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[Assistant] That they're gonna start budgeting their money. And,


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[Assistant] Budgeting is something I find historically, the people who use a budget tool or budget app,


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[Assistant] Or budget program or people who are getting affirmation that they're already doing a great job. It's harder.


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[Assistant] To get you interested in budgeting apps, if money has been a sore spot for you and


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[Assistant] How you handle your money has been a problem maybe at some point currently or in the past that having it hitch in the face with a budgeting tool may be something that's a bridge too far.


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[Assistant] I want to tell you we've reviewed both the free ones and the paid ones and


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[Assistant] I know people get mad at me every year when we review them year after year the best free tool we found has been Mint. M-I-N-T. And Mint is really good for tracking


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[Assistant] Expenses. And it works on your iPhone, works on your Android, and it does the job.


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[Assistant] And the price is perfect and what it really does such a good job of.


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[Assistant] It makes you face where your money's going out the door.


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[Assistant] What's it going to? And the tools are designed to track automatically. So you can pull up pretty quickly and say, oh man, I spent that much eating out? I mean, it's a really, really good tool to use when you feel like your wallet's not under control.


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[Assistant] Personal capital is one I've talked about very infrequently, because it's for investors, but also free.


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[Assistant] And by the way, if you go to our review of budgeting apps and tools, you'll see, you can click on it and


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[Assistant] It'll take you to where you can download it for an Android or an iPhone. And then


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[Assistant] My favorite is still a paid one. That's right. I'm talking about a paid app, but it's, you need a budget. Y-N-A-B. You need a budget is a hundred bucks a year.


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[Assistant] So you gotta be all in on wanting to get your finances under control. But I do really love


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On getting your spending under control. And I really like it. We have reviews of others you might like. There's one of them that's specifically designed for couples.


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[Assistant] If you've got like, uh, things going on as a couple about maybe different attitudes or not the best communication about money, you'll see that one as well.


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[Assistant] And it's, uh, it's available right on Clark.com where you can read the reviews of each of these. But there may be one that someone else has recommended to you that, uh, you give a try and it really works for you. Use it. The idea is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the more you know about what's going on with the finances in your life, the better off you're going to be in getting control of your wallet. And that's why this is a tool


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[Assistant] That is so effective for people if you'll actually use it.


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[Assistant] And Grace is here for Christa for another day as Christa recovers from a minor cold by Christa's telling.


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[Assistant] As a profession and, uh, do you remember, I'm sorry I interrupted before you even got into the question, but the other Clark.


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[Assistant] I told a story, uh, years ago about being in a major airport and having a sense that a young woman was being sex trafficked.


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[Assistant] Cause it was just a supposition we didn't know. And this is a real present problem across, not just America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as far as a rental home, this is not a time for you to look at that. But there is something you should know about that's a little known.


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[Assistant] Federal tax credit available to people who earn up to certain income levels and it's called the savers credit. And the savers credit is something where you can put money into your own Roth IRA and based on income


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, just to gross income, the federal government will give you a credit towards


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[Assistant] The saver, the money you have put into your Roth IRA or other retirement plan. The saver's credit is phasing out in three years time, four years time. It's going to be replaced by a better credit.


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[Assistant] For people who work, uhm, in jobs that don't pay as much, that will be known as the savers match. It's gonna be much easier to understand, but if you Google the savers credit,


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[Assistant] The way it works is you have to have an income, married couple income has to be, uh, 73,000 or less. And so you would qualify for the saver's credit.


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[Assistant] And it has different levels where as much as half


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[Assistant] Uh, of what you contribute, the government will match. And so it just depends. So if you Google savers, savers credit.


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[Assistant] You will find briefings on it that will walk you through and doing a Roth IRA is my favorite place for you go to one of the low cost companies.


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[Assistant] Like Fidelity or Schwab and you're able to do the savers credit starting at one dollar deposited in a Roth IRA. So check it out and that would be my best suggestion for you.


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[Assistant] The goal you would have and, and the motivation is the possibility of a recession or economic slowdown. I'm not that worried about a major economic slowdown. The recession, odds favor


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[Assistant] If we do have a recession this year, it'll be what's known as a shallow recession, not an ugly one. But,


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[Assistant] If it motivates you, you, you and your wife don't need motivation. You're unbelievable savers already. This is incredible. So if you do want to save more money,


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[Assistant] That you get that ultimately to where you have, in your case, because you're such a motivated saver, you get to where you have six months pay in your rainy day account, your emergency fund. But y'all are doing great.


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[Assistant] And if the courts do invalidate student loan forgiveness, then some of that money you beefed up in the emergency fund


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[Assistant] Take it and blow out your student loans and just wipe out the money remaining in your student loan debt. But y'all are in great, great, great, unbelievable financial shape and show incredible financial discipline.


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[Assistant] I made a lot of fun of myself for things I bought twice at trade shows, both that turned out to be junk. The demos looked so great and I'm sure the demo of this mop seemed like unbelievable and


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[Assistant] Uh, in both cases, basically I just lost the money cause there was no...


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[Assistant] Service after the sale, same experience you had.


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[Assistant] And so that led to something I did on TV.


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[Assistant] Where we did something different, Wrinkle, we bought, uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, as seen on TV products that were miraculous and you'd see those commercials and they'd show that these products were like the greatest thing ever and we bought, uh, all these different products and not a single one.


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[Assistant] And one of them, I almost cut myself really badly on cause it broke in my hand. And so,


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[Assistant] What I learned from being burned twice, it shows myself.


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[Assistant] And what I was able to show viewers in buying things that were demonstrated that were by UFO sellers that showed they were phenomenal is that, uh,


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[Assistant] You have no ideas, buy or beware. And if you do buy something at a fair or a trade show or a festival, buy something that's low cost that if it turns out to be an ah well, it is an ah well. But don't get caught up in the hype and buy something


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[Assistant] That's being pitched as the next great miracle device that costs money that you'd hate to lose.


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[Assistant] Because let me tell ya, when it doesn't work like they say, that money's gone. And so...


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[Assistant] I'm really sorry that you lost the money. Uh, you were smart enough to learn after one


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[Assistant] Purchase at a show. It took me two to learn.


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[Assistant] So, you know, the one, the first, shame on them. The second, shame on me. You're only a shame on them. I made it to full shame on me.


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[Assistant] I don't mean to make light of the money you lost on the mop that doesn't work.


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[Assistant] But I, I think that you have helped so many people right now just by raising the problem that you had. Straight ahead, speaking of an industry that's having problems,


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[Assistant] The streaming industry is going through real tumult and I want to tell you how it's going to affect your wallet and what you can do about it.


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[Assistant] Moving forward, we're going to talk about that next. I've talked about how the streaming services have finally realized, oops, we're not going to make money by losing more. And so we are in a year


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[Assistant] Of transition for streaming services, there's going to be a shakeout period.


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[Assistant] Because there was this ideas I shared with you.


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[Assistant] That you had to be out there, play it big, or go home.


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[Assistant] Well now they played big and they're also gonna go home. Because the streaming services...


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[Assistant] A lot of them have lost billions and billions and billions of dollars. You and I have benefited


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[Assistant] Well I don't watch TV, but people watch TV.


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[Assistant] I only watch football, but the people who watch TV have benefited.


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[Assistant] of originally produced streaming shows per season.


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[Assistant] And the audiences have generally gotten smaller and smaller because there's no way anybody can watch all the stuff that's out there.


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[Assistant] So it was a financial train wreck for the streaming services and


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[Assistant] Just an absolute unbelievable opportunity for us as consumers or we as consumers of that content. So now they're like, Oh, well, this isn't working.


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[Assistant] And so you're gonna see constant change. You're gonna see new alliances, mergers, but you're also going to see


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[Assistant] Because we only have so many dollars in our wallets.


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[Assistant] And you can't just push through price increase after price increase or people fade away.


