will have to start over.


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[Assistant] Paying against our own deductible after paying against my wife's current insurance deductible. If this is the case, oh they're wondering if that's the case, if this is the case, what is the best way to handle this insurance change so that we don't have to start paying our full deductible again in September once we're on our own?


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[Assistant] Jeff in Arizona says you talked about documenting your various login usernames and passwords for others to use in an emergency or upon your death, but you didn't talk about how to deal with two-step verification.


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[Assistant] That could be a real problem if your cell service has been cancelled or your authorized person doesn't have your phone or if they have it but it's locked and they don't have your passcode. And someone else also mentioned, uhm,


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[Assistant] That a lot of times, you know, people don't have any of their information, so it's important.


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[Assistant] So you make sure that you are, you have access to all of their things because their items may be given away like computers or cameras and they could be, have a lot of personal information on them.


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[Assistant] I certainly hope not, and I would also recommend that you can usually add backup email addresses and phone numbers if like, say the phone got


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[Assistant] And I thought this was fun from Rita in Texas. Several years ago I heard Clark tell his audience how to keep a razor sharp by keeping it dry.


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[Assistant] My Billy Brand razor stays on its magnetic holder in the back shower wall where it's been for over five years and it still makes my legs as smooth as a baby's bottom. I would never have believed it. Same blade all this time. Unbelievable. Thanks, Clark.


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[Assistant] I'm so glad you're with us here on the Clark Howard Show where our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life.


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[Assistant] I hope you've subscribed to our daily Clark.com newsletter. I'm, I wanna tell you.


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[Assistant] I look at that thing and I cannot believe the talent.


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[Assistant] Among our writers, the experience, the knowledge, the training they have, and so the information we have for you


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[Assistant] Will really help you pack a punch in your wallet and I want you to do that with money advice you can trust. You know, we leave this world.


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[Assistant] With or without our integrity and it's so important to me that everything we provide to you.


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[Assistant] Is what we believe to be right in our head and our heart. Now in this episode I want to talk about


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[Assistant] An inflationary cycle that is really, really different and runs totally counter to something I talked about a year ago. And it's a stunner what I'm going to share with you.


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[Assistant] And also, I've had so many questions from people about money that you're trying to stash in savings.


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[Assistant] The best way to do it and particularly with the way circumstances are changing.


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[Assistant] With what looks like it's on the horizon with interest rates. I have specific ideas for you about the money that you are putting aside, not in investments, but in available cash. I'm going to talk about that. Okay. So I talked about something, uh, a year ago that got big pushback, big pushback.


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[Assistant] I was talking about how for an individual or a couple,


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[Assistant] That grocery store inflation had gone so high.


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[Assistant] That in many cases, it had become potentially more affordable


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[Assistant] For an individual or couple to eat out,


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[Assistant] Instead of buying groceries and eating at home, which was a completely radical thing to say, but I gave actual real world examples.


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[Assistant] About how for a family of three, four, five, six, it was still much cheaper to eat.


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[Assistant] At home, but for a single individual or a couple.


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[Assistant] The math had changed because grocery inflation was so high and restaurant inflation not really. Well now here we are.


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[Assistant] Because grocery prices this year have gone down. I know you don't believe me. I promise.


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[Assistant] Overall grocery prices have gone down, where restaurant prices


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[Assistant] That were a relative deal compared to groceries. Restaurant prices are going up significantly right now. Why?


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[Assistant] What is one of the key expenses that a restaurant faces? Labor costs.


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[Assistant] Restaurants feeling pressure from inflation over time and food prices, some of which they absorbed to hold down restaurant prices.


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[Assistant] Restaurant owners have reached the breaking point. Chains have reached the breaking point. And now restaurant prices and the stats are clear as could be. Restaurant price inflation


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[Assistant] Is significant and meaningful and meaning your dollar eating out is not going as far as it did even six months ago where grocery prices are bending back. Now it doesn't mean they're going to collapse, but the wave of inflation and groceries has been broken.


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[Assistant] And it could resurrect its ugliness, but I don't see signs on the horizon of that happening. And so the normal effect of eating at a lower cost, buying groceries and eating at home is clearly


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[Assistant] They are again, even for a single individual or a couple.


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[Assistant] So eating out becomes a lifestyle choice again, where for that brief window I talked about a year ago,


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[Assistant] It was for many people a toss up or cheaper to eat out than buy groceries and eat at home.


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[Assistant] We're back to the historical thing where I can't give you the green light for your wallet to go eat out as a way. Hey, I'm saving money by eating out. That's over. Now what will happen in the restaurant business is


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[Assistant] They will, restaurants will hit a point of price resistance. And when they hit that,


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[Assistant] Restaurants adapt. Restaurant tours are so great at adapting to circumstances.


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[Assistant] And they will do whatever. I was at a restaurant recently


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[Assistant] In Tulsa, Oklahoma, when I was there for our habitat build, we were doing our second annual Clark Howard Blitz build in Tulsa and


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[Assistant] We were at dinner and we went to a restaurant that had converted from traditional, uh, a waiter and waitress service. They had pivoted where you ordered at a counter or on your phone. And then a server would bring your food to you and


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[Assistant] That was their involvement in the process. So basically they had food runners instead of what they were doing before. And that's one of the things that you're going to find a lot of mid-price restaurants are going to go to labor saving systems that give them the ability to serve you


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[Assistant] The waiter or waitress service, the server service, whatever you'd call it.


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[Assistant] And they will still do that, but the cost pressures and labor pressures are going to lead to more and more places going to a hybrid.


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[Assistant] Where you're responsible for ordering, you might pay on your phone, whatever it is, and the food will come to you.


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[Assistant] But you'll do the other things involved with it except the cooking. Krista?


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[Assistant] So if you're really worried about the cost of long-term care insurance, a hybrid insurance policy is a viable alternative because the long-term care insurance market is flat out broken.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the insurers have repeatedly broken promises to people who in good faith bought policies, uh, even decades before.


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[Assistant] And what they do is they put you under what is called the insurance death spiral. They keep raising premiums.


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[Assistant] To a point where people give up after they paid decades for it. The idea of a hybrid


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[Assistant] Insurance policy is where you buy a whole life insurance policy, which normally I don't recommend whole life because the policies have massive commissions in them. They're so expensive to buy for death coverage.


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[Assistant] But this is an exception to my rule. Because what happens is these policies come with a provision where if you end up needing


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[Assistant] To move into an assisted living facility or need care, uh, for life's daily activities is what it's called, which could be at your home or in a facility.


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[Assistant] Then you can trigger a payout from the policy. Federal law is friendly to this and


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[Assistant] You have the ability, instead of having a death benefit from it going to your loved ones, it is a living benefit.


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[Assistant] To provide for long term care with a cap based on the size policy you buy. The reason long term care insurance policies failed


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[Assistant] Is the actuaries and insurance companies are really bright people. They blew it on long-term care. People have lived longer and with poorer health than the actuarial tables predicted.


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[Assistant] And so that's why the insurers failed in the long-term care business. In this case, with the hybrid policies, you have a known benefit


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[Assistant] The insurer knows the risk. They're paying either way. Either at your death,


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[Assistant] or for a living benefit and so it is a compromise kind of strategy for you to have peace of mind about whatever amount of coverage you buy for long term care embedded in that hybrid policy.


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[Assistant] And the insurer has peace of mind that they're not going to blow it at the actuarial level.


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[Assistant] To save others. I mean, it's unbelievable.


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[Assistant] A younger age than normal, in your case, 52.


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[Assistant] And the Social Security Administration has a very clear briefing you can find on socialsecurity.gov that walks you through what happens


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[Assistant] When you take early retirement like in your case.


