[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I cash out the bonus and then six months later close the card before I'm charged the next annual fee. Is this a bad idea? I have excellent credit after doing this for the last five years. I always pay off my statements and I never pay credit card interest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And from John in Georgia, my doctor prescribed medication for me, which was going to cost $1400 at the pharmacy. I remember- Oh, go ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] CVS. I remembered your interview with Mark Cuban in Cost Plus Drugs, so I thought I'd give it a try. What do you think their price was for exactly the same prescription? $28 including shipping. The Cost Plus website was extremely easy to use from setting up the account to receiving the meds to my door was three days. Thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he worked a lot of hours and the one right up the street from our house was 24 hours, so he would go grab cereal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're just hoping Uncle Jeff will take us on his yacht one day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the big areas we focus on at our company is helping you with your monthlies. What are monthlies? They're discretionary items that you pay for every month. Think about, uh, your mortgage payments, not really one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that's not discretionary. You got that. But you've got, uh, TV, streaming services, movies, cell phones, blah, blah, blah. You think of all the things, health clubs. And I got great news for you. If you've been afraid to go to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A little known brand for your cell phone service. There's new data that says


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Believe it or not, there are some discounters that offer much higher customer satisfaction than the big three, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. And later, how about people earning a good living from thrifting? You gotta have an eye for fashion. We'll talk about that. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cell phone service is a big monthly expense for so many people and there's been this, uh, big divide going on between the big three


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the Nile, or the Red Sea, or whatever, parting. I mean, man, the prices are spreading. And so, the big three,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are trying to push people into higher price plans or they're using a battering ram like Verizon. They say, yeah, yeah, you're on that plan, but now we're going to charge you more for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a whole bunch of other people with Verizon are about to have a nice surprise coming in their next monthly bill that Verizon bumped up your rate yet again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the cell phone carriers know this, and particularly AT&T and Verizon, which both have their tradition in traditional home phone service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They knew that there were people that were disconnecting home phones regularly for years and years and years. And then there were the, uh, uh, super loyalists who were gonna keep that home phone light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boosting profits even as their overall number of customers decline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that playbook worked for them before and now they're doing it again. And so I want you to be solidly aware and JD Power's new, uh, survey of the best customer service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For cell phones, shows that two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of let's call them the off brands have much, much, much, much higher customer satisfaction than the big three brand names. In fact, it's not even close.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And their customer satisfaction off the charts. And the company that usually in so many surveys ranks number one, was just a whisker behind them, consumer cellular.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Consumer Cellular has been a crowd pleaser for a long time and I think about the complaints we'll get to Clark Stinks. Why don't I talk about Consumer Cellular? Why don't I talk about it? It's so great!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well here I am, mentioning it again. And these two, okay, so Metmobile's score is an 862. You know, JD Power has its methodology. Consumer Cellular, 857. So where are we with, how about Verizon? 748.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not even in the same universe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] T-Mobile, the highest customer satisfaction of the big three behemoths, 803. Now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, the reason you may not be willing to switch is you worry about customer service, you worry about network and all that. Obviously, people are exceedingly happy with Mint and with Consumer Cellular. And they are both so much cheaper than what you have to pay any of the big three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So check them out. Mint does a lot of deals where you can try them for a while and if you like it, you then pay for a year. You commit to a year at a time and then your effective cost is usually a third to a fourth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we, when we write about the, uhm, the minor companies, let's call minor companies, because when you, when I watch football, football season's over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's very depressing. Anyway, during football it used to be beer commercial, beer commercial, beer commercial, followed by car commercial, car commercial, car commercial. Now it's Verizon, AT&T, and to a lesser extent T-Mobile. One after another, after another, after another. Uhm, because they are marketing machines, they're not necessarily


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Price oriented machines or uhm, certainly not customer service machines. So that's why we put so much effort at Clark.com into telling you about these and we always kind of talk about these discounters tentatively


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because people tend to grade a lower price more harshly than they do a higher price provider. But the truth is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At least these two lower price providers are putting a big smile on people's faces and their wallets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, first of all, congratulations to you on every score. And the way you're playing the credit card game, fantastic. So you're asking me, should I do this great thing with putting money into savings and earning a decent rate on the savings? Or should I do this other great thing and put money aside for retirement?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'd say that you should tilt towards the retirement thing. You're already, as you said, someone who is conscientious about putting money into savings. So I want you to emphasize being, uh, 52.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That your goal needs to be that you just pound money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] into retirement accounts. You know, the Roth accounts, you're earning tax free, you spend tax free, that is the highest priority.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you haven't said with your business, if you're a single employee entity or you have employees, there are wonderful retirement accounts for you in either circumstance where you can pump up your retirement savings if you are a single employee entity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can do a self-employed 401k with Fidelity, since you're already there, and you could put enormous amounts of money


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] into an account with them to catch up on that retirement savings. And so that's a great way. Otherwise, if you have employees, you could set up a SEP where they would benefit and you would benefit from saving for the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Illegal. Okay. So Bill, uhm, I did this as a consumer alert, uh, months ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I noticed that Sam's was starting to do discriminatory pricing. And the way you can see if they're cheating Plus members, and this to me clearly is cheating Plus members, because the way the Plus membership was sold was that you could buy things online or pick them up in the store online for, uh, shipping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or in the store and the shipping was free as a plus member.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's not free if they're charging a higher price for the item. So what I do when I'm at Sam's Club's website, and this just came up recently where there was a price difference in the case of the item I was looking at, I think it was $3.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because uhm, many or most items for a plus member are the same price, shipping or pickup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there are quite a few items that they are charging this higher price, even though shipping is supposed to be free. So, it is uhm, it breaks trust with members.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That Sam's is doing it. You shouldn't offer it as a benefit with being a plus member.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then turn around and sneakily charge more when you put it in your cart for shipping. And what I love about you asking about this is it brings a light to a bad practice from their parent company from Walmart. This should not be happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uma is awesome. Uma is something I used to have questions about constantly, but so many people no longer depend on a traditional or semi-traditional phone service. But if you have a need or want