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[Assistant] And so now we're at a time, you're going to have to be on your toes. You're going to have to watch.


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[Assistant] What happens with the pricing? Pay attention to your bills. See what happens with the streaming services. Consider, do you dump that streaming service? Do you cut back to a lower tier?


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[Assistant] Do you contact them to disconnect and they say, Oh, how about this special? You're going to have to play all those games.


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[Assistant] And also be aware of all the free content because the fastest growing area of streaming is free content. On the other hand, you look at


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[Assistant] The replacements for traditional broadcast kind of stuff.


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[Assistant] Which is YouTube TV, and Sling, and Fubo, and, uh, we've got, uh, a number, Filo, Filo I think is how you say it. We've got a number of these available, and we have this tool we developed at Clark.com.


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[Assistant] That is our original tool where you put in the channels that matter to you most, starting from the first that matters the most.


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[Assistant] And work down from there to see what streaming service and what it will cost you per month to get the best deal.


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[Assistant] But the other thing is what if you paid nothing for traditional broadcast? And I've talked for years about you using an antenna.


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[Assistant] To be able to pick up if you live in a mid-size or large metro area, you can pick up an amazing number of channels with a low-cost antenna.


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[Assistant] I mentioned something that obviously confused people that I'm going to explain again.


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[Assistant] There is a new available standard for what's called over the air broadcast. And I guess I did a really bad job explaining.


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[Assistant] Because if you have an antenna already, the TV already that's pulling in,


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[Assistant] Lots of free content, where you're getting the local affiliate of the network. You're getting ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, uh, PBS, whatever.


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[Assistant] And then you also get dozens of other channels you didn't even know were out there.


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[Assistant] And you're getting them all free, and you're getting full bore high def.


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[Assistant] Well, the new standard is built into so many TVs you buy now. If you go look at Best Buy or you look at the warehouse clubs or wherever you go to buy electronics, uh, uh, local or regional electronics store,


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[Assistant] There will be a lot of TVs that talk about the next generation over the air broadcast. And then, uh, in major markets,


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[Assistant] There are channels already broadcasting content in 4K. You buy that 4K TV, you never get to see 4K.


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[Assistant] Well, if it's got the new generation of over-the-air built into it, you're gonna get your best picture, believe it or not, with an antenna and content you get for free versus, we have to watch ads, versus having one of the


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[Assistant] Uh, broadcast substitute streaming services like YouTube or any of their competition. So, you also, if you really want to do this and there's some content you want,


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[Assistant] It's available in 4K or whatever from a local broadcaster.


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[Assistant] You can buy an adapter, a tuner that you plug into your TV, that's more work than I wanna do.


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[Assistant] But if you're really into saving money and you're buying a new TV.


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[Assistant] It's a good choice to look for one and all the ones coming out this spring will have the new tuners in them.


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[Assistant] And you'll be able to watch over the air broadcasts for free. And remember, even HD looks better over the air.


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[Assistant] Then it does over streaming of any kind is getting a full robust signal and in any case better than if you're still with


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[Assistant] The cable monster for video content or you a satellite, you're still going to have a much better picture on your TV. One that looks more like what you saw in the electronics stores. If you get that over the air for free rather than paying somebody to bring it to you.


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[Assistant] Uh, South Africa is a beautiful and incredibly tortured country.


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[Assistant] With a very rough, uhm, and racist past, and now,


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[Assistant] There are many recommended itineraries. Uh, obviously when people go to South Africa or go elsewhere in Southern Africa, they tend to go on what used to be called safari, now called going on reserve. We did that. Uh, when we went to South Africa,


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[Assistant] Uh, we concentrated along the southern area of the country and we went on


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[Assistant] But that's just what I did. There's so much there.


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[Assistant] Uh, if you go to the Johannesburg area, crime is more a concern. Uh,


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[Assistant] A lot of people go to Kruger on reserve. We did not go to Kruger.


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[Assistant] Uh, so there's not specifically any one thing I can recommend, but I can recommend to you, go deep in our winter, their summer.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and particularly, there are certain time periods in January, February,


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[Assistant] That the cost of doing things is cheaper than in other times of winter. So you can, you can see as you look at particular reserves that you're looking at going to.


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[Assistant] The price differences at different points in the winner.


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[Assistant] Still may be a little chilly though, you need to be prepared for that. As for airfare, there's more airfare competition to South Africa right now than there's been in years. I'd like you to subscribe to ScottsCheapFlights.com.


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[Assistant] Every time there's a deal to South Africa, they send you an email with that deal. And know the flights are really, really long. You live in Michigan.


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[Assistant] You may find that with flights to South Africa, you're going to get your best fare buying a fare to South Africa out of New York, Washington, or Atlanta.


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[Assistant] And buying a separate ticket from Michigan to one of those three to fly to South Africa. But Scotch Cheap Flights will give you the hookup.


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[Assistant] On the best airfare deal as it happens.


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[Assistant] To tell somebody not to end up mortgage debt free.


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[Assistant] Is a terrible thing for me to say, but in your case, your mortgage interest rate is so low that pay the mortgage is agreed.


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[Assistant] Because you can earn even a simple savings account.


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[Assistant] You can out earn 2.25%. Uh, generally, the point at which


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[Assistant] It's not as good an idea to prepay a mortgage is when the rate is below four percent in today's marketplace.


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[Assistant] The stock market has been depressed, it may go down more, uh, who can predict in the short term, but long term values are at a much more reasonable place.


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[Assistant] Put in a target retirement fund for the year closest to when you're going to retire. Look at the low cost companies.


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[Assistant] Vanguard Schwab Fidelity to do that at and put the money to work for your long term future tax free rather than prepaying on the mortgage. And congratulations to you having a 2.25%.


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[Assistant] No longer can a provider hit you with a UFO person who's not in network that you have no choice over. You don't get to decide who the anesthesiologist is or these other people who come out of nowhere and are in the surgery room with you.


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[Assistant] And so what the law says is that they can't bill you.


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[Assistant] Where the no surprises is how it plays, but the insurers will try to cheat you, either because they're incompetent or because they're just dishonest. So you're the one who has to be your own advocate


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[Assistant] When they build you out of network, when you have taken the right necessary steps under the no surprises law. So good for you that you stood up for yourself and you saved $900 that you then naturally put into


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show where our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And I'm sure by now you've heard about the crash and burn of FTX.


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[Assistant] And there are lots of questions about what's going to happen to the billions of dollars of client money. Is it gone, gone, gone? It's just horrible.


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[Assistant] Speaking of ripoffs, I have a special warning for you through the Christmas holiday season. It are elderly.


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[Assistant] Got something that I want to tell you, you know, we're a week away from Thanksgiving and we are in our Clark's Christmas kids campaign. If you're not familiar with the Clark's Christmas kids.


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[Assistant] It is where we collect your donations for children in foster care.


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[Assistant] And if you've done so in the past, thank you so much. If you can do so this year, thank you because these kids without you and me have no gifts Christmas morning. They're already not with their families. And then on top of it, they're left without gifts Christmas morning.


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[Assistant] And I don't want that to happen. So if you can help out again, go to ClarksChristmasKids.com


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[Assistant] I received many, many, many, many questions and we parsed them out.


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[Assistant] End of the podcast, I addressed it in my TV work.


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[Assistant] About the opportunity the FTX was making available to people where you could


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[Assistant] Use them as an exchange for your crypto.


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[Assistant] And then they would pay you a way above market rate return on your money because they would take your crypto and then they'd lend it out. Well, crypto and exchanges are not regulated in any way like normal money. And I was trying to explain


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[Assistant] To someone the other day who just couldn't get the concept. I want to take you back. There was a time in American history where particularly in frontier America,


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[Assistant] I know this is weird to think of, but people lived so local and isolated areas. And so the bank where people would deposit their money would also print money, kind of like what we refer to today as Scrip, non-governmental money that's like an IOU.