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[Assistant] And you're 14 or 15 years before full retirement age. There's a formula that's clearly stated on the social security website shows if you never work a social security eligible job again, how your benefit is reduced from what it would be otherwise. And it's a formula based on


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[Assistant] How a social security check is calculated, which is your highest 35 years of earning.


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[Assistant] So any year you don't have earnings, what they do is they zero you out. And that year, uhm,


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[Assistant] Figures into the average and it kind of brutalizes what social security check you'd get.


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[Assistant] Sometime between age 62 and 70 whenever you take it.


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[Assistant] So you don't need the software that I talk about like Maximize My Social Security.


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[Assistant] You can sign up for a social security account.


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[Assistant] Get their estimate of earnings. Make sure it's accurate. And then you'll see they're going to take 35 years of that.


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[Assistant] And you're gonna be able to see how many zeros you're gonna have. And so it will calculate for you.


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[Assistant] So it's fantastic you're going to have that firefighter pension for the rest of your life because the social security check


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[Assistant] Wow, wow, uhm, there are so many more dogs, so many more pets that people have right now, uh, that we've talked about, the pandemic puppies.


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[Assistant] That hotels are in many cases being surprised by the demand they have for rooms that are dog friendly. Uh, hotels that were not pet friendly


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[Assistant] Have found they're being asked so much about it now post pandemic that more and more hotels that did not allow dogs before now are allowing them.


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[Assistant] This hotel having designated pet floors.


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[Assistant] So one of the things I've never thought about asking for, uhm, at a hotel,


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[Assistant] And so you've added one to my list.


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[Assistant] I have, I stay, this year I'll probably be in hotel rooms, hotel nights about 75 or so nights. I've not had this before.


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[Assistant] But my wife says I can't smell anything anyway, so there could have been a pet odor in a room and I wouldn't have noticed. But thank you for pointing this out.


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[Assistant] And for people that are sensitive to smells, knowing to ask that at a hotel check-in is great. And I'm really sorry that it was a bit of an inconvenience for you in the hotel. And you make clear you're not an anti-pet or anti-dog person.


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[Assistant] Which is, uh, something that was really smart for you to point out because


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[Assistant] Dog owners are very sensitive about things involving their pets. Coming up ahead.


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[Assistant] So much talk about the, uh, little firestorm we had about FDIC insurance earlier this year, worries about are there other shoes to drop. But I wanted to tell you there's a strategy I want you to be aware of.


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[Assistant] Banking problems that occurred earlier this year is, it's making it more difficult


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[Assistant] For small businesses to borrow money right now, which, uh, the American economic engine is based on small local businesses.


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[Assistant] And so the Federal Reserve, ironically enough, is likely not to...


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[Assistant] Engage in raising interest rates by any significant amount moving forward.


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[Assistant] As a result of the problems that happen.


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[Assistant] For accounts beyond a quarter million dollars from the FDIC system and we are almost certainly


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[Assistant] Near a peak in interest rates, just about there.


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[Assistant] Interest rates may stay there for a while, but then they're going to start coming down. And I, I watch patterns and there's a clear pattern right now in the financial markets. If you put money in a one year CD,


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[Assistant] At most financial institutions, you're now earning a higher rate of interest than you would on a five-year CD.


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[Assistant] Very, that's known as an inverted rate curve. Cause usually the longer you tie up your money,


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[Assistant] The higher an interest rate you're rewarded with for giving up some freedom and tying up your money longer.


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[Assistant] And so normally I talk about you know, money you don't need in the next few months or next year.


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[Assistant] That there's an advantage to buying a longer term CD and I talk about, uhm, the CD ladders. I've talked about it, uh, gosh, for decades. The idea that if you divide your money into piles and you first buy a one year CD and a two year at the same time, one year, two year, three year, four year, five year,


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[Assistant] And then every year, you've got 20% of your money back available to you. If you don't need it, you buy a new 5-year CD and you always have 20% of the money you've parked in CDs available to you. That's called the ladder.


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[Assistant] And the idea is to eventually get all your money in five year because you earned the most money in it. Except now!


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[Assistant] Because the markets are pricing in a slowing economy and reduced inflation.


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[Assistant] Inflation is still with us, but down significantly from where it was before. And so interest rates,


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[Assistant] May well be, uh, really close to their peak.


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[Assistant] What institutions are paying varies wildly on any CD. And you have the ability


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[Assistant] To shop around and find the best deals available right now on 5-year CDs. So money you know you're not going to need for a good long while that is money you don't want to invest but you'd like to have it in reserve and savings.


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[Assistant] This is a time that's a really good idea to buy a longer term CD like a five year CD. So,


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[Assistant] How would you do that? How do you shop around? How do you find it? Alright, this is a twofer.


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[Assistant] I've talked through the decades also about why you buy CDs.


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[Assistant] Through a discount broker instead of buying them directly from a bank because


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[Assistant] Banks tend to offer two rates. One on their wholesale side, and one on their retail.


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[Assistant] And they take advantage of their most loyal customers that go direct to them to buy a CD and offer a better deal through discount brokers because they're trying to grab some what's known as hot money.


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[Assistant] There are people that are brand loyal first. Then there are people that want the best deal first. So if you


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[Assistant] Buy your CDs through the discount broker. You've got, as I called it, a twofer. You've got.


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[Assistant] Magnified FDIC insurance. Because through the discount broker, they can place your money with so many institutions. You have millions of dollars of FDIC insurance coverage. Where with a single institution, you only have a quarter million.


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[Assistant] And they're able to get you the best rates better than you're likely to be able to find on your own. Now, it is true.


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[Assistant] That at most places you're gonna find a lower interest rate on that five year versus a one. But think about it, you take that higher rate for a year,


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[Assistant] Five point something percent if you shop around for one year CDs.


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[Assistant] Then when you go to buy a new CD a year from now, the rates may be much lower than they are now. So that's the advantage of doing a ladder even today. The money you know you're really not going to need for 60 months.


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[Assistant] Put a meaningful amount into a five year CD.


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[Assistant] Money that you feel like you'd like to hedge your bets some because who knows for sure which way interest rates are going to go. You can do it one year and yes, you'll get the higher rate on the one than the five.


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[Assistant] But you, the five year money, you know you'll get at least that four point something percent.


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[Assistant] For the next five years, which is very favorable. One thing never to do, this is a never rule.


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[Assistant] Unless you hate your money. You have to hate your money to do this.


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[Assistant] Go to Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, or Citibank to buy CDs.


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[Assistant] They pay such ridiculously low rates on their CDs, they're taking advantage of you.


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[Assistant] You let regular old savings sit in Bank of America, Chase, Citi, or Wells Fargo. They're playing you as a fool again. Don't let them do it. And remember,


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[Assistant] The discount brokers are your best friend. Places like Wealthfront, Betterment, Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard. That's where you're gonna get the best deals. FDIC Insured.


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[Assistant] On your CDs and on your savings as well.


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[Assistant] So you just, you just addressed one of them right there with the flowers.


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[Assistant] My oldest Rebecca, when she got married, she and her husband made a decision. I've told this story before. I said, I've got this money, Rebecca, for your wedding. You can either spend it on your wedding,


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[Assistant] Or you can spend as little as possible on your wedding and use the rest for a down payment on your home and that's what they chose to do and they did an ultra budget wedding, uh, from


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[Assistant] The flowers, to everything they did, they, they,


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[Assistant] People would say they cut every corner, but you were at the wedding, it was a beautiful wedding.


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[Assistant] Oh, he, he makes me look like I'm careless with my money. Travis is so...


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[Assistant] So how do you do the party? Number one, never use the word wedding with any facility. Second, you say wedding.


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[Assistant] Everything goes up in cost. Now we had a number of car stinks from people in the wedding business when I said this before, but it's a fact.