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And UMA is extraordinary. It's very affordable for phone service. It works extremely well. Uhm, we never hear complaints about UMA. Uh, in fact the only complaint we ever had was that the call quality wasn't good. And that would typically be because your internet connection


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're going to talk about shopping a whole different way and how the shopping could earn you a living. Several years ago, I sold an investment property. It was a rental property and I remember


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking to the buyer at the closing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it came up what she does for a living. She had been in a traditional corporate job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she had a little side thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Buying stuff at thrift stores, finding things available for sale on eBay and things like that. And then she would resell them and her primary outlet was something called Poshmark, I think is what it's called. And she was having a great time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Earning a much better living. She had majored in college in fashion design. And she really understood


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The quality of a garment and the perceived value of it in the market.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that's how, at least at that point, don't know what she's doing today, but that's how she was earning a really good living that allowed her to qualify as a woman in her twenties to buy her own home. And


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's not the only one. I remember when I first told this story about her years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having person after person saying, hey, well I do this, uh, buying things on eBay and then I, uh, fix them up or sell them different kinds of items. Electronics is a category a lot of people do well with. I know a guy who, uh, buys beat up cell phones, reconditions them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then earns a really good living selling them back into the marketplace. There is so much opportunity today, this combination of in-person, online, the ability to find the needle in a haystack and turn it into value for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just great. Now, you don't do this stuff tax free. I mean, if you're running a business, you're going to pay taxes on your net profit like any other business that somebody's running. And I love it when you have a special skill, experience, or interest


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you're able to see value and create value where others don't see it. And you're able to make money from it. How great is that? And you think about clothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the clothing market is, uh, really a crazy one for women's fashion. Because as a guy, I mean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most guys are like me. They wear something till basically it can become a kitchen rack. And like I'm wearing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The shorts I'm wearing today, they're khaki shorts.


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[Assistant] Look at these, Krista. These are, they're really getting worn out, like discolored over here and all that. Uhm, but I'm not going to replace them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they aren't at rag stage yet. And I got a lot of years out of them. Do I embarrass you being in my presence about how I dress?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, so wearing beat up ones is actually becoming in. It's like women with the jeans that they buy them for twice the money because they have a tear by the manufacturer on purpose.


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[Assistant] At the knee or whatever. Okay, I don't understand that. I don't understand it. But women's fashion creates such a great market opportunity.


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[Assistant] If you have skill in that area because the, uh, there's so much surplus women's clothing, so much women's clothing is disposed of.


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[Assistant] When it's still in perfect condition because, uh, as you mentioned, fashion will change Krista or, uh, maybe somebody's size changes or they just don't like it. And so there's this gigantic inventory of used women's clothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That for people that are skilled can earn money at it. And there are so many things like that where the knowledge, the experience, the interest you have, the hobbies you've been involved in can end up being a really nice source of income as a part time side thing or as what you do as your thing. Krista?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so wait, I want you to think about the difference here. .15. Alright, so that's 15 times what the giant monster megabanks are paying on savings. And it's still 15 one hundredths of one percent. Goes to Fidelity, he's earning right now four point something percent.


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[Assistant] So there's a lot, if you look at the technology blogs and you search this, you'll find a lot of articles that have been written.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About what people should do who, uh, were spoiled by the Google unlimited storage of photos that ended. So your older photos are all grandfathered in, but your newer ones, you have the, the cap on storage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then usually what Google's charging is works out to be $24 a year for excess storage of photos. Uh, that may not be nearly enough for you because you may be one of the people who takes 4,000 photos every single day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, if you have a college student Amazon Prime membership, then you have free photo storage from Amazon that nobody uses as best I can tell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that would be a way that you can offload all your pictures and do it for free. The suggestion we had last time this came up from several people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was about storing on your own hard drive, but that is not nearly as convenient as what you might want on the go. It might work for you, but you might want the convenience of having your photos available to you at all times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And using one of the other storage kind of things that are usually for big data files.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Won't necessarily save you money over Google's typical $24 a year to store photos.


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[Assistant] But then you'd have to really work it where you get, uh, you put these photos in this storage and you put these other photos in this other storage and, uh, that's probably more than most of us are ever going to want to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wish there was. I mean, you do the mail preference service and you're gonna find that, uh, most charities are not going to leave you alone. They, uh, they tend to operate in their own orbit separate because I've talked about how you have the ability to stop so much junk mail with the mail preference service.


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[Assistant] The, the equivalent is not really there for charities. And when my late mom


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got into this, uh, thing with the fake charities, solicitor all the time. She would get.


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[Assistant] Literally, hundreds of pieces of mail a month from charities and fake charities soliciting from her and it is a huge


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[Assistant] Waste of money and trees and all the rest. And I'm going to think this through and see if anything new is out there, there would be a good way for you to stop.


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[Assistant] The charitable solicitations. I haven't seen it, haven't heard of it, but I'll look around and see if there is something. And if there is, I will talk about it here on the podcast and update your question.


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[Assistant] So first of all, it's worth the effort. I don't know the layers of deception that went on with your ex and the side chick.


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[Assistant] And if they did things that were bad before, they may well engage in the activities again. So at the very least freezing your credit files with the three major credit bureaus is a great thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are not responsible for credit obtained under fraudulent circumstances, but you're held to a higher standard


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[Assistant] When it is a family member or potentially a friend. And so with family member with, uh, fraud against credit, you have to be willing to go all the way to filing a police report.


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[Assistant] Against the alleged guilty parties. And that's something that is required by the credit granters and by the credit bureaus. That you're not just talking trying to pretend a family member, in this case your ex,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did nasty things pretending to be you and getting credit as if they're you. Now if it was using credit that you had already established,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that, uh, let's say your ex was an authorized user, you don't have protections.


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[Assistant] Against that, uhm, and that is an area that causes a lot of heartache in the wallet and reputation for so many people. But if it was establishing new credit falsely,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then use the law as your friend if you're comfortable doing that. And I'm really sorry all that happened to you. So as you went into mentioning all the minor credit bureaus, yes, you can go through the process with them.