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[Assistant] And that's what people would use and then the bank would go bust and whatever money people had in the bank was gone. That's the closest analogy I can think of that's ultra simple to explain what's happened


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[Assistant] With FTX and other exchanges because FTX is not the first and it won't be the last.


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[Assistant] I kept saying to people who were calling me and contacting me and asking us questions here on the podcast, I kept saying, understand, there's no FDIC. There's no oversight.


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[Assistant] Of what's happening with your money and there's a reason that you're getting a way above market rate return on your money because the risk that it entails. And this was a classic run on the bank. There was word out on the street roughly a week ago that, uh, there


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[Assistant] Were problems with FTX and it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy because then there was a run on their assets. They quickly went insolvent.


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[Assistant] And what you need to know is crypto as I've said, gosh,


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[Assistant] Krista, I want to bring you in. How many years have we been taking questions about crypto at this point? Is it 10?


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[Assistant] Over and over again. Yeah, all through the years. And I, I have been, um,


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[Assistant] I've always talked about the underlying architecture being something


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[Assistant] That is very modern and is going to be very applicable and could actually eventually save people money. But speaking of money, the reason crypto has been


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[Assistant] A fake investment and really just speculative is that


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[Assistant] Crypto way before all this went wrong with the various exchanges and all that crypto has not been at all about stable value. People have looked at it as a shortcut to get rich in a very short cycle and


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[Assistant] That's not real yet. That's not real money. And until you can go in somewhere and use your Android or iPhone and just buy something with crypto, it's not the real deal yet.


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[Assistant] And have a value that the merchant is comfortable accepting that money and you're comfortable holding money in that crypto. We're not close.


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[Assistant] And I talked before about the celebrities who've been doing all these endorsements, and in the Super Bowl this past February, it was a who's who.


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[Assistant] Uh, famous or near famous people who were touting crypto and they all have egg on their face. But the interesting thing, do you know what a lot of them took?


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[Assistant] Their payment in the crypto that they were pitching and now they're wiped out too. Reputational harm and they don't have the money for having put their reputation at risk. Now what's going to happen next in the United States?


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[Assistant] Nobody really knows there's this big intramural fight going on in Washington. Politicians, the regulators, all trying to figure out who is going to set up rules for crypto. Because the result of people losing billions upon billions of dollars is somebody wants a cop on the beach.


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[Assistant] But that cop on the beat has to allow the creativity and ingenuity that underlines these, uh, new forms of money.


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[Assistant] To have an opportunity to flourish at the same time protecting people from scams and from insolvent enterprises. So is Washington going to get that right?


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[Assistant] Beats me. But what you need to know is never ever, it's like if you went to Vegas, you never want to gamble away money that you have to have. You never want to buy the power thingy ball or big game thingies as they're both called. One of them was just like two billion dollars or something.


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[Assistant] Anyway, somebody won, one person won 2.1 billion.


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[Assistant] Even after tax and that's a lot of money. Anyway, uhm, you never want to do what I see people do in convenience stores when there's a big lottery. They start taking away money that they need to pay their bills because they're trying to get that big score. You can't do that.


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[Assistant] With gambling, you can't do that with speculating, because speculating by its nature,


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[Assistant] You could hit a big score, but the greater odds are that you lose money. And in this case, people are losing potentially all of it.


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[Assistant] So the expense ratio has everything to do with the return, but the return stated must include the expense ratio already. That's why if you look at the money market funds from


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[Assistant] The full commission stockbrokers, you'll see that their expense ratio is typically at least five times what it is at Vanguard or Fidelity. And so your actual real return on your money is much, much, much lower because in terms of the things, the instruments they invest in,


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[Assistant] In a money market fund, there's not gonna be that much difference in what they invest in. So the expense ratio matters a huge amount and that's why when you should have money


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[Assistant] In a money market fund with a full commission stockbroker and think of this, any of them that are owned by a bank automatically, they're going to cost a zillion to have your account there. Do not have your money market fund with a full commission stockbroker unless you don't like your money.


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[Assistant] So .55, if that includes the cost of the investments, it's a little on the high side, but you're okay. And putting it in,


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[Assistant] This is an example of if your 401k offers a Roth 401k option.


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[Assistant] And you're paying a .55, that would probably be superior to doing the zero funds.


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[Assistant] At fidelity that ultimately everything you have in them would be subject to capital gains tax. So if you're saying 0.55 before you breathe,


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[Assistant] And then on top of it, you have the expense ratios of the investments. Then you're probably better off


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[Assistant] Being in the Fidelity Zero funds in an investment account and having to pay the tax.


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[Assistant] Absolutely, the 401k up to the match. Okay, that one I want you to know drives me bonkers when people have a 401k available to them with a match and they don't even put enough money in it to grab that match.


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[Assistant] So I'm going to give you some advice that's going to freak you out maybe, Ali.


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[Assistant] And that is this. Uhm, you'd likely be flying out of Atlanta.


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[Assistant] And Atlanta is in the travel industry, what's known as an island market, meaning that there's no competition in that market, no competitive markets close by.


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[Assistant] All international service out of Atlanta, 97% or whatever, is done by one airline, Delta. And the fares are typically to Europe three times the price out of Atlanta as they are from New York.


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[Assistant] To go up to New York the day before you're going to fly to Europe.


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[Assistant] Go, uh, sightsee, taking a show, whatever, and then fly out of New York to...


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[Assistant] The fairs to Europe recently out of New York for March and April have been around 350 to 450 round trip. I'm sure you're not finding anything close to that.


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[Assistant] Out of a southeast US airport and particularly out of Atlanta. Now, if you do want to stay within the southeast region, there's an odd thing.


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[Assistant] Out of Atlanta, and there's no other major market in the United States I can think of that's like this. But if you look at cities within two to three hours of Atlanta,


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[Assistant] You could be Birmingham, Alabama, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Greenville, South Carolina would be three examples. If you look out of those,


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[Assistant] You'll find that a lot of times, even on Delta,


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[Assistant] You'll cut the fare by more than half, maybe more, by driving to one of those, you fly back to Atlanta, change planes, and then go to England.


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[Assistant] And the fare will be a lot cheaper because out of those markets, Delta has to compete.


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[Assistant] Where they don't in their home base of Atlanta. Delta's not doing anything evil or anything like that. They have a monopoly and they're pricing like a monopolist would. Well actually a true monopolist would keep fares low to keep any competition out. But,


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[Assistant] Delta is charging what the market will bear, facing no competition in their home market. Straight ahead, I want to talk about not the happiest topic. Scammers work overtime this time of year.


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[Assistant] And they target everybody, but a special target is on the elderly and you gotta protect your loved ones and your friends.


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[Assistant] And if you're older, protect yourself from the scammers. I want to tell you how they're getting in your wallet so big right now. Most people are good people. I want to always make that clear because there are times when you hear me or anybody else talk about scams, you start to doubt the integrity, honesty and decency of your fellow human beings.


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[Assistant] But a relatively small number of people account for most evil in the world. And crime used to be so heavily crime against person. One good thing


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[Assistant] Is that even with the spike in crime we've had in the United States over the last three years, the truth is the crimes against persons are much lower than they used to be because


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[Assistant] It's not really worth it to stick somebody up for their money. You know, hey, give me all your money. Cause most people don't carry any cash anymore. I mean, it's crazy how little cash people carry. Um, I carry a tiny amount on my person and I was doing something on television yesterday and Krista, you'll get a kick out of this.


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[Assistant] I pulled my cash out and what did it turn out I had? Ones. I had ones. I had nothing else. I don't know how I ended up with just ones. So if I needed cash.


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[Assistant] When I'm out and about, I'm just flat out of luck. I think about people who...


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[Assistant] And they have to leave hungry because they have no other way to pay.


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[Assistant] It's just, we've, we've so gotten into this electronic stuff. So criminals are opportunists. Now what they do to rip us off is they use a laptop or a cell phone or a combination of those and get this crimes against people who are 60 and over reported scams.