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[Assistant] Number two, we've got all these uh, nature centers in any metro area in the United States and they have pretty informal kind of facilities. You can rent those for a party.


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[Assistant] Very inexpensively, uhm, there are any of a number of park-like settings that have, uh, public parks that have, uh, indoor-outdoor kind of venues that you can, you know, they're screened in kind of covered places that you can have a very


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[Assistant] Inexpensive wedding. My daughter's wedding was at a public park.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and my, uh, my nephew got married on a Monday night because that was the cheapest they could rent a place. So it runs in our family.


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[Assistant] This, this spirit of thrift, so it does not have to be expensive at all. And so, uh, as someone else pointed out when this came up before, why does no one ever mention


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[Assistant] Getting married at a church and using the friendship hall or whatever it's called at the church where you can have an extremely inexpensive reception.


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[Assistant] And I guess I failed to mention it because so few weddings anymore are


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[Assistant] In churches, but there, I mean, that is an alternative that's a very affordable way.


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[Assistant] To not have a reception at some expensive place, have it right in the church facility.


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[Assistant] So it was neither the tire got a catastrophic, uhm, rip in it.


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[Assistant] From, uh, some kind of nail kind of thing that, I mean ripped it.


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[Assistant] And so the car was not drivable. Car comes with no spare. So many cars now come with no spares. And the tires had to be special ordered.


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[Assistant] And it ended up being uhm, eleven days for the tires to come in. It was supposed to be four, ended up being eleven. And so, I got a lot of great exercise. I mean, my step counter from Garmin, the steps went way up.


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[Assistant] I got wet a couple of times waiting on public transit, but it worked out fine. And you gave me a ride twice, didn't you?


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[Assistant] Okay, so first of all, I'm so glad that he recovered fully from the accident. Second,


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[Assistant] You're on the right path with the Roth, year after year after year, not just, uh, for a three year cycle. Your son should keep putting money into the Roth year after year, even though


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[Assistant] You may use, he may use part of this money for a down payment on a house, buy a shop, whatever. Because the Roth gives you this great advantage.


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[Assistant] The money grows tax free and is spent tax free if held till retirement age. But it also has a wrinkle that if he just keeps putting the money on


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[Assistant] And ends up not needing the money for a down payment on a house. It stays in. If he doesn't need the money to buy a shop, it stays in. And then it grows tax free forever. We're talking about a number of years to get a substantial amount of that money in a Roth. But it gets him in the habit


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[Assistant] A building up future retirement savings. Doing that at 18.


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[Assistant] Man, it puts him on easy street down the road like you cannot imagine if he keeps doing that. 6,500 a year is allowed to go in the Roth. If at some point, uhm, he, way before he's taken all of that hundred thousand, cause we're talking about


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[Assistant] Fourteen, fifteen years to get it all in a row. He'll still have a lot of money in there.


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[Assistant] That's not in the Roth that he can then use for a down payment on a house. He can use it for buying a shop. But.


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[Assistant] Let's say it eventually all gets in there and at some point it needs money to buy a shop or buy a house.


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[Assistant] He can withdraw his contributions, none of his earnings, but his contributions tax and penalty free. So Roth can be


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[Assistant] Both a intermediate term savings account and a long term tax free investment account for retirement. It can play both roles.


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[Assistant] In the meantime, what should he do with that cash? So if he's putting money into the Roth each year, the money that is outside the Roth, uhm, probably uhm, half of it


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[Assistant] Could go in because of the number of years it would be till he could put that money in. Half of the remainder


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[Assistant] Could go into a simple index fund or balanced fund. Uh, just go on Investopedia and read what a balanced index fund is.


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[Assistant] And the other half should go into simple, into a simple savings account.


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[Assistant] At today's best interest rates, which right now would be somewhere, uh, four point something percent. That would be the quickest back of the envelope thing I could say. But the most important things you shared. You have a son who's very industrious.


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[Assistant] You have a son who doesn't want to blow this money, wants to build a future for himself, which is priceless. But the most priceless thing of all is he was injured in an accident and has made a full recovery and what an exciting


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[Assistant] Great event. All those things are about your 18 year old son having that kind of maturity and also the recovery from the accident. And I want to thank all of you for being members of team Clark. If you enjoy this podcast, I hope you'll subscribe. If you get an opportunity, please give us a review. And if you like what we do, share it with someone in your life that you like.


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[Assistant] Cause they can benefit as well. Have a great day.


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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.


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[Assistant] So I answer as many questions as I can on our podcast, but I can't get to even a tiny fraction of those that are sent in and that's why


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[Assistant] For 30 plus years, we've had the Team Clark Consumer Action Center providing free one-on-one advice, guidance, and information. Available Monday through Friday, six hours each day Eastern time zone.


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[Assistant] 10 in the morning till four in the afternoon, the number 63649 Clark. In today's episode,


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[Assistant] When prices went just through the roof over the last few years, lots of people bought high and are now in over their heads in vehicle loans. And what do you need to know


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[Assistant] About the problems in the vehicle market.


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[Assistant] And how those problems can become your problem, we're going to talk about that. And later, there's been such a shift. Okay, you buy a piece of electronics equipment and you own it and you use it.


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[Assistant] Then one day, it goes dead on you.


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[Assistant] Not the guts of it. It's still powering up. It still would work fine. But it no longer works. We are now being married.


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[Assistant] To the companies we buy so many electronic gadgets from.


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[Assistant] That I predicted two years ago this was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen.


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[Assistant] Because when the prices of used vehicles inflated 70%, and they've now come down a fair amount,


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[Assistant] And there was such a shortage of new vehicles that dealers were selling them way above manufacturer suggested retail price.


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[Assistant] It caused a twofer problem. First people were paying.


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[Assistant] Far more than what vehicles were ultimately going to be worth. New ones a couple of years out. Used ones.


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[Assistant] Uh, almost immediately because you were paying so much more than those vehicles had been worth because of the shortages. I'm not getting, getting into all the chip shortages and supply chain problems and the car rental companies and the used vehicle market distorting everything, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What happened was it caused a double problem. You were having to pay far more for a vehicle than would be normal.


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[Assistant] And then that pushed you to take out an ultra long term loan.


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[Assistant] On something that was rapidly depreciating. So any hiccup in your life, bam, medical problem, job loss, you have to relocate, uh, family thing like a couple splitting, a divorce, whatever, and the finances crash.


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[Assistant] And the vehicle loan you're stuck with because the vehicle's now way upside down where the loan has a much higher


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[Assistant] Remaining balance and what the vehicle's now worth. I mean, train wrecked city. So, I mean, eh,


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[Assistant] It was not brilliant to know this was happening and now it is happening. So if you're in the situation where you're wheezing with that vehicle, if you can do anything you can to avoid


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[Assistant] Going into a repossession mode on that vehicle, please.


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[Assistant] Keep paying it. Please, if you can, keep paying it. Because a repossession


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[Assistant] It ends up being disposed of by the lender way below wholesale value. Then the lender has what's called recourse against you. They can then sue you


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[Assistant] And they will successfully get a judgment in most cases, in states where this is permitted, deficiency judgments.


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[Assistant] And you will not have the vehicle to drive anymore and you will still owe on the vehicle and have to pay for it at an incredibly ridiculous amount.


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[Assistant] Because they will have sold it low below wholesale. And you're responsible for all that gap.


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[Assistant] And if, if I'm, uh, dancing past the graveyard, your finance is too far gone, you can't do this. I get it. But if you're like, you know, I don't like this vehicle, it's costing me too much. I think I'm just going to let the lender have it back. Uh-uh.


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[Assistant] If it's, if it's a choice you're making because you're pressed.