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[Assistant] It's not as easy as it is with the three majors, Equifax, TransUnion, Experian, but they all have different roles to play. And it's certainly in a case where there's been active identity theft, friendly fire, well, whatever we call it, family fire.


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[Assistant] I think it's worth it to take the additional steps for peace of mind. What it means is that when you need to apply for credit or whatever it is that that bureau oversees, you have to temporarily thaw that file, but that is completely free to freeze and to thaw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm really sorry that all that happened to you. And I hope that your life moving forward, you're able to heal the emotional wounds and the financial wounds you've suffered as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, thank you for tuning into today's podcast. I want you to know when you have a question, when you have a problem, you have a difficult situation, know that we are here to serve you for free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With one-on-one guidance, advice, and information at our Team Clark Consumer Action Center, you can see how to reach us 30 hours each week by going to clark.com slash CAC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amy in Georgia says I was charged over $5,000 for a CT scan at a hospital.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I looked up the average cost for a CT scan, it's about $1,500. My child had a scan this summer in Florida and the cost was around $800.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I called to inquire, I was told the hospitals can choose the amount they want to charge, which I think is ridiculous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Please help me fight this so that I don't have to pay so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have two people who wrote in, Christopher in Oregon and Joe in New Jersey, about your number one travel rule to save money, which is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, don't pick the destination.


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[Assistant] So Christopher in Oregon says his wife really wants to go to Hawaii for the first time to celebrate their anniversary in June.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bears seem very high at the moment, but is there usually a better window closer to our trip?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Should I just book a package through Costco or mix and match with other


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Booking services. Any advice would be huge. Thank you. And then I'm also gonna just read Joe's real quick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So speaking of that, Joe in New Jersey says his issue with your number one travel rule is...


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[Assistant] Uhm, that you pay for the flight, then find out that the hotel and rental car costs are exorbitant, eliminating any savings you may have received by getting a discounted flight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hotels and car rentals can easily exceed flight costs. Maybe you should start with getting a discounted hotel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm happy to sell, donate, dispose of anything other than a small amount of clothes, kid stuff, household items, and some of my husband's music equipment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, if you haven't used it in a year, like with clothing, they say if you haven't worn it in a year, donate it, because you're probably never gonna wear it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I don't know if that's her role. She's more about if you love the item, if it gives you joy, but I know I've heard over the years from many people that that's kind of a role of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Streaming platforms are very popular, but what do you recommend or how do you feel about streaming devices such as these Android TV boxes they're called sometimes or these streaming devices that you purchase and they claim to have like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thousands, this one she mentions has thousands of channels they say you can watch for free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our beloved Clark. You smell great, but there's a key piece of advice you have, you have missed. Verizon does have a SIM protection in place called Numberlock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they've had this free service since 2020 before any of the other carriers had anything in place. You simply activate the number lock protection on your Verizon app and your number can no longer be transferred to another carrier, SIM or device until you personally remove the lock. I guess Verizon doesn't stink that bad after all, Nicole.


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[Assistant] And a couple people wrote in with this sentiment. Someone asked, can someone save too much money?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clark's answer was basically no. I'm sure that this is true for a very high percentage of Clark's listeners, but there's a relatively small percentage of people that can easily develop the habit of hoarding money. Both my parents and myself fell into this pattern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were, we were relatively high earners, lived below our means, started saving and investing early, and basically hoarded the money. By retirement, we had saved far more than we could ever spend. In my parents' case, the money went to heirs where it did more harm than good. I finally realized my mistake and have started using the money for charitable giving.


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[Assistant] A small risk to a podcast like Clark's is that they could create a small percentage of hoarders


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That did not use this financial knowledge wisely, Jim. And another, uh, person wrote in and she said that she's, you know, she and her husband seem very comfortable from the numbers she gave and she's just really afraid to spend anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't stink, but you might have stepped into a present your neighbor's dog left on the lawn for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You recently answered a question about how to find the cheapest hotel deals and left valuable advice on the table. I recently took a trip to Milan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somehow sites like Expedia know what device you use and charge more if you're on an Apple device. We tested this several times and it was true every time. The prices were always cheaper through the Chromebook. Between flights and hotel stays, we saved almost 200 bucks by brooking through the Chromebook can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Love that. Another one about hotels. As someone who travels a lot, I love looking at multiple sites to find the best deals, but many hotels will price match or even beat the price you find on a third party site such as Booking or Expedia, etc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you find the cheaper price, take a screenshot on your computer, including the date of the third party website showing the total booking price and what type of room it is. Book the same room through the hotel's website. Make sure it's free cancellation. Then send both your booking confirmation number along with the screenshot of the cheaper hotel to the hotel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've had success with this with Hilton's. They beat the cheaper price by 25%. I've also done this at other hotel chains where they match the third party price, but booking directly through the hotel gave me perks like free private airport transportation, room upgrades, free breakfast, et cetera. Mackenzie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clark, you're stinking it up with respect to TVs. You're right about LCD TVs being all roughly equal in picture and quality, but OLED TVs are strikingly different. So you wrote a post today? And better, and for some, worth the price difference, especially after all TVs have come down in price so much in recent years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might be amazed at how rich and vibrant the colors on your favorite NFL teams appear on an OLED TV. And don't be fooled by Samsung QLED, which is not at all the same technology as OLED. Roger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How come you don't bring up the craziness of paying three dollars for a cup of coffee at the chain stores when you can brew at home for around two cents? Two cents versus three dollars? I make a pot in a drip maker and microwave a cup in the, in the, microwave the cup in the two to three days the pot is gone, Hayden. So they, that is extreme.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Microwave in the pot for two or three days. I haven't heard that before. That's impressive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a question asking about finding reputable tours for a group of ladies on a Nile River cruise. What you neglected to mention was that almost all river cruise companies include a tour at every port as part of your cruise fare. Most river cruise companies are all inclusive or certainly