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[Assistant] Are up 40% in the last two years, four zero percent. And you know, what's reported is a microscopic fraction of what's going on by the fed's own admission that what people find their way to them. Cause nobody knows this alphabet soup of federal agencies. And so the scams cost billions from individuals and


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[Assistant] The criminals are going after people with a variety of things old and new. So one of the things that


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[Assistant] has been around for about the last seven or eight years for tech support scams where, and this continues to specifically target people who are


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[Assistant] 60 and older, which is a larger and larger share of US population and


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[Assistant] Get some kind of notice that there's a problem with their computer or there's a hack of their computer and they're gonna help you out.


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[Assistant] They'll say they're from Microsoft, whatever. We've been talking about that for years.


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[Assistant] That one is still hot, hot, hot. You know what else? The impersonation scams where someone pretends to be a family member in trouble or a friend in trouble or, and this one happens to people of all ages, a pretexter where somebody pretends to be from


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[Assistant] A financial institution you do business with, a utility you do business with or anything like that.


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[Assistant] The crimes are not punished overwhelmingly. You've got geographical problems.


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[Assistant] Where the criminal is somewhere else in the country, maybe even outside the United States, the police


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[Assistant] Rightly have to put their primary efforts on dealing with violent criminals, violent crime, locking up violent people.


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[Assistant] And so these kind of crimes against the wallet and con games against the wallet.


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[Assistant] A small number of people to buy in and I can make all this money and how are they finding you? It costs them nothing. Overwhelmingly social media, texts, emails, but very heavily today.


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[Assistant] The scams that start on social media, the criminals are patient. What I've talked about in the past called pig slaughtering. They will take their time to gain your confidence even over months before they get in your wallet on


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[Assistant] The texting scams are looking typically for a quick score. They're pretending to be your bank.


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[Assistant] They're pretending to be an opportunity. You got a Walmart gift card. They're pretending.


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[Assistant] To say your power is about to be shut off, all these things will come in and the


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[Assistant] The messages you get look exactly like they're from a bank or credit union or utility or retailer or whoever you do business with and you think it's a real thing.


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[Assistant] Remember, never, never, never, not ever


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[Assistant] Click on what looks like a legitimate text from a legitimate organization. Any link in that text, never click on that link.


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[Assistant] If you're being notified of an opportunity or a problem,


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[Assistant] You do not click on the link they're providing you. You go to the website of whoever it is and check it out. Never never never not ever give someone who contacts you


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[Assistant] Information from your computer they'll ask you to give them that allows them remotely


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[Assistant] Because next thing happens, all kinds of financial fraud will happen against you. Again, I want to close this out by saying


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[Assistant] Almost everybody you're gonna see every day is an honest, decent person. Do not assume because of the kinds that take place.


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[Assistant] That people are, in fact, dishonest, crooked, whatever. Can I have my wallet back?


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[Assistant] So Lynn, I do not think that this is intentional crooked behavior. I think it's incompetence. And with the cycle of inflation, the thank goodness is bending now, not fast enough, but it's bending. But with the cycle of inflation,


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[Assistant] I've seen over and over and over again what you have seen. There will be a price on the shelf and then I get to the register I'm being charged more and retailers are stretched. They're short labor and the prices have changed enough that they're wrong a lot.


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[Assistant] Now one thing I do at retailers that have the capability, I use a scanning app on my phone.


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[Assistant] To verify the price before I put something in my cart. I'm obsessed with prices, right? So I do that routinely at places I can do that at. You're doing the right thing by watching because I don't believe that they're trying to rip you off.


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[Assistant] I believe it's just a lack of the business running efficiently.


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[Assistant] That you have to opt in. And I have to do this with reward cards. I assume you do as well.


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[Assistant] Because they're only looking to try to get a boost on what you're spending.


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[Assistant] If you didn't have to register for the promotion, you wouldn't have an incentive to move credit card charging market share


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[Assistant] From card A to card B or from card B to card C.


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[Assistant] And that's what the registration is about, is to say, hey you!


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[Assistant] Hey, you with that thick head over there, if you will charge this much over the next 90 days, on these categories, we're going to give you this additional money. It is a behavior mod thing.


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[Assistant] And that's why that's the way it works.


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[Assistant] Okay, Scott, I love this. I had not heard this. You are a genius. The only problem is Scott.


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[Assistant] Thursday night football generally has been so lame. The games have generally been.


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[Assistant] So bad all through the years of Thursday night football, even before Amazon had it, because I think the players having played on Sunday and the coaches having coached on Sunday, they don't have, the players don't have enough time to recover. The coaches don't have enough time to come up with a good game plan for their opponent.


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[Assistant] And so the games are guilty of the worst sin of all. They're usually really boring. And do you know Amazon's in a big fight with, uh, Nielsen because Nielsen says a lot smaller number of people are watching Amazon's Thursday night football.


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[Assistant] Maybe you'd have more eyeballs for Thursday Night Football.


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[Assistant] That's the end of my editorializing. Cause I could talk about the NFL till what? A week from now?


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[Assistant] Well, what's great a week from now, Thanksgiving, I got NFL football all day long. That's right. So I want to thank you so much for listening today.


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[Assistant] Thanksgiving is about something else too besides football.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I hope you love your time with your family and...


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[Assistant] I want you to know you can make a difference right now.


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[Assistant] What you can do is you can go to ClarksChristmasKids.com


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[Assistant] And fulfill Christa's Christmas wishlist. No. Actually, it is your wishlist.


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[Assistant] That people go to ClarksChristmasKids.com, that you go to ClarksChristmasKids.com and take care of a foster child's


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[Assistant] Christmas wish list so that Christmas morning that young boy or girl is in foster care, no fault of their own, not with their family this Christmas season.


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[Assistant] We'll have gifts because of you. This is our 32nd year of Clark's Christmas Kids. Have a great day.


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[Assistant] Okay, uhm, the second Clark Stinks I'm gonna read is the most popular one we've ever had, like at the most posts I've ever seen on a Clark Stinks. But it's the second one. It's the second one, I'm just teasing you, so I'm gonna read this one first.


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[Assistant] Okay, so you talked about the easiest way, I'll read this one, Clark may have neglected to mention the best and easiest way to deal with services that automatically renew.


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[Assistant] In many cases, one can simply opt out of auto renewals almost immediately after subscribing even on the same day.


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[Assistant] This can usually be done in the services website but in the worst cases like print magazines and newspapers that Clark loves to see


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[Assistant] Seems to love so much. It can be done by calling or emailing customer service and acting and asking to opt out mic. And then 10 people emailed about why about the same topic.


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[Assistant] saying why don't you take your own advice and use a virtual credit card number because we have an article about that on the website and you've talked about that and using a virtual credit card number eliminates the worry of an auto renewal.


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[Assistant] And I think one of the reasons. We talked about privacy. Privacy.com, which is another.


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[Assistant] The mattress dealers who sell there are hyper motivated to deal and if you're willing to take the floor model, you can save insane amounts of money and they usually include a better warranty because it's a show special.


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[Assistant] We got a $14,000 price confirmed at one of their stores later. Adjustable frame split king system.


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[Assistant] With two purple mattresses for $3,600 and a 14 year warranty on the frame. 10 for the mattress. And bonus when they delivered it and set it up, all included.


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[Assistant] They accidentally brought us a deluxe frame with all the bells and whistles. June is the month for our fair, therefore June is the correct answer for me, Greg.


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[Assistant] Clark ranted about not knowing the cancellation policy on Airbnb and VRBO listings, but this information is clearly stated on every listings page. Any traveler can easily scroll down to the terms and check the cancellation policy.


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[Assistant] And my cancellation policy is anybody can get a full refund up to five days before check-in. Mike.


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[Assistant] Clark and Krista's advice on public wifi stinks. The advice in the early 2010s about not using public wifi was spot on.