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[Assistant] Versus something where you've got no other option left other than to have the repo. If it is at any level of choice, please keep those payments going. Now,


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[Assistant] Fast forward to today. Used vehicle prices have come down, but they're still elevated from where they were. New vehicle prices have been trending down. They're still really expensive. Both. So,


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[Assistant] As I've said, so many different ways to so many different questions.


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[Assistant] If you're thinking of buying a new to you vehicle or a brand new vehicle and the current one you have is working fine, keep driving the one you've got for now.


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[Assistant] Give it some time. The vehicle market is healing. Give it more time.


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[Assistant] You may not live by, but please remember my 42 month rule, which is this simple.


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[Assistant] If you cannot afford the monthly payment on a vehicle you want to buy, new or used, with what the payment would be on a 42 month cycle, you cannot afford that vehicle, period. Krista?


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[Assistant] Too many people do that. I was just kidding. Um, you said something really important and that's that you live in California and under California law.


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[Assistant] The seller may not even be aware that under California law, they have to come get your old mattress or they may know and they don't volunteer that. You've got to make sure you let them know that they've got to come get it and dispose of it to prevent the first thing I said about people just dumping them somewhere.


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[Assistant] In many jurisdictions around the country outside of California, there are what are called, uh, many places are called solid waste days or something like that. There's usually a day or two a month in many jurisdictions where you're allowed to take something big and bulky.


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[Assistant] or bulk disposal day or whatever they call it and put it out on the curb.


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[Assistant] And your local, uh, trash hauling service will haul it away. They may charge you a fee to do so but usually the fee will not be extraordinarily large. There are some charities, depending on the laws of the state,


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[Assistant] Or they sell them at very low prices. So any of those things might work. Uhm, check out, there's a website, buybuymatress.com and they have a section called retailer take back.


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[Assistant] And you'll be able to see how you might be able to get rid of them. And bye bye is BYE, BYE, mattress.com. And then click on the retailer take back section.


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[Assistant] I don't know what part of North Dakota you live in, but if you're in Eastern North Dakota, you will have access to physical offices of Schwab and Fidelity. So many non-profit organizations


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[Assistant] Uh, open what's referred to, I think they're called organization accounts. There's some term like that they use, if fidelity and Schwab, and you can put the money into a, um, treasury money market fund.


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[Assistant] Which is back, you know, owning U.S. Treasuries, which is the actual federal government or government obligation.


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[Assistant] Uh, money market funds, I talked about these just recently for just regular normal earthlings to know is a great way to stash money, typically earning upper threes to upper four percent, depending on which account you go into. Uh, as a, uh, non-profit association,


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[Assistant] You probably are not supposed to put it into a general money market fund with either of them. But going into a government obligation fund or a U.S. Treasury fund, these accounts have no cost to open.


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[Assistant] And you're able to earn this interest. Now, uh, most organizations are eligible for these accounts at Schwab and Fidelity. Uh, there may be a reason that the way you were set up as a 501c3 would prevent it.


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[Assistant] Don't know, but that's why if you have a Schwab or Fidelity branch near where you are in North Dakota, I would go to it and see if you can open an organization account with them.


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[Assistant] So it's funny you ask the question that way because almost all computers sold now are laptops and the all in ones fill a niche in the marketplace. The volume is not very high and so because it is not a high production


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[Assistant] Part of the market and is considered to be a specialty item. The prices are ridiculous. I've seen them how expensive the all in ones are. So the idea is you don't have one of those towers.


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[Assistant] Say, you know, that you're kicking with your shin underneath your desk. And, um, it's really, you don't have to lug it all around. You just pick up the L and one, take it somewhere else in the house. So the alternative that I've recommended is that you have a monitor and a mouse, and if you want a keyboard and you just hook it into your laptop.


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[Assistant] Or if you happen to use Samsung phones, a Samsung phone can power, uhm, basically a computer for you. It's, you know, these smartphones have really powerful computers in them and you can just plug your Samsung phone into


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[Assistant] Basically a monitor keyboard and mouse. So there are alternatives because yes, the all in ones are sleek. They are convenient for having a desktop kind of thing. But if you think about it, you just go buy a monitor.


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[Assistant] Into, uh, into the laptop and operate that way as an alternative other than the all in one.


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[Assistant] Electronics that are working just fine, but will no longer work for the function you bought them for, this is getting to be a bigger and bigger problem for people and we're going to talk about it.


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[Assistant] At a house I used to own, we had Arlo cameras, ARLO, and they're really nice cameras, they give really good video quality, and


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[Assistant] Uh, the poor people who bought our house, we sold them a house with all the Arlows in place. We moved the username and password to the new owners and all that. And now their cameras are dead.


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[Assistant] Or we're gonna be because Arlo decided, you know what? We're not going to support these anymore because I had the Arlos where you got the free storage.


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[Assistant] And so Arlo only made the money for selling the original cameras and then


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[Assistant] And there was a lot of media coverage and the Wall Street Journal tech writer wrote a story about it because it moved from the tech blogs to the mainstream media and now


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[Assistant] Well, they've decided Arlo, okay, okay, we're going to change our minds and we're going to keep supporting him. But I felt bad because I bragged to the buyers of the house, you know, you don't have to pay.


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[Assistant] A real thing is that more and more electronics require that you be the prisoner


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[Assistant] Of whatever company whose electronics you buy.


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[Assistant] That the device only continues to work if you pay an ongoing subscription.


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[Assistant] And you may have heard me talk about the ring I wear. So I used to wear a wedding band that I got at Walmart for $11. And I thought it was a really nice wedding band. And then, uh, three years ago approximately,


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[Assistant] I decided to get the aura ring, O-U-R-A ring. And the aura ring is a health tracker. It does fitness too, but it's really about gauging your health. And I had a bad virus recently and it's fascinating looking.


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[Assistant] At the aura health measurements every day through my illness and you could see is I first got sick and it was like this slope down.


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[Assistant] And it went pretty straight down, then it stayed in the sub-basement for three days, and then the numbers started coming up.


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[Assistant] And the aura started getting better before I realized that I was better.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but it really does an incredible job tracking my health, my sleep, and my activity, my fitness.


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[Assistant] I bought the ring and that was it. And you had use of all the software. Well guess what they did.


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[Assistant] They don't do that anymore. They've decided that the ring is only useful if they can get in your wallet every month. So I'm grandfathered in, but people buying one now have to pay all the fees ongoing.


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[Assistant] And so everybody's into this subscription thing, but I think it's really crazy that you buy electronics.


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[Assistant] To come up with this diabolical idea was TiVo. Anybody remember TiVo from long ago? How long ago was that Krista, like seven years ago?


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[Assistant] TiVo, yea, in electronics, that's like, that's like back, uh, dinosaur days. So TiVo was a, uh, a digital video recorder. Something that now is like, yea, so what? Uh, that, but it was a revolutionary thing when it came out.


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[Assistant] And TiVo, you bought the machine and then you had to pay the ongoing subscription to have the recordings of what you wanted to watch at a future date available to you.


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[Assistant] And they started a really bad trend in electronics. I don't know anybody had ever thought of something so terrible before TiVo did. And so what year TiVo started?


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[Assistant] Ninety-nine, but really last few years has not been a factor.


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[Assistant] And I don't think TiVo when it started then, cause I had one called Replay TV, which was kinda like, that was like Betamax and...


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[Assistant] What was the other one called? Video cassette? I don't remember. Anyway, I picked the...


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[Assistant] The one that didn't succeed, but I loved my replay TV and that one there was no


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[Assistant] So this is something anytime you buy electronics, know that if you're dependent on them to service it like an Arlo camera or something like that where you can't do it on your own where you are.


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[Assistant] Now there are in the case of digital cameras for your home.


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[Assistant] Or office. There are those that have, uh, some of them have on-site media that you can put in. Uh, remember those things called SD cards? And micro SD? They still exist.