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mr. Howard, yes, your recent advice was so stinky I have to call you by the name you hate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While REIT can be a useful investment tool for your portfolio, nothing replaces actually owning a piece of property and harvesting the income. And that's from Edward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clark and his team have completely missed the mark on a major retirement expense, taxes. Think about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're going to have to pay taxes on your deferred 401k and IRA savings, pension income, investment income, and even Medicare benefits. Also, local taxes are, take a huge bite out of savings every year. Think about property taxes. They are more than 1% of my home's value every year, about 8k.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Personal property taxes and fees for vehicles are substantial too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is never discussed and it's a major expense when doing our yearly budget. Clark is usually great, but in this instance, he stinks. Dave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't in a long time, but yes, one of the big lotteries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm writing as a former HOA president of two associations. Your stinky advice to the homeowner that he personally contacted the board president or vice president is just plain wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you imagine if the volunteer unpaid board members were stopped by every resident with any question or complaint that they could come up with?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any resident who acts surprised when dues go up after 12 years needs to get out more often. And as for the board, raising dues by a few dollars every couple of years is a much better strategy than hitting their neighbors with a large increase all at once. Yes, there's plenty of stinky to go around David in Arizona.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, one more real quick. My son is a freshman at a service academy. Super proud dad here. I don't hear you promoting the service academies and ROTCs. Yes, it is hard, but so rewarding seeing our next leaders in the military. Thank you for all you do, Marcus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, Drew in Florida says, my daughter received a letter from a group saying that she was selected for eligibility to attend a three day event in Boston in June. This event will have honored doctors speak or teach and it says she will have the opportunity to watch a surgery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cost is between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars. Have you heard of this? Is it really a good opportunity? It sounds like a cleverly designed camp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For high schoolers that cost a lot of money but isn't really a high honor, what is another option for her? She's looking to go into the medical field.


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[Assistant] Michelle in Indiana says I recently cancelled service with a well known service provider in December. Today I noticed that auto pay came out of my checking account for the service. I called and they said the account was closed but auto pay was still set up.


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[Assistant] How can they still charge for a service when the account is closed? I had to give her my checking account number to process the refund.


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[Assistant] And Shannon in Florida is responding to the segment about the fake designer goods. I like to buy designer clothes, but I don't need to be the first person to wear it and I don't need it right now. For instance, a skirt I really liked was $350. I took a picture of the tag with the manufacturer's info.


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[Assistant] I entered the style info and to save my search on eBay. A year later, I got an email saying that the skirt was for sale on eBay for $50 or make an offer. I made an offer of $25. They came back with $30. So that's what I paid plus $5.99 shipping, 10% of the original cost.


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[Assistant] I have an 810 credit score but do not have spare cash to cover the down payment of a new home without the proceeds from the sale of my current farm.


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[Assistant] I really need to buy then sell since I'm looking for something so specific, which may take over a year to find.


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[Assistant] Once the perfect house comes up, I want to buy and then put my current home on the market right away. Is it a bad idea to take out a home equity loan short term to cover the down payment on my new home? I'll be able to pay it off as soon as my current home sells.


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[Assistant] And this is from Elvin, he's also in Illinois. Clark, where can I order personal checks at the cheapest price? My bank charges a lot of money.


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[Assistant] And from Pamela in Georgia, what is the best trip insurance that would cover a cancellation due to a death in the family?


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[Assistant] If you add a non-spouse beneficiary to the HSA account, then when they inherit the entire HSA must be liquidated and taxes are due on the full amount. A non-spouse beneficiary cannot keep the HSA.


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[Assistant] A spousal beneficiary will be able to continue the HSA.


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[Assistant] This is also important when thinking about which accounts to draw from first in retirement.


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[Assistant] You don't want to leave your heirs with a large HSA balance upon your death.


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[Assistant] After age 65, you may take regular withdrawals for non-health care expenses and only pay the income tax on those withdrawals.


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[Assistant] From various lenders saying they denied a loan my husband applied for because the credit is frozen. He hasn't applied for a loan and when we look at our credit scores there are zero inquiries. Are these all scam emails and letters or is something going on? Are there any steps we should take?


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[Assistant] And Harriet Missouri says, Clark, can you address, can you address the demise of the loyalty programs that many brands offer?


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[Assistant] I received an email yesterday from Best Buy that they are changing their loyalty program again.


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[Assistant] Now the loyalty program only works if you use their credit card, which I will not do as I recently


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[Assistant] Got the Alliant Visa Signature. Big thanks to Team Clark for that heads up. Is this the most current change, is this current change a sign that Best Buy is in trouble or a general trend in the loyalty program market?


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[Assistant] Will they ever return to where they once were or will they fade into infinity? Love the podcast that gets me home from work every day.


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[Assistant] And uhm, the quote earlier, not Shakespeare, it's actually Mark Twain, although apparently he was misquoted. It's a whole story. So.


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[Assistant] Yeah, there's symbol, symbolic. Symbolic, yeah. So it was, it was


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[Assistant] That's okay. You're doing just fine. You think so? Absolutely. I don't know.


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[Assistant] I do! I'm back, I'm back after being out just for a couple days, uhm, and I wanna thank you so much for saying this a week ago.


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[Assistant] I did, and it was negative and I just wanted to set that record straight.


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[Assistant] No, it didn't hurt my feelings, but other people think I'm a horrible person, so it's all good. And I want to thank Grace so much for filling in for me. She did an amazing job. So without further ado now, let's go to Clark Stinks.


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[Assistant] I agree with the article about seven things not to carry in your wallet except for one. You should always carry your insurance card with you. What if you're in an accident, suffer a heart attack, or suffer some other health crisis? You need that health insurance card, and that's from Mona.


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[Assistant] Clark, you aren't going to miss any meals, have your utilities disconnected, nor will the repo man come and take your prize Tesla if you buy Tide detergent.


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[Assistant] I have to say I'm terribly disappointed when I hear you rave about a product or service that is horribly wasteful of our rapidly dwindling resources or highly polluting to the planet or bad for our health simply because it's cheap.


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[Assistant] That's too short-sighted, especially with our rapidly deteriorating climate and ever-increasing population. There's more to making any purchase than the price you pay at the register. And that's also from Mary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Love you brother, but you recently discussed the longest lasting cars on your website. Very few of those cars really match a Clark Howard lifestyle. A Land Cruiser? Really? How many of your peeps can swing one of those? The article has a bias toward high-end models that attract high-end owners who can afford every type of silver spoon maintenance on them.