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[Assistant] This service is encrypted most of the time with military-grade encryption. In turn, your VPN server then goes to the website you requested, gathers the info, and then transmits the screen back to you, again, fully encrypted. Help me understand your seemingly bizarre rationale.


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[Assistant] Okay, Em in Colorado has a question for you. I need to learn about forecasting Roth IRA eligibility. If my W-2 income is $115,000, I am eligible to put into a Roth IRA and do so on a set amount every month so it maximizes my Roth contribution by the end of the year.


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[Assistant] I also however have investments that pay dividends that I don't see in my checking account but somehow make it into my AGI. These dividends could put me over the AGI limit for Roth IRA eligibility. The problem is I don't know the dividends until the 1099s come out in the beginning of the following year.


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[Assistant] What do I do? The market is volatile, so how do I know if I'm Roth IRA eligible?


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[Assistant] Paula Michigan says I'm very fortunate to be receiving a large sum pension, lump sum pension. I'm confident in the stock market and plan to invest most of it in a variety of stock market index funds within my 401k.


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[Assistant] And we'll be accessing funds through the rule of 55. I read, see and hear conflicting advice on whether to invest it all at once or dollar cost average over x period of time. What is your advice?


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[Assistant] Charlie in Georgia says my spouse's parents both passed last year.


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[Assistant] Her parents used a well-known firm that she wants to stay with her parents' advisor who is in another state. She feels this advisor has helped manage her parents' money well and she very much respected her parents' judgment.


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[Assistant] But from what I've read, their fees seem very high to me. What is your advice? And PS, the inheritance was split between several children, so her parents' total investment with this company was much higher than even what she received.


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[Assistant] Speak for yourself. I'm taking time off to regenerate, you know, to rest and do all those things you say are so important to do. I was just teasing.


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[Assistant] I'm spending it with my family at home. We're not traveling anywhere. My daughter's coming home from college, so very excited to see her and spend time with her.


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[Assistant] Alright, first stinks. You mentioned how to pay less when saving teens, when having teens on your auto insurance policy, but you failed to mention anything about having your teens.


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[Assistant] And parents taking defensive driving classes that will save you and your family money.


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[Assistant] The certificate is valid for four years and most insurance companies offer a $5 discount per driver or a percent per policy and so on.


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[Assistant] This is about tire warranties. Clark has never driven on rocky roads.


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[Assistant] For some, these are good. My brother used to buy five tires with a warranty because he frequently had flat tires.


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[Assistant] Often he would drop the flood off at the Walmart on the way to work and pick it up on the way home. Doug.


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[Assistant] This probably falls into the category of smelly not stinky, but you have caused me great unease with your constant doomsday scenarios with Zell.


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[Assistant] My daughter sends me a Zelle payment every month for a loan, so I contacted my bank, one of the big ones, and asked if they covered fraud. They said they have a fraud department and would submit a claim for reimbursement if any fraud occurred. Am I missing something here? Richard.


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[Assistant] Vanguard does not offer an SHA, Clark. Every time you mention this, I get excited and go check. I wish they did, but I had to open a Fidelity to invest my HSA funds.


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[Assistant] Not that I don't like Fidelity, but I would prefer to have it with Vanguard since I have several other accounts with them. Not many people d- uh,


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[Assistant] Not many people do this and let their HSA funds sit in their employer's chosen savings account mark.


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[Assistant] Another one on your HSA segment. It seems that every week, Clark gives stinky advice to not use the HSA funds to pay medical bills. He's not alone because I smell the same odor when the wind is blowing from the direction of the dairy farm on a warm summer day.


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[Assistant] Does he not know that an HSA balance is taxable as income to beneficiaries in the year the owner dies? I would be embarrassed eternally if my children had to pay taxes on a massive HSA that Clark said was a triple tax savings investment.


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[Assistant] Please ask Clark to tell us from suspend their HSA before they die and emphasize the fresh smelling Roth to build tax-free wealth, Tom.


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[Assistant] You don't stink, but I get really nervous when you recommend Hyundai or Kia cars with the recent break-ins happening. It's my understanding that these two cars are being targeted.


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[Assistant] My mother has one of them and has had her window broken out twice. You may want to give that warning, Sean.


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[Assistant] And push button to start the car. So I just quickly searched that and found that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and I know that I did hear that because I know somebody who had one stolen, so.


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[Assistant] But apparently they're easier to steal than other cars in terms of the start mechanism.


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[Assistant] Clark, you stink at predicting things. You said several years ago that hearing aid prices would be going down very soon and made the same prediction again just recently.


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[Assistant] Each item was well over $150 off retail and in like new condition. Don't sleep on Amazon warehouse spend.


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[Assistant] Clark, you stink because you never mentioned the Simple IRA as a retirement savings option for small businesses with employees. I'm a Texas CPA and the Simple IRA is the best choice for most small businesses with employees.


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[Assistant] For 2023, the owner employee can defer up to $15,500 and an additional $3,500 if they're over 50.


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[Assistant] You can establish the planet fidelity, it's free and there is no annual IRS form 5500 like there is with a 401k.


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[Assistant] I used the services just once to get our wills done, but it saved us thousands and we had excellent and experienced attorney craft our documents for no additional charge.


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[Assistant] Then I simply elected to not re-enroll in the following year.


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[Assistant] I'd recommend this to anyone and everyone who would prefer to have bespoke documents created for them rather than relying on cookie cutter online forms.


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[Assistant] That may not make sense for their personal situation, David.


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[Assistant] Alright, David in California says, Hi Clark, my wife recently had three back to back codes sent to her phone for access to her PayPal account. Wow. The two factor authentication worked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She went, then went on to change her password. We set this up because of your advice. Thank you.


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[Assistant] Question, is there anything else we need to do other than change her password? What's interesting is that she didn't have a simple password, so the fact that a hacker got it somehow is remarkable.


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[Assistant] Sean in Virginia says my wife started 529's for our three daughters and our oldest just started her freshman year. We should have more than enough for all three to receive a four-year degree, most likely more. Isn't that great?


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[Assistant] She lives with us and commutes to Old Dominion University from Virginia Beach and I was curious if that would be an authorized expense off campus living.


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[Assistant] And what would be needed to support that? Thank you for everything that you do. My wife and I listen to you on our walks, reducing the impact of dementia and Alzheimer's and increasing our financial education.


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[Assistant] Students living off campus should keep records and receipts to validate the expense. Families may also be able to use 529 assets for room and board from students living at home.


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[Assistant] But the cost allowable must be lower than the cost of living on campus.


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[Assistant] Yep. And I just Googled that real quick and found that on a website called Putnam.com.


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[Assistant] She said in there not being a close location for me to do that anymore, I went back to the TSA website to try to determine why my local airport is no longer handling pre-check applications. Ended up calling to ask for help. I'm so happy to tell you that I got a wonderful agent on the phone.


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[Assistant] That puts a space between a Mac, MAC, or an MC at the beginning of the last name. And I have to tell you that also happens with DI, which is how my name starts. They put a space in there.


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[Assistant] And when you request renewal, you'll be told you have to come in person to renew.


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[Assistant] Even though my TSA pre-check had expired, I was able to renew online. I just wanted to share the good news and maybe this information will help another Mac or Mac listener.


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show, where our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. We've talked a lot about inflation and how expensive so many things have become, but I want to talk about the opposite.


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[Assistant] At the same time, this is a real irony that we're facing inflation on some things. There are a lot, a lot of deals and clearance sales going on other places.


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[Assistant] And one of the places you can get bargains right now. Okay. I have not lost my mind. Don't have a fever. It's Amazon. I'm going to tell you about that. And speaking of saving, how does some people do it? How did they on a less than average salary, let's say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How did they manage to become financially independent? How did they get the savings done? We need to talk about that later. So great, great ironic time that


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[Assistant] There are deals on different things while other things are like the price is going crazy. Amazon.