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[Assistant] And you can, with some of the cameras, you don't need off-site storage. You can put in an SD card and store an enormous amount of video on them.


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[Assistant] And then they write over themselves after a certain period of time. And avoid paying monthly fees. But the monthly fee thing, it is all the rage with electronics. And just remember, you're not just buying the device, you're having to pay for it over time. I wear a Samsung watch.


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[Assistant] And I got a thing from my cell phone provider saying they'll give me the new one for free.


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[Assistant] But I have to sign up for a watch line that will end up costing me $180 a year. Ain't doing it.


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[Assistant] You are paying enormous buy sell fees. You know, there's a spread.


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[Assistant] In the buy sell and you're not getting good value for your money because you have to overcome.


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[Assistant] The spread that you have on the buy and the spread you have on the sell. And there are people who get very unhappy with me when I talk about, well, just buy a gold fund, a silver fund, or a precious metals fund. A precious metals fund would likely be most suitable for this whole stacking thing you're hearing about.


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[Assistant] Any of these precious metals are about is they are like a little insurance policy or a hedge for bad times. I believe that regardless of what difficulties we face over time, the only thing that's the end of the world is the end of the world. We as humans adapt, we overcome, and we've shown that through human history. So I, I am not a, ended this myself.


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[Assistant] But if it is something you like, I'd like for you to look at buying


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[Assistant] A gold fund or a precious metals fund with no more than 10% of your investable assets. The rest should be invested in productive activities that can generate wealth for you over time, i.e., uhm, you hear me talk about index funds.


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[Assistant] Stock funds, exchange traded funds, and by the way, exchange traded funds, that's


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[Assistant] The area or, uhm, a mutual fund where you should own


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[Assistant] Precious metals or gold most effectively. And I think we have information on Clark.com about doing just that.


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[Assistant] Will Dan lose you with paperwork for a horrible insurance product called mortgage life insurance?


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[Assistant] It is what they call croak insurance and it names the bank as the beneficiary of the policy, not you. The premiums generally 10 times market price to ensure you or your spouse.


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[Assistant] What's a better idea and gives you much more flexibility if you and your spouse are both, uh, healthy enough to underwrite is buy level term insurance policies for, uh, 20, 30 years. You'll have the same premium all the time.


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[Assistant] The other person is the beneficiary of that policy, so your survivor is well taken care of, and they may decide


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[Assistant] That they want to, uh, use it for the mortgage or they may have another purpose to use that.


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[Assistant] But mortgage life insurance is a complete ripoff.


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[Assistant] And the only time you would ever consider it is if you have a pre-existing medical condition that makes it impossible for you to underwrite for actual good insurance. We have two things for you at Clark.com in this area. One, an explanation about why you never buy


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[Assistant] Croak insurance from a bank, and number two, and that's really how they talk about us, croak, uh, number two,


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[Assistant] Is we have a guide to how to buy level term insurance, which is what you actually want to have and you should both have it, not just one of you.


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[Assistant] So Phil, if you, uh, depending on your income, you may qualify for a very large subsidy at healthcare.gov.


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[Assistant] Which is the federal insurance exchange. There's a special law.


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[Assistant] That gives very large subsidies on the purchase of individual or family health insurance through I think 25.


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[Assistant] And so that would be where you start at healthcare.gov.


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[Assistant] You would go there and in fact if you go to healthcare.gov they ask your zip code and they will take you to the state exchange if it's not a federal exchange state. But the procedure would be the same. You would see your eligibility for a policy.


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[Assistant] If you, uh, are able to get one at a very low premium, that solves the problem.


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[Assistant] You have full coverage without exclusions, but you do have high deductibles with these plans. Speaking of which, as someone who's 24 never really goes to the doctor, you can look at a plan on healthcare.gov or the state equivalent exchange. There would be a catastrophic plan.


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[Assistant] It wouldn't pay for routine stuff. It only would pay.


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[Assistant] In the event there was a catastrophe and so that's what I would look at first. You don't have to buy on the exchange. You can buy what's known as a temporary health policy that doesn't do a whole lot for you.


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[Assistant] But has very low premiums if you don't qualify for one of the low premium policies on healthcare.gov and you don't want to spend the big bucks you would have to pay without the subsidy that's being supplied right now. So uhm, you got some homework to do and many people


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[Assistant] Till their 26th birthday. And that was a change that Congress made.


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[Assistant] Gosh, I feel like that was back about 2010.


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[Assistant] And that has changed the equation on young adults having to get their own health coverage in so many cases.


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[Assistant] And you're just losing that because of retirement a little early, your dad's retirement.


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[Assistant] And thank you so much for being with us today. Know that we are, as I alluded to, Clark.com just moments ago. We are here to serve you around the clock with information you can trust for your wallet at Clark.com and for the best deals for your wallet each and every day, check out Clark deals. Have a great day.


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[Assistant] Well, I like the actual store, Home Goods, but that's a discount store as well, but uhm, yeaah, Bed Bath and Beyond, Container Store maybe, I haven't been to a Pop Shelf, so I'm not sure, but.


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[Assistant] Container stores where you get a lot of that, that's sort of the big brand name.


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[Assistant] You showed me, you actually came by my house to drop something off and you showed me what you got.


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[Assistant] I was going to say Crafts would be like Michael's, uhm, Hobby Lobby, places like that too probably.


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[Assistant] You also got her some late valentines candy too, didn't you?


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[Assistant] Alright, we'll go to questions now. This is from Robin in Pennsylvania. Do you have any suggestions for help with a parent plus college loan that I was tricked into signing?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I didn't mean to do that. Sorry.


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[Assistant] Alright, on a much lighter note from Brendan in Texas, if you receive products from Amazon to make online reviews and the items are free but are considered taxable income, are there any deductions available to help you reduce your tax?


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[Assistant] Matt in Illinois, another tax question. My 15 year old son is into coding and game design. He created a game and sold it online through a gaming site. The site requires you to link to a bank account for the royalty payments. It's legit. He earned $359 last year and I received the tax document.


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[Assistant] He's working on his next game that he expects to earn more from than the first game. Is the best thing to open a custodial savings account for him and use that account to receive the future royalty payments? If we do this, I assume he would file a tax return next year.


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[Assistant] Go to some questions now. This is from Andrew in Georgia.


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[Assistant] But just how high should I go? 25k? I'm fortunate and have quite a bit in reserve so I could handle the cost in case of emergency. I'm trying to balance the risk and cost here. It's unlikely I'll follow a claim unless there's catastrophic damage.


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[Assistant] I know. From Becky in Alaska. She says, I'm buying a new car for cash. I've been saving for more than a decade. And they said they needed my social security anyway to make sure I'm not a terrorist.


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[Assistant] I know my credit's frozen and I figured even if they tried to run my credit without my permission, they still had me sign a credit application with most of it crossed out and do not run credit on it.


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[Assistant] They can't do shenanigans with it frozen. But afterwards I googled that the terrorist angle for needing my social may have been bogus. Did I make a big mistake? And if so, how bad is it?


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[Assistant] I'm so glad to welcome you to the Clark Howard show, our mission to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. I'm going to start today with a big warning for you about how your cell phone


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[Assistant] You could be eating up your wallet in a different way than I just talked about recently with your monthly cell phone bill. Nope. Something else eating up your wallet. And it doesn't matter if you're iPhone or Android. Although my son says, dad, you're the only person I know who uses an Android. Really? Okay. Also something that I've been worried about is happening. New stat show.


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[Assistant] That Americans are raiding the equity in their home!


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[Assistant] I can't even tell you how nervous this makes me. And I'm going to tell you why and when you should actually tap the equity in your home.