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[Assistant] Plus hand washes, heated garages, etc. So no wonder they last. How about a list of the longest lasting practical cars most people can afford? And that's from Paul in Wisconsin. Oh.


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[Assistant] And in the end he said, here is your punishment. Thank you for your show and website, Mr. Howard in all caps.


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[Assistant] Clark, you talked about getting a toll pass device to use in rental cars, so you're paying a reasonable toll and not marked up tolls and charges from the rental car company. You mentioned how you must register the vehicle with your transponder account.


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[Assistant] That person that had the car before Brenda is lucky that she was honest and didn't go through the tolls.


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[Assistant] Which I more than make up for with rewards I get back. Thanks and keep up the good stinky work. LOL. Linny.


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[Assistant] After listening to the latest podcast regarding 529 plans, please, please, please, every time you mention this in upcoming shows also mention that the plans can be utilized in several technical and trade schools as well as your aforementioned legacy colleges.


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[Assistant] Understanding you're a supporter for colleges and there may be no other options for some families, it would be great for your listeners to understand the 529 isn't just for them. Gary.


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[Assistant] During a recent visit, I was told that I was required to share my actual social security number because my state, Kentucky, has a registry where they track controlled substances that uses your social security number. The program is called CASPER, and I would like to imagine other states may have something similar. Brandon.


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[Assistant] And I did look at this and it's correct. If you're prescribing a controlled substance, uhm, the state of Kentucky, and I linked, uh, to the briefing there for you, does say that you have to get someone's social security number.


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[Assistant] I don't know what that, but I just know there's certain drugs where you have to show ID to get them. They could be, I think it's drugs that could be abused probably.


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[Assistant] Oh, it's so great. Once you drive one, you never want to drive a regular, a gas vehicle again.


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[Assistant] New question for you, Clark. Can you save too much for your retirement? In 22, we were able to max out two 401k plans for a combined


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[Assistant] Total of $54,000. At the same time, my wife was able to contribute an additional $10,000 in after-tax contributions to her 401k. We were also able to max out two Roth IRAs for a combined total of $14,000. The best thing is, the $4,000 saved from our trip using miles I sent to Fidelity into our brokerage account. Are we crazy?


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[Assistant] Like cars, it went up in value. My question is, do you have any idea when the used boat prices will come back down? In addition, it's much harder to shop for boats like cars. For example, if I want to look at a used 2020 Honda Accord, I can easily do a nationwide search for that, but on boats you can't really do that.


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[Assistant] If I call the dealers, they are going to tell me, yes, they're down because they want to sell me a boat. Any other advice on our used boat search? We are in no rush and can wait it out.


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[Assistant] And Stanley in Georgia says, my wife and I just purchased a home in June. We put down 20% and now we're getting bombarded with companies wanting to sell us mortgage insurance. I know I'm not obligated to purchase it, but will it benefit me to have it?


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[Assistant] And I've read that they are also tax advantaged if used for my dependent school. Which would you prefer? Would a rollover into a 529 be better when the bond rates go down more?


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[Assistant] And Stephen Wisconsin, you may have answered this, but he says, uhm,


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[Assistant] I often hear your advice regarding 529 plans but wondered about the provisions within the Roth IRAs that allow for penalty free withdrawals of contributions for a kid's education.


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[Assistant] As if the kids aren't college-bound, I won't lose any money invested.


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[Assistant] Of course, all of this is based on me having a solid retirement account to begin with, which I do, but what am I missing or why wouldn't I withdraw Roth contributions to pay for my children's education?


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[Assistant] And Julie in South Carolina says I'm 57 years old, work full time and enjoy my career. I've been a single mother for 14 years and my son graduates college this spring.


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[Assistant] I'm considering going back to school myself to get an MBA. Does this make financial sense? I'm interested in progressing my career, but I'm wondering if my age will deter this. I work in the technical field and my current role is an individual contributor. I've managed teams in the past but never seemed to get past the middle management.


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[Assistant] Two years ago I made the decision to go back to being an individual contributor to help strengthen my experience and now I'm looking to expand again. Do you have any advice?


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[Assistant] Vaccinations fill all these, uhm, you know, all these prescriptions and do so much on her own day after day after day and she couldn't provide the quality care and they kept stacking up patients, you know, people for her to do vaccinations on too and it was, you know, very stressful for her so I hope they figure it out.


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[Assistant] This is a question from Alexis in Texas. I had multiple surgeries over the course of a few years and all the letters and paperwork became too much to manage. One slipped through the cracks and made its way onto my credit report. I had excellent credit which then dropped me down to good credit.


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[Assistant] I've emailed the gentleman helping me and he insists he's working on it. I don't want progress to stop now, but I'm so far in that I'm so far in, but I feel like I'm being scammed at this point. My brother had a great experience. Maybe I just have a difficult credit repair company I'm dealing with.


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[Assistant] But if you want to find a legitimate one, you can go to


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[Assistant] Your transaction will be denied. I have three to four cards with various remaining balances and cannot figure out how to use the remaining funds in full and I don't want to throw them away.


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[Assistant] Ernie in Florida says, my current Roth 401k provider Fidelity is offering active management of my account for a .03% monthly fee, but they only have 12 different investment choices. I'm currently using 4 out of the 12.


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[Assistant] Is it worth it to pay the fee with limited choices? Plus, would it have helped if I did it prior to the stock market decline we have been experiencing the last two years?


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[Assistant] And so many Clark stinks about why you should have been more positive about crypto. Over and over again.


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[Assistant] Alright, let's get to some questions. This one's from Darren in South Dakota.


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[Assistant] If the yield is 2.89% and the expense ratio is 0.11%, does that really mean your total return is 2.89 minus 0.11 or 2.78% or does the expense ratio have nothing to do with the return?