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[Assistant] Is having a relatively difficult time right now. If it weren't for AWS, Amazon world services where they make all their money.


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[Assistant] I don't know what they do with their whole retail operation. Amazon has a bunch of warehouses, they're closing.


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[Assistant] A bunch of sites they're abandoning and mid construction. Uh, they, they're having a rough, rough time because they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes you can live too much by your analytics. And when Amazon sales,


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[Assistant] Where people wanted everything delivered that they might've gone to a store before for, there was a belief


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[Assistant] And the, what you'd read in the business press.


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[Assistant] And what companies thought internally, like Amazon, that this was forever, that once people started doing all this online shopping, they would keep doing it. Well, it didn't work out that way.


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[Assistant] And it turns out that a lot of people actually enjoy going to physical stores. Plus Amazon's in a bit of a bind where they spent, uh, two decades building up market share at the cost of making money. In other words, not making money. And now they're like, wait, wait, wait, we've got all these customers now. Now we've got to make money on them.


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[Assistant] They push prices up so much that it's pushed customers away.


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[Assistant] So Amazon is in a big overstock mode right now.


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[Assistant] And they're using a discount site they bought years ago and still use that brand name Woot, W-O-O-T dot com with constant clearance sales on stuff that had been on Amazon.


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[Assistant] What's really interesting is Woot's original business model was they had a single item a day. The Woot company, the people who owned it, the buyers.


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[Assistant] They only had to come up with 365 items in a year, except in leap year they had to come up with 366. Now you go on Woot, and in a single day, they may have more than those number of items for sale.


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[Assistant] And so Amazon is using Woot as a way to move product.


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[Assistant] Often new items that are in vast overstock.


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[Assistant] In Amazon's orbit. If you're Amazon Prime member, you get free shipping on the Woot items, but they don't do two day guaranteed delivery. But you do get the items free of shipping. Also, Amazon has been doing something at Woot where on certain items,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Amazon Prime members get a lower price than other people. And then there's Amazon Warehouse.


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[Assistant] And I don't know if you're familiar with Amazon warehouse. They don't even make it easy to find, but if you go to amazon.com and you look at the top, if you're an Amazonian, you're familiar with this.


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[Assistant] And you, at Amazon in the search bar,


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[Assistant] You've got an all button. Well if you click on all, one of the categories is Amazon warehouse right near the top.


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[Assistant] And you click on it and you see everything available on Amazon warehouse.


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[Assistant] Uh, big chunk of the merchandise or items that people bought on Amazon and returned. They've been nothing wrong with them. They just returned them.


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[Assistant] And they're being sold open box at a lower price through Amazon warehouse than they're being sold otherwise. And then they have things that are used


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Towards electronics, but it's not just electronics. They've got a baby good section where people like going camping and doing outdoor stuff. They have that. Uh, they have a grocery section.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's a lot of different categories, automotive and of course pets.


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[Assistant] I mean, you look at what people spend money on now. They're pets, pet motels. You can take your pet resort.


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[Assistant] I mean it's crazy what people spend on pets. So at least getting pet stuff at discounts is a great thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it is true that raising your dogs from zero up is more expensive than raising your humans in your household from zero to eighteen, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well Krista, uh, is very fashionable and is also very careful with what you spend on clothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An amazing number of times why we never talk about what Americans call sheen, but I think the proper way to pronounce it is sheen.


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[Assistant] And they are booming in the United States and they look like they're on their way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To being the, potentially the largest seller of clothing in the United States.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and they're opening pop-up stores in the U.S. and they've been doing a big expansion of warehouses in the U.S. and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My son and I got into a funny discussion because I spend so little on my clothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Grant was asking me how I felt about Shien. And I said, well, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've looked at it and it's too expensive for me. He started laughing because I spend so little money on my clothing.


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[Assistant] That she and which is considered to be the cheapest place for people to shop by anybody who's into any sense of fashion at all.


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[Assistant] That, uh, to me the prices were expensive, but he tells me and you tell me that the prices there are really, really cheap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're controversial because there are people who say that they mistreat their factory workers. And, uh, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of questions about whether this Chinese company is really abusing its workers or not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they are a real player in the market and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the answer is no, I've never ordered anything from Xi'an because they're out of my price range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And no, I can't verify whether or not they mistreat their workers. So there you have it. Now I've talked about Shien. And so I looked at ordering a couple of things from them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's just people keep asking me about it and what the experience is like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I couldn't do it because the things were just too expensive for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you know if an item is more than single digit in price, it really is out of my budget.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so Will, as I understand what you're asking, the side income that your wife has is $10.99. She's being paid like an independent contractor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there is a vehicle for her that would reduce AGI, have the current tax benefit you're looking for, and that would be doing a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, SEP, Simplified Employee Pension, are known as a SEP-IRA. Uh, they, the paperwork for it takes about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, 45 seconds, a minute to fill out. There's like nothing to it. And then you open it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, uh, Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, anybody like that. You can open a SEP.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The amounts you can contribute to one, uh, are quite large. And if you go to Investopedia and you look at their explanation of a SEP,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll have it. We have a very brief one on Clark.com, but I think in this case, go read the Investopedia briefing on SEPs.


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[Assistant] And that would be a potential way to reduce that AGI and then have a direct impact.


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[Assistant] On the amount of money she's saved for retirement and also reduce income basis for the, uh, income based repayment program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so we had a question about this recently as well from someone about their doctor going through a transition and people are using different terminology for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most common terminology for it is


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[Assistant] Direct primary care. Yes, direct primary care. Direct primary care.


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[Assistant] Uh, when I first did a story about this on television, it was like seven or eight years ago about direct primary care.


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[Assistant] And the idea is so much of a doctor's office overhead.


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[Assistant] Is dealing with all the terrible insurance company rules and restrictions and trying to get approvals for this, that and the other. And doctors have learned that they can


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[Assistant] Dramatically reduce the cost of running their practice.


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[Assistant] If they go to a version of what often is coined direct primary care in the event of a nonprofit, their goal is to provide care to people as cheaply as possible. So by going to a model where insurance isn't involved and you pay them a fee, this is different than concierge medicine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Concierge medicine tends to have an annual fee of roughly 2000 to $12,000 a year. The difference from the 2000 to 12,000 is how many patients a doctor is allowed to bring into his or her practice and how accessible that doctor is to you. In direct primary care, it's more about, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Giving lower cost care to people or being able to provide care at a lower cost by cutting insurance companies out of it for routine care. It does though still mean you need an insurance policy or hospitalization because even though you're getting your primary care for a lower flat rate,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It still doesn't deal in most cases with what happens.


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[Assistant] If you need an expensive surgery or there's a hospitalization or whatever but the insurance companies are harming


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[Assistant] The cost of medical care in the United States without doubt.


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[Assistant] Because of the layer after layer after layer after layer of bureaucracy that's involved and that you have people that are just trying to, to limit what an insurer has to pay and wasting a doctor's time when he or she is having to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Explain to some person in an insurance company who's not a medically trained person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why a particular procedure or test or whatever is medically necessary and it's all about wearing the doctors down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It gives doctors autonomy and independence again and lowers the cost of running their practice.


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[Assistant] Okay, so this is a little complicated, Jay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When your wife subscribed to magazines.


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[Assistant] Just as in retail stores when they say, would you like a free magazine for blah blah blah time?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you say yes, and then they, they charge you to your credit card for those magazines that supposedly were free. It's all in the disclosure.


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[Assistant] It's not at all unusual. The magazine industry is so desperate for revenue right now that with a renewal in all the lingo that comes with it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There may have been something that says you agree to receive so many


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[Assistant] Cookbooks or this or that or the other over the course of your subscription.