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[Assistant] And I hope that you enjoyed this podcast. You'll leave a review wherever you listen or watch and be sure to subscribe or follow so that you don't ever miss an episode. So.


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[Assistant] Apple has long engaged in a practice that is under legal assault in various countries of the world. And Google thought, hey, it's working really well for them. We're going to do it too. So you download an app to your phone.


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[Assistant] And then it's one that you have to subscribe to a service. Do you know this is unbelievable?


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[Assistant] For the provider of whatever service it is that you would subscribe to through the app on your phone.


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[Assistant] To let you know that you can subscribe to it at a huge discount.


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[Assistant] Outside of your phone versus inside your phone. What do I mean?


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[Assistant] So Apple and Google charge massive commissions.


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[Assistant] On a typical basis, thirty percent more


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[Assistant] For every month or every year or whatever it is for every subscription that you have on your phone by not taking one additional step.


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[Assistant] That Apple and Google make it a no-no for you to be told. So I'm going to tell you to stop wasting money.


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[Assistant] So let's say you download a music app, or you download, uh, a yoga app, or you download a whatever app.


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[Assistant] And so the app, you know, you download it for free, but to use the service, or it could be one that's a freemium business model, to use a premium version of whatever it is, you have to pay your subscription.


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[Assistant] So if you instead go to your laptop, or even on your phone, go to the browser,


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[Assistant] You know, the Safari or Chrome or Brave or whatever browser you use, DuckDuckGo, whatever it is.


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[Assistant] And you go to the website for whatever that app is, sign into your account on the website, again on a laptop, your phone, whatever, and you pay the subscription there


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[Assistant] You save the big markup that you have subscribing to your phone. So one additional step.


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[Assistant] One time, once a year, whatever it is, however you pay for whatever the app is, you will save a massive amount of money breaking down that toll bridge that Apple and Google have. So it's your money


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[Assistant] I want you to save it. So if you have done this what I call the wrong way and you subscribe to something through the app when your renewal comes up, renew


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[Assistant] At their website for that app, not through your iPhone or your Android and save the money.


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[Assistant] Alright, thank you so much. We have not talked about this, Fred, in a long time. Alright, so let's deal with the first thing you said.


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[Assistant] So, uh, there are credit cards that charge a foreign currency junk fee, which is usually 3%, could be 4%, occasionally 5%. And then there are ones that have no foreign currency transaction fee. Then the second issue is if they're not charging that junk fee,


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[Assistant] Are they charging you something other than, uh, bank, what's known as banker's buying rate? You want to see in the terms for a credit card that you're going to use overseas that they calculate based on banker's buying rate.


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[Assistant] So, you're talking about Wyze. Uh, the other big one in this game is Revolut.


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[Assistant] And these you may be familiar with if you send money to relatives or friends.


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[Assistant] Outside the United States. That these two charge a tiny fraction of the cost of sending money to that relative or friend. What you pay normally through the traditional money transfer services or apps.


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[Assistant] The market they've gone into now is going after affluent travelers and people who may even live


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[Assistant] In two places, one overseas, one in the United States.


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[Assistant] And they offer the ability for you to move money onto a card like I have a Revolut card. You've got the wise.


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[Assistant] And so we're able to put money on it, earn money on interest and savings and then when we use it overseas, we're paying no foreign currency costs at all. And so for people who


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are taking a big international trip or regularly travel overseas or live part-time, half-time, whatever, somewhere else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Using Wise Revolut or one of their competitors is a great way for you to save money. And I'm so glad that you brought it up because I haven't talked about this. Gosh, have we done it in the last two years?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so Laura, these have earned essentially no interest in falling way behind inflation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the last 23 years, uh, series EE bonds


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's not much tax to be owed on, on cashing these in.


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[Assistant] And put them into something that would be much more productive than the interest that he's earning on the series EE's which is pitiful. And so there are lots of things I've talked about.


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[Assistant] What those are and how they work and that's what I would do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All right, so Chris, first things first, I love it that you're stepping in to help your parents. This is fantastic. And it's something that more and more adult children are having to take on as parents age. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm going to make a suggestion to you first. Most of the emails that are really going to matter to your parents are from probably less than 20 people.


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[Assistant] And what I would do is help your parents migrate to a new email service and I would recommend ProtonMail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The odds are they're going to go a lot of junk mail and proton very low and that, that you notify.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All their friends and family, there would be key contacts to email a new proton mail account for each of them. Help them set them up, teach them how to use proton mail.


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[Assistant] And you want to segregate out that old email address and make it irrelevant in their lives since most everything coming in there is spam, junk, et cetera. And that's why I love proton mail so much is a clean sheet approach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was tell her if she didn't know who was calling, she couldn't answer her phone. And it took some retraining to get that.


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[Assistant] And so you have to be your own gatekeeper with the phone. Uh, the Discover free service, I don't think there's any harm in using it, registering for it. I think it's neat that Discover does that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as far as the big thing, it's gotta be resetting their attitude about the phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And coming up with the new email address to start fresh just for friends and family. And again, I love what you're doing for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, we gotta talk about something that, uh, really upset me the other day. And that's reading how the locusts, known as the banks, are back at it trying to get you to destroy the equity in your home. And we're gonna talk about the proper use


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of a home equity line of credit or a home equity loan, not what the banks are pitching right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] TransUnion recently reported that the number of people taking out home equity lines of credit


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Helox is up 50% approximately in just a one year period of time they measured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People are going gaga over HELOCs and their sibling home equity loans. A home equity line of credit is kind of like having a mad money account.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you're approved for a line and then when you want to do something you write a check against it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there are circumstances, oh, and the home equity loan is a different thing. It's a fixed rate where you're given a set amount of money that you then pay back typically over five years, 10 years or 15 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what's the reason that you would pull equity out of your home?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The principal reason, and you gotta have a really good exception for it to be anything other than this, is to improve that home. Improve that home. But how do the banks pitch this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, take a vacation. Pay off your high interest credit cards. Uh, buy a boat.


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[Assistant] When people started having their homes foreclosed on because the banks pushed these home equity loans to the hilt and lines to the hilt and people borrowed to buy stuff or to do things, not for their home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eroded the equity in their homes. When the housing market went through its slump, they were between a rock and a hard place. Couldn't sell, got foreclosed on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brutal, brutal, brutal. But the bankers don't care. They just want to make their margins. And that's why they're pushing him and like a fish with a hook in his mouth.


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[Assistant] The number of these people are taking out up 50% in a year. Five oh percent. Because the bank said I'm good for the money. Why don't I do it? Okay. So we're going to talk about different aspects of this. Number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's say you're going to do an improvement on your home and it's going to take you not months but years to pay off the cost of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doing a home equity loan and the sweet spot is for a five year home equity loan.


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[Assistant] Because the interest rates are much more favorable on that than a 10 or 15.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You use it to, let's say add on a room to your home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You take out that home equity loan, you have a fixed interest rate for the next 60 months. You do a line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That rate floats and as people have seen of late as the Federal Reserve's been raising interest rates it controls, home equity lines of credit go immediately up in tandem with the increases from the Federal Reserve that are not over yet. Okay, let me give another circumstance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having a home equity line of credit would make sense.


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[Assistant] Roughly a third of Americans own their homes free and clear. And so that's a fantastic thing.


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[Assistant] Having a standby home equity line of credit, usually you can obtain these from a credit union with no closing costs or tiny ones.


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[Assistant] Having it there for an emergency fund, rainy day, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is a fair thing. You wouldn't be taking out a lot of the equity of your home if you did have an emergency.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You own your home free and clear. That's a different circumstance. Uh, cause you'd never end up with a great deal of your equity eroded by that. But remember this rule.