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[Assistant] Matthew in Texas says, my 401k expenses are .55%. I'm already maxing out a Roth IRA with Fidelity and have additional funds to invest in retirement. Am I better off investing those funds in my 401k or in the Fidelity Zero funds?


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[Assistant] Allie in Georgia says my family of five is planning a trip to the UK for early March of 23. With the uncertainties of fuel prices in the war in Ukraine, I'm having a difficult time knowing when to book our flights in order to get the best price. Since there are five of us, each small difference in price really adds up. Do you have any advice?


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[Assistant] A recent example of one of the worst offenders, a store I won't identify, had a product advertised online and in store placard as 69 cents, but they rang up at the normal 99 cent price.


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[Assistant] And this is from Mr. Casey in Wisconsin. I guess I'm considered to be a deadbeat in the eyes of the credit card companies since I never run in balance and play the rewards game.


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[Assistant] My question revolves around the random offers from credit card companies to earn bonus rewards. Why do we need to activate offers that should be awarded to us as local customers? Why can't these credit card companies provide us with the benefits and rewards without having to activate or opt in?


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[Assistant] From Scott in Ohio, Clark mentioned you can't watch Thursday night NFL games unless you have Prime. Not true. I just log into our Amazon account and you can watch the game on your computer. I use an HDMI cord to connect and watch it on our TV for free.


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[Assistant] And I just want to say the easiest way to see who the seller is is underneath the price on Amazon, underneath the add to cart or buy now. It always says ships from and sold by. So you know if Amazon has it in their possession and it's sold by a third party or if it's actually shipped from the third party. So that's a really good way to figure it out.


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[Assistant] Brian in Ohio says I'm going to Scotland for a vacation in 2026 and I'm saving up for it.


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[Assistant] And make sure you tell your bank, uhm, or your credit card company, whoever it is, that you're going to be in Scotland. So you don't get there.


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[Assistant] Over a tax advantage to count such as a 401k.


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[Assistant] From Scott in South Carolina, what are the pitfalls of annuities for retirement investments?


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[Assistant] John in Georgia says do you recommend buying additional insurance from a rental car company?


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[Assistant] And that article is titled, credit card rental insurance, what you need to know.


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you and empower you to make better financial decisions in your life. Today's a great day. Why? Because it looks like Big Bad Zell is finally


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[Assistant] Tentatively turning around some.


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[Assistant] Of what makes it so dangerous for you to ever, ever use that thing. Zelle is too hot to handle and finally some changes on the way. I'm going to fill you in on what I know so far.


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[Assistant] Then later I'm going to talk about something looks like I got wrong and it's not even our weekly Clark Stink segment. Something we're getting right.


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[Assistant] Is helping children in foster care have gifts for Christmas. I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart if you've already donated.


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[Assistant] Now, if you'd like to help out a child in foster care, you can still do so. See what we do, how we do it and why we've done this for 32 years at Clark's Christmas kids.com. So,


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[Assistant] Been a little giddy about this. Because Big Bad Zell.


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[Assistant] has hurt so many people, it looks like in the millions at this point, who have had money stolen from their bank accounts, and the banks that created the Zell zombie monster,


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[Assistant] Have kinda looked the other way and said, oh wow, that's too bad there's all this stuff going on. We're not doing anything about it.


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[Assistant] And a constant barrage of TV stories locally in every TV market in the country. Every single day there are more stories that air about how awful Zelle is and how much it's hurt people with money being stolen from their accounts. The banks that own Zelle finally are like, huh,


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[Assistant] The Senate, US Senate had hearings that made the banks look really bad about Zelle. They're like, okay, huh, this really isn't working and this is a PR disaster. So, there are multiple reports in the financial press that, uh, Zelle is testing


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[Assistant] A new system of consumer protections to launch in just the next several weeks. And there's just, uh,


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[Assistant] Uhm, movement that looks like it's a rugby scrum because Zell is owned by a bunch of banks and trying to get them all to agree on the same thing is not easy. But under the rules,


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[Assistant] What's gonna happen is that if you meet the new, uh, Zelle fraud guidelines and money's been stolen from your account,


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[Assistant] The bank that you use will grab the money from the bank the money went to.


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[Assistant] And so they won't lose any money, so they'll be happy to give you your money back. But, the circumstances the banks are testing.


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[Assistant] And there's a test going on right now. When you'll get a refund for Zell fraud activity is still going to be a very, very narrow set of circumstances. And it just means that the ball has moved a little down the court.


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[Assistant] The key thing for you to know is that Zelle is rife with fraud. Criminals have been able to exploit it, steal your money, and everybody looks the other way about your money being gone.


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[Assistant] Federal protections that other methods of.


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[Assistant] Paying for things does. Nothing beats credit cards for paying, uh, paying a bill.


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[Assistant] In terms of the fraud protections for you,


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[Assistant] That exists with a credit card. Nothing else comes close.


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[Assistant] And using the payment apps like Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or Zelle, any of them, the problem with all of them is there's no code written that clearly specifies the protections for you as a consumer.


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[Assistant] What you need to know, your bank or credit union may have put Zelle active on your checking account without telling you.


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[Assistant] You need to check, sign in with your app on your phone or sign into the website.


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[Assistant] of your bank or credit union. And if Zelle is active on your account, if there's a button you can click to make it inactive, do so.


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[Assistant] Only when you're making a payment to someone you know and trust would you ever want to make it active. But the best answer is just say no to Zelle because it is not safe and accounts for, uh, really probably 95%


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[Assistant] Of the TV stories around the country are about Zelle, not Cash App or Venmo because the criminals have been able so easily to exploit the lack of fraud protections.


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[Assistant] That Zelle has built into its architecture.


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[Assistant] It's not that you have more legal protections with Cash App or Venmo or PayPal. It's just the criminals have focused their energies on stealing your money through Zelle because the bank structure made it so easy for the criminals to steal that way. But this is a step in the right direction. And what's weird,


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[Assistant] That the banks are such lumbering, stupid giants that they were going to go on month after month after month with enormous reputational harm and harm to their customers before they got around to fixing


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[Assistant] Problems with Zell. And this is just the first step rolling out very soon.