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[Assistant] And if you wish to keep them, you'll pay us. If you don't, you have to send them back. And that's often in the disclosure that's all the legalese for the magazines. On the other hand,


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[Assistant] If your wife did not enter into any of those agreements, and these came by US mail, unsolicited items


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[Assistant] Because your wife unknowingly in her subscription or in a renewal of a subscription may have agreed to receive periodically these, uh, these books in the mail and is required if she doesn't want them, if she did enter an agreement to have the expense of sending them back. Magazine business is truly in a desperation survival mode.


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[Assistant] And sometimes unsavory practices creep in when an industry is trying to survive. So


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[Assistant] I want to talk about something thriving, not surviving. That's coming up is how do you.


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[Assistant] Regardless of what you make within reason, past a minimally subsistent salary, how do you build that financial independence? We're going to talk about that. From a very young age, I was obsessed with saving money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you've listened to me for a long time, you already know that from right out of college,


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[Assistant] I resolved that I was going to live on every other paycheck. Going through college, I'd lived a very bare bones existence. I lived on whatever food I could scrounge up a deal on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very little money. I even had a semester. I couldn't buy my textbooks. So I didn't have the money. Made it through that semester somehow. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you first get a job out of whatever schooling you do.


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[Assistant] You're used to getting by on such a little amount of money. And then suddenly you get this paycheck from, let's say your first real job and suddenly what's known as the marginal propensity to consume. It's an economic principle that means as our income goes up magically, somehow our spending goes right up with it. The key habit you'll see of people who


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[Assistant] Or into FI, financial independence.


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[Assistant] Also known as mega savers or super savers or various terms like that are used. There are certain things that are generally consistent and it's a mentality. In my case, it was living on every other paycheck today.


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[Assistant] What's very common is people who come out of school of whatever level become instant savers for retirement. Roth IRAs. I mean, it's fascinating to me how many people I hear from that are plus or minus 20 a couple of years are familiar with Roth IRAs.


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[Assistant] And asking about them and how to start one, how to fund one, what the money should be in, that kind of thing. I mean, it's in their vocabularies, in their head. And habits that start young make a difference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there's other things as well about financial habits. Principal Financial Group did a survey and found that


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[Assistant] One of the things that people that are good savers, regardless of income, this is important regardless of income, because they found that a lot of people


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[Assistant] Who make around 35,000 a year, we're doing really well saving money for the future. And you think at 35 and a lot of Metro areas, I didn't even pay all your bills every month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there are a lot of people at 35,000 and more who are saving substantial amount of money for retirement.


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[Assistant] What is consistent whether somebody makes 35,000 or makes hundreds of thousands of dollars?


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[Assistant] They don't ever buy a new car. They buy only used cars. They drive that car, as I call it, till the wheels fall off.


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[Assistant] Think about how many people, if you've a long time listener to me, you'll hear quote back to me. Yeah, I'm going to drive my car to the wheels fall off. And you may wonder, why do I put this big emphasis on the cars transportation? Because that is the second biggest expense that the typical person or family has in their lives is that that set of wheels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think about people who have pickup trucks and how many pickup trucks you see now


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[Assistant] That cost sixty to a hundred thousand dollars.


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[Assistant] And there are all these fancy new pickup trucks on the road. And then you see other people and you'll be at a work site and you see people with these fancy, fancy


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[Assistant] And then you see somebody at that construction site who's driving an old, old, old beat up pickup truck.


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[Assistant] And you know, both of them got to the construction site that day.


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[Assistant] But one of them has a big monthly payment, and the other has been paid for forever.


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[Assistant] Another thing I have shared in the past, but not in a good while.


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[Assistant] That in my TV work I used to do these things where I'd go to schools of different levels from elementary school to college.


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[Assistant] And we do, uh, what we call to get Clark smart or a Clark town hall, depending on what the TV channel wanted to call it at that time or network. And I always had this thing with two slides.


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[Assistant] And it didn't matter again, if these were elementary school kids or college students or anywhere in between, I'd show these two slides and I'd ask which family were the millionaires and one would be picture of a modest home, an older vehicle and various household possessions that had some age on them.


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[Assistant] And then the other would be a big fancy new house.


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[Assistant] With fancy vehicles, not vehicle, vehicles and all these other things. And it didn't matter if they were.


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[Assistant] Elementary school kids, college students in between overwhelmingly, they would say it was


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[Assistant] The slides of the fancy family with the fancy stuff that were the millionaires, which you know is the late, uh,


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[Assistant] Professor Stanley, who wrote the millionaire next door, found out more than a generation ago that most millionaires live in a modest home. Most millionaires drive a very old, just modest vehicle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That things that they consume


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[Assistant] They're very careful with because the key is saving money. The other thing is that most millionaires turned out to be people who owned service businesses and people that are wealthy.


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[Assistant] Tend to not care about how it looked to the neighbor.


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[Assistant] The neighbor has a fancy car, so man, we look like nothing. Look at our old car.


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[Assistant] But I remember forever ago I had an employee.


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[Assistant] Anytime we'd be out and about and we'd see a fancy car, she'd say, least. And I loved it. Cause the point was,


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[Assistant] That somebody was a show horse. They were trying to show off. They weren't being careful with their money.


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[Assistant] The mentality is basically you walk softly with modesty and you're quiet about what you accomplish. But the point is to live a life of good habits with what you save and what you spend your money on, regardless of what you make past subsistence, it's how you choose


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[Assistant] Those decisions that makes all the difference on whether or not you were financially dependent in your life or you're financially independent in your life. Krista?


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[Assistant] Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. Couple of things with the cruise industry. Um, I've been reading in the financial press, regardless of cruise line, the level of indebtedness the cruise lines have from COVID. Imagine the cost of those ships and


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[Assistant] Two years basically, those ships sitting there, unloved, unused.


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[Assistant] And the amount of debt the cruise lands had to take on to survive that. So there are a couple of things.


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[Assistant] With a credit card, never a debit card. Remember, remember this thought, piece of trash, fake visa or fake master card equals debit card. Never, never, never, never, not ever use a debit card to pay for travel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely do not use an e-check to pay for a cruise.


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[Assistant] If you are going on a cruise, or going on an expensive tour,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Buy trip insurance that covers supplier default.


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[Assistant] Never buy trip insurance, what they call insurance or trip coverage, from a cruise line itself.


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[Assistant] Because if, and there's nothing I'm saying about Viking, I'm saying with any cruise line.


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[Assistant] The cruise industry is on the ropes financially. The debt levels are astronomical. So we don't know who's going to survive and who's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's why you buy trip insurance.


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[Assistant] From a third party, traditional trip insurance policy, never from the cruise line. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pay more for that Viking cruise by paying with a credit card and don't risk the e-check.


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[Assistant] So that is the dumbest thing in the world and, Craig, they didn't tell you exactly right. The credit bureau has to do a, uh, manual procedure internally.


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[Assistant] To generate a file on her cause your daughter's showing what they call thin or no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is temporarily make her an authorized user on one of your cards where you give them her social security number.


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[Assistant] And that will immediately create a credit file for if it's a big issuer of credit cards that you have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Create a credit file for her within weeks.


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[Assistant] And it would then be ultra easy for her to go online and set up credit freeze with each of the bureaus. It's not the worst thing in the world for you to name her as an authorized user. Just never give her the plastic. It will help her establish a credit identity when she does attempt to get credit on her own at some point in the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, T-Mobile, if you're on Magenta Max, cell phone play on Magenta Max,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll pay $30 a month, not $50 for internet from them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is 50 unless you are a Verizon customer of a certain level, in which case you get the 25.


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[Assistant] Although it's possible in your local area Verizon trying to establish some market presence is offering $25 a month.


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[Assistant] For people who are not already Verizon Wireless customers.


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[Assistant] But in the national TV ads Verizon's running.