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[Assistant] 50% increase. You know, it shows how successful advertising is. The banks start pushing this junk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember, you may not remember this, but I remember in 2006, I was riding down an interstate in a bank


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Had this series of billboards that said, tap the equity in your home.


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[Assistant] On uh, then I was doing radio. Being on the radio show and saying,


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[Assistant] Mark my words, this is gonna burn you. Don't do this. Don't let the Sea Serpent Bank take advantage of you and con you into harming your financial security and your financial future. This was brought to you by the American Bankers Association.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you, uh, that's a very good question. Uh, and I guess I'm not asking you to lie. I'm asking you to say, you know, I'm just not sure. Just tell a little fib and it would be possible


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the F&I department would try to blow the deal up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sales person is just trying to make the deal with you and then you end up in the finance and insurance department. That's where all the profit is in dealerships by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and they'll try to sell you some kind of garbage extended warranty and they'll try to sell you some kind of, uh, service plan, uh, for coming in for your, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] maintenance visits for the vehicle and they'll try to say the financing and you just keep smiling and you say, oh no thank you. Oh no thank you. Oh no thank you.


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[Assistant] And you'll know there are people you shouldn't be buying from in the first place. If you've already made a deal on the price of the vehicle, then they say, well, we're just not going to sell it to you for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and that, that is, uh, tells you everything you need to know, cause who knows what else you're gonna have a problem with them with if they start playing that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well William, you know, this is, this is a real...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Difficult one to answer because we now provide medical care to our pets through veterinary practices that very much mimic things that we do in human medicine and so


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we do it usually without insurance. So that's why pet insurance has become a popular and big market.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, pet insurance comes with a lot of exclusions. There is no federal law that says you can't do this to somebody buying pet insurance or that to somebody buying pet insurance. It's completely free market and the devils and the details of the contract. So, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What insurers do with pet insurance is they exclude certain breeds, they exclude based on age for treating certain conditions and all the rest. So you need to ask your veterinarian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The owner of that policy, the most fair, because some of that, they all have these colorful, beautiful brochures with the cutest dogs and cats and other animals on in them. And you think, wow.


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[Assistant] I just gotta take care of my baby and I'm gonna buy this pet insurance. And then you go to make a claim and they say, Denied! Denied! Denied! So that's why ask the vet. And as my wife says,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want to come back. If there is reincarnation, I want to come back as a dog because veterinary medicine practices


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Treat the patient so much better than how we're treated in human medicine is crazy. Have you ever, ever heard of a vet practice that charges for parking?


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[Assistant] That's just one of my gripes about the way human medicine works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So credit monitoring, uhm, that you would pay for, I don't like ever. Uh, but I do like that with credit karma,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can monitor your credit for free. It requires that you temporarily thaw your credit with the bureaus. Then it can immediately go refrozen, but then you can have a Credit Karma dashboard and they will alert you. So why would it be an advantage?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To have the credit karma thing, because they make their money by sending you offers for things.


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[Assistant] Because they know your credit profile. Why is it useful? Because you get to see


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beyond identity theft, you get to see what is the temperature of your credit standing. They give you an approximation of your credit score from two of the three major bureaus available to you for free every day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're able to see, oh, my scores going down, trending down, what's going on. And then they show you what factors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, sending your score into reverse and then what factors you could change that'll bring your score back up. So.


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[Assistant] Credit monitoring as a tool to deal with identity theft is useless. That's why credit freeze is so phenomenally valuable. But knowing what's going on with your credit, monitoring it is far more than just hoping you have early warning of an identity thief.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I want to thank you so much for joining us today. If you have not frozen your credit yet, because you think it's too hard, too difficult, whatever, please go look at our credit freeze guide at Clark.com and you'll see how incredibly easy it is now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And free to freeze your credit with Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Set aside about 12 to 15 minutes to set up your credit freeze with all three and buy yourself some really valuable peace of mind at no cost.


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[Assistant] Over his incredibly tolerant wife because of his obsessive loyalty to the lower cost operator and his precious refunds and loyalty points.


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[Assistant] There we go, I lost my place. Everyone knew Southwest was in chaos. If he'd simply rebooked on an operator that was actually flying from New York to Atlanta, he would have shown that he prioritized his spouse over his wallet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this time, this time, maybe think of it as a bonus Christmas present for Lane. Instead, you chose a ridiculous option. Subway to Amtrak to Uber to Reagan to Uber to Dulles to rental car to hotel to ATL. My niece had two Southwest flights cancelled from New York to the West Coast two days before Christmas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She rebooked on United at a reasonable fare and was home in time to enjoy maximum family time and all her favorite holiday traditions. Come on Clark, there are times when you need to choose value over price. This was one of those times and your wife is a saint. Cheers, Dan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You mentioned that Walmart workers handle deliveries and shopping for Walmart Plus. This is not true. They use a contractor called DDI in most areas and implement what they call Walmart Spark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] on the Spark app and a tip goes a long way in me deciding if I take an order or not. I drive a Toyota Tacoma, but that will go through hell and back, but it won't go for minimum wage, bro. Chad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you should have suggested is create a shared Google account and sign up for a Google Voice phone number. If they both download the app and sign in, they can both receive the text directly to the phone. The best part is it is absolutely free. Joe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Recently you addressed a situation where an older couple loved their timeshare but didn't want their kids to have to deal with it as an inheritance. You advised them to return or exit if they could with a program from the original seller and to rent each year.


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[Assistant] I don't think Clark stinks but he missed something when talking about his son's choices on the way to become a pilot for a commercial airline. My spouse has flown for Delta for 32 years and was a civilized pilot.


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[Assistant] He said he and most of the guys he flies with think that joining the National Guard is the fastest and cheapest way to get training and the flight time needed to be hired by a major airline. This option lets you go to college either before or while in the Guard. Michelle.


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[Assistant] Your advice doesn't stink too much in regards to the scholarship advice to the caller whose son is becoming a pilot, but I would recommend going a different route. Almost every passenger, major passenger in freight airline in the United States no longer require degrees and will often pay for advanced education as a form of retention benefits. The airline I worked for, the one with the face on the tail,


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[Assistant] You smell worse than a Coke Zero burp. Haven't heard that one before.


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[Assistant] And most, uhm, TV stations have websites. You can see if they're consumer reporters, they usually make their, their pieces into articles as well, and they'll have the email address for the person on there. There's also a contact us, so there should be an email address and phone. I would try every method, including social media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gosh, well, of course, I, I mean, I found incredible deal on a winter coat, like a really great brand for my daughter who goes to school in the Northeast and still is going to need it for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Athletic wear that years ago, I remember I went into their store.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I asked if they had a cell rack and they kind of were, they kind of laughed at me and said, we don't do cells.


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[Assistant] And now I'm getting emails from that retailer about sales like every other week. It's kind of interesting. But uhm, okay.


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[Assistant] If and when we get back to a quote unquote normal inflation, won't a 2.1% rate look like a great deal?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are double E series bonds now a good idea for me to put some of my savings?


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[Assistant] And Matthew in California says, my car was hit, there were no injuries, and I have the other party's information. Her insurance took care of the repairs, but they don't provide a rental, just reimbursement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I couldn't afford a rental, so I'm filling a loss of use claim. How do I make sure that I get a fair settlement? What sneaky tricks will the insurance company use?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they, I wonder if they are allowed to have you rent the car and then reimburse you? Like is it too late? Like you already ate the sandwich because the car was already repaired you think or?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He couldn't rent one. He couldn't afford it. That's what he's saying. He couldn't afford it and they just wanted to do reimbursement. And so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now he wants to file a loss of use because he wasn't able to have a car during that time.


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[Assistant] Mary in Georgia wants to know if it's safe to renew a passport online.


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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.