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[Assistant] Krista? All right, first questions from... I know, I know there are people who wish I would never mention that word, Zell, again.


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[Assistant] It's a big mistake when my brother, I shared the story how my brother said, he owed me some money. He said, do you want me to sell you that? And then he had to hear like a 10 minute lecture from me, giving it to my older brother, the retired lawyer.


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[Assistant] I love that. Okay, see, you said something really important, Robert. Your daughter's a senior.


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[Assistant] So that means this last year of college, she's still eligible to get a credit card without income qualifications.


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[Assistant] College students represent the most valuable long-term customers for credit card companies. So they all have college student credit cards of various types. Your daughter is, I assume at this point, probably 21.


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[Assistant] And get a second card. She's got Discover. She could look at the American Express product or from, uh, many different credit unions or banks. She can get a second card. Uh, some of the student cards do come with the reward programs. Others do not.


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[Assistant] The important thing is to get that second card. Things like city double cash or anything like that, those are going to have to wait till your daughter's been in the workforce for a while, has demonstrable clear income that can be part of verifying an application. So that second card,


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[Assistant] She should go ahead and obtain during her senior year and use that for a while and have that in the discover and that will give her what she needs is the key building blocks to once she's in the workforce in her twenties to get a card that's got really great rewards.


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[Assistant] Your social security number and other key personal information is going to be exposed is only a matter of when, never a matter of if. Just from the Equifax notorious data breach of several years ago, more than half of American adults


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[Assistant] Have their social security number floating out there in space. Easy pickings for criminals. The only effective tool you have available to you now is credit freeze.


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[Assistant] And credit freeze is free to do now. It's much easier than it used to be. It is not as well protected as it used to be because of changes the credit bureaus have made and how they administer credit freeze. But it is the most effective technique you can use


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[Assistant] To prevent the most common identity theft issues, which is someone applying for credit, is if they're you.


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[Assistant] Now it does not affect any of the credit you have. When you do need to apply for credit, you'll have to temporarily thaw your credit freezes. But very simple now to do so. In fact, in my opinion, that's what the flaw is. It's become too easy.


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[Assistant] That your social security number is floating out there. One of the things criminals are going to seek is to steal your cell phone number. And there's a number of, uh, nefarious things they can do once they ported your number out and they now have control of your cell phone number.


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[Assistant] Each of the major carriers have procedures that make it more difficult for your cell phone service to be transferred out.


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[Assistant] You want to implement that as the second step in addition to freezing your credit files. And if you go to Clark.com slash credit freeze, you'll see how to do that credit freeze that I was talking about. Remember, it's free.


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[Assistant] Okay, so where it matters with the house is that you have this debt and lenders are really nervous about student loan debt. Your amount, as ugly as it is at 10.375%, it's $13,000.


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[Assistant] That's actually in this case a lucky 13, not an unlucky, because in the scheme of things, 13,000 student loan debt is not something lenders will look at in an ugly way.


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[Assistant] So what you can do is, with your good credit score, you can go refi those private loans. The rates are not as low as they were obviously last year.


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[Assistant] But, uh, SoFi is one of the biggest refiers of student loan debt. There are others out there as well. And so refying your student loan debt should get you


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[Assistant] Uh, meaningfully lower rate, well below that uh, 10.375% variable. You should be able also to refi into a fixed rate at a lower rate than what you're at right now with a good credit score. So get that done as far as affecting


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[Assistant] Mortgage underwriters, uh, look at with a stink eye. And what they look at is recent.


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[Assistant] Generally a lot of underwriters, six months or less from the date you're applying for a mortgage is kind of like a key trigger. So you want to get it done outside of that six month window with how most mortgage underwriters will look at a new application for credit.


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[Assistant] Coming up ahead, we're going to talk about a prediction I made pretty dramatically that looks like I fully have egg on my face and I will fill you in in just a minute.


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[Assistant] So I gotta tell you something funny. I, I, uh, disconnected dots and made a bad prediction back around Labor Day. And if you dial back, I was right about one part of it. I said, September was the new November.


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[Assistant] Because retailers facing this massive glut.


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[Assistant] Of goods and more being unloaded every day at the ports really front loaded the Christmas shopping season.


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[Assistant] In fact, even though Black Friday sales were okay this year,


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[Assistant] They weren't like, uh, bone-crushing crowds or anything. I remember seeing a video online of someone who was waiting in the dark outside an electronics store to buy a Black Friday


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[Assistant] Doorbusters. And when the door opens and there's all this store security and all these employees in the dark of night, very early in the morning.


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[Assistant] They opened the door, one person came in this big electronics store. And I think about prior years, particularly, uhm, if you go back to 2017.


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[Assistant] Uh, back from 17, cause 17 was probably the peak of the huge, huge emphasis right around the wee hours of the Friday after Thanksgiving. And


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[Assistant] Uh, now it just is anticlimactic. Well, what was the mistake I made?


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[Assistant] That if you're going to send gifts to people, don't wait.


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[Assistant] You want to send them early in the season because the last two Christmas seasons, the package delivery services fouled up big time. I mean, just disasters where many, many, many people's gifts.


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[Assistant] So many people bought their Christmas gifts earlier than normal. It smoothed out the volumes for the package delivery services. And now all three, if you can believe them,


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[Assistant] UPS, FedEx, and the Postal Service are all saying


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[Assistant] That they're good. That they are handling the volume fine. That they're not having the problems of particularly the last two Christmas seasons. And even here in December, you send something this week


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[Assistant] The odds that it will get to where you're sending it are overwhelmingly good.


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[Assistant] You don't want to push it far past this week to be comfortable that ground service will be delivered in time for Christmas day. You know, all the carriers have their cutoff dates. Don't trust those. Get those packages going. But we're not having anything like prior Christmases or how do you say it?


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[Assistant] They were ghosts of Christmas past, right? With the late deliveries. We're not having that this year. And so I got part of the story, right? I got the other part flat out wrong. Christa?


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[Assistant] I signed her up for AARP as a joke.