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[Assistant] At the end in the crawl where they put all the legalese, it does say that


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[Assistant] The 25 that they're offering is only for people who are uncertain Verizon Wireless plans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm really glad you're happy with the T-Mobile home. Internet is working for you. You'd be happier at 30 instead of 50. So check to see what


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] T-Mobile plan you're on to see if it's worth it for you to switch your T-Mobile wireless service or maybe you're already eligible for the 30 a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if that Verizon offer does in fact require that you be their customer,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then your best bet is to see if you can get the 50 down to 30 with T-Mobile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you are a prisoner right now,


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[Assistant] Of the cable monster that's the monopoly in your area.


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[Assistant] Or the monopoly local phone company in your area.


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[Assistant] They both charge up, up and away huge money for monthly internet and it's great for you to look to see if the T-Mobile home internet or the Verizon wireless version of home internet are available where you live


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[Assistant] Because regardless, they're going to be cheaper than typically what's offered.


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[Assistant] By the monopoly local phone company or the cable monster. I will let you know in areas where


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[Assistant] The big players are facing competition.


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[Assistant] From the Verizon Wireless Home Internet and the T-Mobile Home Internet, that a lot of the incumbent monopolies are offering a $30 to $50 a month level of service with a slower data speed.


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[Assistant] And they're doing that as a defensive measure to not lose people.


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[Assistant] To T-Mobile home internet or Verizon Wireless home internet. So thank goodness we're getting to an era


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[Assistant] Where we're actually having some real bonafide competition, which we've never had.


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[Assistant] For internet service in the United States. So I'm so thrilled.


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[Assistant] That T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless are both doing this right now. And I want to thank you so much for listening today. I want you to know that you're part of our team. You're part of team Clark.


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[Assistant] And if there's ever anything you hear me talking about that you feel like I could do a better job answering it, please take the time to let us know. There's something you're hot under the collar about. Go to Clark.com slash Clark stinks. It was just information you think we should know. Just give us the opportunity to let us know if there's a way that I could help your fellow listener better. I need to know. Thank you so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


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[Assistant] It's time to think about holiday shopping. Isn't that weird? I'm talking about holiday shopping already here in early October, but the sales are going on right now.


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[Assistant] The reason October is the new November, at least for this year, probably only. I'm going to talk about that first today and later. Well, everything happening in the economy with the stock market.


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[Assistant] I've decided to revive what we call Clark-o-nomics. It's where I give you updates on the economy and try to give you my best feel for where things are and then my best guess on where we're headed. So first of all, I, this was one that I guessed right on back in July that


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[Assistant] The train wreck coming for retailers actually happened.


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[Assistant] Inflation is robbing them of buying power.


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[Assistant] At retailers, at restaurants, uh, cause what they're paying for gasoline, even though it's come down, it's still expensive, which you're paying for electricity.


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[Assistant] Natural gas. I mean, we got a wall of worries here, right? So.


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[Assistant] As a result, retailers suddenly have all this merchandise at a time that we're a little more reluctant to spend.


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[Assistant] Amazon is stuck with so much surplus merchandise that they're doing another Amazon Prime Day, it's two days actually, coming up next week.


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[Assistant] On the 11th and 12th, they're all ready for prime members doing early deals.


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[Assistant] They're doing everything they can to reduce the amount of overstocked inventory they have.


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[Assistant] And so this is unprecedented because Amazon's prime days were all about getting people interested in Amazon.


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[Assistant] And doing it during the summer when people really aren't into shopping. And now they're doing it.


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[Assistant] In the early phase of the Christmas shopping season, just to try to get stuff moving and Walmart


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[Assistant] Had already announced and I had mentioned this briefly recently that they were starting deals already. A lot of October deals from Walmart, a lot of deals already in place from Target.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Walmart has done something way outside their box.


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[Assistant] If you buy something now and then later don't want it.


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[Assistant] You have till January 31st to return most items you buy at Walmart for a full refund.


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[Assistant] That is a much more liberal return policy even than is normally offered during the holiday season because


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[Assistant] October is not normally considered to be the holiday shopping season, but this year it is. So you're going to see deals across categories of merchandise because


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[Assistant] We pivoted so strongly and if you think about, uh, $15 a day that's coming out of our wallet because of all the inflationary forces, that's $15 a day. You don't have to spend on stuff or meals or whatever and entertainment. And so everybody's going to have to work harder.


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[Assistant] So there's also another pattern. Uh, you may have heard that Apple disappointed Wall Street by saying,


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[Assistant] Gosh, people aren't buying our newest, latest iPhone and numbers anywhere near what we expected. And they're having to reduce manufacturing of those except the fascinating thing.


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[Assistant] Is that people who have, who are at the higher end of the income scale still seem to be doing


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[Assistant] Pretty well financially, and they're buying the most expensive new Apple watches, the most expensive new iPhones, the most expensive new Macs that there's this tale of two cities that people who


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[Assistant] You have some fun questions for me today. I do. We'll start with... Have you started your Christmas shopping?


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[Assistant] The Amazon truck has its own reserved parking space in your driveway. They should. So, so you need to get started with the Amazon Prime Day stuff next week.


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[Assistant] Would this be a wise move? I wouldn't do it. Uhm, so the savings rates are rising so quickly.


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[Assistant] Those are approaching 3%. They're gonna go past 3%.


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[Assistant] As the Federal Reserve continues raising the rates it controls, so


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[Assistant] You could take that money and put it in a CD and know you're gonna earn 3%. But right now with an online bank, you could earn nearly that anyway and the rates are going to go higher from there. And if you wanted to do something complicated that would get you a higher interest rate on that amount of money,


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[Assistant] You can buy a one-year U.S. Treasury, which is like a savings CD for rich people. You could buy one direct from the federal government.


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[Assistant] And earn right now typically over 4% on it.


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[Assistant] With no risk at all for a year, if you wanted to do that, but buying a CD right now is a bit of a straight jacket.


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[Assistant] During a time of rising interest rates. By the way, anyone who's interested


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And trying to frustrate yourself and figure out the treasury system to buy treasuries because you can buy them from, uh, just very short terms up to very long terms. But right now the smart money is buying, uh, one year treasuries. Go to treasurydirect.gov.


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[Assistant] Make sure you've had a good cup of coffee first.


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[Assistant] That there's no distractions and you read how you do this, uh, cause it is some work.


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[Assistant] People who bought Series I savings bonds thought they had confusion. It's a little more difficult buying the treasuries, but once you know how to do it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've unlocked the key to many times being able to earn much higher rates on savings than you can from a bank or credit union.


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[Assistant] Okay, so first of all, Verizon's a mess. Verizon, talk about going through an awkward


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Midlife crisis and teenage years at the same time. Verizon just has no idea what it's doing. They're losing subscribers at flagship Verizon.


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[Assistant] They're trying to figure out what to do with their position in the marketplace.


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[Assistant] They have Visible, which is their youth oriented discount brand.


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[Assistant] That is 30 a month, unlimited everything, unless you go on the more premium plan. Then they've got, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Total wireless that they've owned for a good while, but now they're rebranding with, uh, uh, Verizon's name in the mix. And so they figure the Verizon brand name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bring some cache in the marketplace so they're raising the rates a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Killing the value of total wireless, but they have told us that they are going to grandfather you in if you want to stay in your existing rate plan with total wireless, even with the rebrand, you can stay in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Verizon's had a lot of customer no service issues lately. For example, Visible, they've had a lot of problems. So, uh, there's a gang that can't shoot straight right now. So the fact they say they're not going to raise your rates,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, is only their words. We'll see how that plays over time. This is a great time though. Anybody on Total Wireless should really go shop what's available in the marketplace right now. We have a guide we update from many different


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A better deal than what you have right now. You may even do better if you want to stay on Verizon's network going to visible from total instead of staying with total.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Okay. So the tipping thing is one that confounds people so much because a lot of times people working in a job like that aren't making much money. And so they're getting paid by you directly with the tip. They're getting paid by you indirectly by your purchase. And people are really confused and sometimes resentful, particularly in a situation