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[Assistant] One of the biggest expenses many of us face is what we pay for health insurance. And many of us have turned to medical sharing programs that are like co-ops as an alternative


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[Assistant] I've got an update for you on something that's been an ongoing conversation about the problems with thefts of Hyundai's and Kia's of certain models and years and has made them ultra, ultra easy to steal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I got new good news for you if you're a Hyundai or Kia owner of one of the vulnerable models. So.


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[Assistant] A form of health coverage, it's not health insurance that has proven to be popular with many Americans over the years.


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[Assistant] And it is a viable alternative and I want to talk about this.


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[Assistant] If you buy health insurance for yourself, for your family, you get it through a company, whatever, health insurance premiums are crazy high. I mean, they're really, really expensive.


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[Assistant] Right now because of a continuing series of laws enacted by Congress.


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[Assistant] On the health care exchange, it's either run by the feds called healthcare.gov or run by a state.


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[Assistant] Many people who are of moderate income are less.


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[Assistant] have benefited from congressional action that has lowered the effective cost of the premiums to really, really low levels. That's a temporary fix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That goes away after two more years. And then we go back potentially to true retail price.


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[Assistant] For an individual or family buying healthcare coverage and for employers buying coverage, it's crazy expensive and then you've got the deductibles to meet and the copays and all the rest. And that's led to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're own healthcare co-ops. These are not health insurance. These are risk pools where people are assessed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An ongoing monthly premium, if you will, or contribution, the money goes into a pool and when somebody gets ill, they submit claims


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the organization, not like a normal health insurance claim. And the organization decides what portion of that it will cover.


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[Assistant] These, uh, religious co-ops may have rules that prevent payment under certain circumstances based on moral issues or, uh, biblical


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reasons, uh, but the idea is people pay a much, much, much lower cost in premiums, a fraction of normal equivalent premiums into the risk pool and for routine things you're good. Now perfectly legitimate, uh, religious based co-ops


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have gone insolvent because within the wrist pool,


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[Assistant] There's been an unfortunate series of people who've ended up with catastrophic illnesses, either from an injury or a cancer or something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That has destroyed the finances of the co-op and then it goes and solve it. And then people's bills go unpaid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The things that have gotten more public, and that's the most common thing, but the thing that's gotten a lot of negative coverage for these have involved, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These religious co-ops that have actually turned out to be run by crooks who've stolen the money. There was one that got a lot of, uh, a lot of bad publicity because the people running it


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're actually using the money for personal things, buying stuff. Uh, one of them actually bought a marijuana farm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the premiums that people were paying in for the health co-op.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The money just vanished buying all kinds of luxury goods for the organizers of it. Uh, another one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The leaders stole four million dollars from the people in the co-op and ran off. And these things can happen because there's no state oversight of these until a problem occurs. It's different than traditional health coverage. So what I ask you when you're looking at these is because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They operate kind of in their own orbit.


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[Assistant] Is what you know about the individuals behind it, uh, in the best situations.


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[Assistant] They'll be run through a religious organization that you're a member of and you trust.


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[Assistant] Because the premiums are much lower. And know that the greater risk is not these stories that get the big headlines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is when they go insolvent trying to do the right thing, but


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[Assistant] The health problems of the members outrun the funds collected. That's why these are not a free lunch. And


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With traditional health insurance, you have the negotiated rates.


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[Assistant] That lower price is that many times you're not going to have access to in many of these religious co-ops.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what I want you to know is they're not comparing the same thing.


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[Assistant] When you look at a healthcare plan that you buy that is


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[Assistant] Uh, what's known as compliant meets the rules for deductibles and coverages of pre-existing conditions and all that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can negotiate rates. You're dealing with a giant health insurers bureaucracy. But you will have someone who hopefully is playing by the rules and if not there's oversight. When you buy into the co-op, it is all a matter of trust.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you have to have good reasons before you go into one of the co-ops to trust the organizers of it. And one of the uncomfortable questions for you to ask is what's your underwriting


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[Assistant] So this is a pretty complicated situation and it's behind the curtain what you need to know is that


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[Assistant] The way prescription drugs are priced is where this really exposes how these apps are able to be of service to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when we're talking about brand name drugs.


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[Assistant] Which account for a very small percent of prescriptions. You're not going to find good RX and their competitors to be of much applicability or help.


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[Assistant] Many times what we're comparing is a prescription plan that people have at work through what's known as a pharmacy benefits manager and these big prescription buying organizations


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who buy from the manufacturers and 80 plus percent of prescriptions are generics is what's happening behind the curtain is there's all kinds of dirty kickbacks going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where wink, wink, nod, nod, they get the prescription manufacturer to sell the drugs through the pharmacy benefits manager at a much higher price.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Traditional pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens have a system for pricing generics that has nothing to do with what they paid for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why you can pay as much as a hundred times the cost as CVS or Walgreens if you just go in.


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[Assistant] Without insurance and you buy one, you can end up paying as much as a hundred times more for a medicine than you would if you went to a discount or like, uh, one of the warehouse clubs or use one of the apps because what they do is they price theoretically based on a discount from the brand name that nobody


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rights are dispenses anymore. So the brand name drug may be Azil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, generic may be pennies, but they're charging it based on a discount from the zil that the brand name was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's, uh, the two major reasons why the price gaps are so enormous. If you are a Consumer Reports subscriber and you take a number of different drugs


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have a recent write up showing based on the drugs that you are taking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether you will save money with this pharmacy or this one or this one and they rate different


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[Assistant] Uhm, discount pharmacies and give you what your overall cost will be. If you take an enormous number of meds,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's even subscription services now where you pay a monthly fee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then in turn you get really amazing costs on drugs and in those cases you might find that the CVS or Walgreens retail price could be 500 times or more the cost of going through a monthly subscription program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much better idea to self insure. Uh, the roof, first of all, 10 years, uh, unless the roof was improperly installed originally, it's got a long life in front of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two on things like furnace, the AC, I mean, things break over time, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the useful life on them, hard to predict. Could be 12 years, could be 15, could be next week. But the math is in your favor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To have money that you put into a house maintenance fund instead of insuring because what you don't know with these home service plans is when something does go wrong,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do they drop you like a hot rock and not take care of it or do they actually pay for it? Uh, we've had so many complaints over the years that the best insurance company I know for repair and replacement in your own home is your own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, great. I mean, wonderful that you found the love of your life. Wonderful that your income is so fantastic. Great that you carry no debt at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, this is a pretty perfect situation. So now we look at a very dreadful way to look at a very romantic situation. That is taxes.


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[Assistant] So a lot of times people will make this decision in the short term.


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[Assistant] Married or not based on the tax code. You can probably figure out for yourself running simulations with tax software


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[Assistant] What your tax bill would be, married filing jointly, married filing separately, and then each of you filing single. And you'll see what that does for you tax wise, if that makes a meaningful difference or not. Second,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Down the road, social security comes in the picture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is a potential large benefit to you being married versus single with social security.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but each situation is different. The fact that your incomes are very similar


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It means that the social security thing may not be the factor it would be if there was a big imbalance in both of your incomes, but you're at ages


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I would do, because you're asking financial and taxes, specifically what you want to know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would go pay for, uh, clock time with a CPA who does tax. I don't think you'd need more than an hour or so of time, maybe even just an hour to get some clarity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On what the current and projected likely future tax implications are being married or each staying single.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the social security thing, you may not find that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, CPA who does tax is going to be able to properly advise you. So there's many different software programs that you can run simulations on social security and see what it would be for you. The, there are ones you can pay for, uh, maximize my social security dot com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is my favor those you can pay for. AARP has a free version and there are others with free versions out there where you can figure out that social security side of the equation. And make sure if you do decide to not get married


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you've done proper paperwork where in the unfortunate event that one of you is hospitalized, uh, needs