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[Assistant] And nobody verified anything. This was, this was obviously forever ago. Uh, even though she still looks like she's 29. But anyway, so uhm, she started


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[Assistant] At a really, really young age, getting all these solicitations for, uh, senior living and all that. To this day, she's still upset with me about that. So yea, AARP just wants signups. And so,


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[Assistant] Are the discounts better than AAA? Alright, so let me tell you something.


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[Assistant] A lot of people out there are giving seniors discounts without even being a member of anything.


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[Assistant] Uh, so you don't necessarily, if you're in your 60s, you don't have to be an AARP member anymore. I've noticed a bunch of the hotel chains now, they don't want to have to pay the commissions they'd have to pay, so they're just offering senior discounts just with presentation of an ID.


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[Assistant] Then having an AARP card will save you. The advantage of it over AAA


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[Assistant] Is that the rates are not necessarily the same. So having both is an advantage if you travel regularly or just having AARP if you don't need the roadside assistance from AAA because it's much cheaper.


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[Assistant] Okay, so, Krista, you don't even know I did this.


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[Assistant] And Richard, you'll love this. So I have an investment property that I counted up


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[Assistant] I kept them. The number of solicitations I got in the mail.


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[Assistant] From people who wanted to buy this home from me. Wow. How many did I get in the month of October?


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[Assistant] Back in the early 2000s before the real estate bust and became again with the big run up in prices over the last five years. And so this became a dare to be rich thing.


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[Assistant] So a lot of people want to buy your house. You don't have to worry about listing it on the market and all that. And they were able to make money for years just from the continual price appreciation we were seeing in the market. That's over.


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[Assistant] So now, if somebody's going to make money buying your house, you're going to have to sell it to them below market value. You need to move that house, you don't want to do the fix ups, you need to do to sell it, whatever.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so these are, are they legitimate offers? Almost always yes. Are they going to be good prices for your home?


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[Assistant] Not necessarily. The companies we talked about, the e-buyers, have all been laying people off. Uh, the e-buyers are these big organizations that would offer to buy your home for a set price minus a fee.


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[Assistant] And they were really generous offers for years turned out when the market turned, they were too generous to make money doing it.


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[Assistant] There, there are a number of these and then there are regionals doing this as well. So something had to give. So the offers you're going to get now from people who say, well, we'll buy any house or whatever. We want to buy your house. They're going to be, uh, meaningful discounts to,


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[Assistant] Estimated market value today. So you have to have a specialized circumstance where you need the certainty and you'll take less than market value for your home, which would not have been the case the last several years.


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[Assistant] Okay, Michael. Well, I mean, you gotta be careful. I don't know at what point I become an illegal car dealer for how many deals I made selling used cars.


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[Assistant] So the only thing you have to look for, Michael, is you have to make sure that you're earning, uhm, a daily interest calculation.


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[Assistant] And almost all savings accounts are going to calculate interest daily. As long as you are in a savings account that does not calculate interest monthly, but does so daily,


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[Assistant] You're fine and you can at any point during a month move money from one online bank to another to another. Now something I've talked about recently and I'll emphasize here is there's a direct advantage, uh, right now


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[Assistant] To tie up your money longer that you don't need. We've seen this big run up in savings rates with the online banks.


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[Assistant] Quite a bit. We've seen, uh, treasuries, which is a more complicated market to buy in, go up and


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[Assistant] We as inflation is being squeezed out of the economy, we're already seeing longer term interest rates coming down. I think there's an opportunity


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[Assistant] To lock money in that you can afford to lock in into longer term CDs.


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[Assistant] On FDIC insured CDs and that way you're going to lock in that good rate where the money you can earn on the online savings accounts is going to go down.


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[Assistant] Over time, as two things happen, as the marketplace decides that inflation is bending and we as consumers may not feel it yet, may not realize, cause our perceptions are always looking back, not forward.


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[Assistant] But there are so many signs that the inflation, uh, heat is cooling. And so that means


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[Assistant] Interest rates will fall over time combined with a slower economy. So that's why I think there's a window of opportunity for probably the next few months to lock in money longer term in CDs before those rates also turn down.


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[Assistant] And when I say something like that, understand that is, uh, what do they call it in science? A hypothesis? It's an educated guess. It is the best


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[Assistant] Information I can give you based on what the tea leaves seem to be reading.


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[Assistant] And that's where they seem to be headed. Uh, also if China continues to have turmoil,


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[Assistant] The reality is a lot of the inflation we've experienced will go away quicker than we anticipated. Uh, we've seen some of that with oil that we're gonna see in turn.


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[Assistant] At the gas pumps. And so that's the upside to the downside, the, uh, turmoil and disruptions going on in China for many different reasons with the communist dictatorship.


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[Assistant] Trying to find its way, and usually they find their way through oppression. When you do a cycle of oppression, you also hurt economic activity in a country.


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[Assistant] I want to thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. I hope if you are somebody who wants to squeeze every penny that you'll join our money savers at our free community


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[Assistant] We like to do it big with all of them in our house, I guess, so no, but yeaah. They go to, they go to daycare, uh, one or two days a week.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, but even like, yeaah, even cheaper I think. Uhm, and so my friend was actually just complaining that her daughter, she got a bill, her daughter has spent 70 dollars there.


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[Assistant] On clothes and she was really upset and I was like, she must have gotten an entire wardrobe for $70.


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[Assistant] That looks like her contributions would be reduced by her W-2 contributions and there would be no effective tax benefits of setting up a self-employed 401k. Are there any other plans that we could contribute money to in order to reduce our AGI?


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[Assistant] As well as monthly fees. The thing that I was surprised to see...


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[Assistant] Was that they're going from a for-profit corporation to a non-profit tax-exempt corporation in conjunction with a health foundation.


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[Assistant] While I understand some of the reasons to have a concierge practice, how does their non-profit status figure into their motivation for changing the way the practice does business?


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[Assistant] In recent months, a couple of the publishers have begun sending related books unsolicited. Recipes, decorating tips, etc. The letter that accompanies the books gives the impression that they're free, yet an invoice is enclosed. Question, she has no interest in them. Is she under any obligation to mail them back?


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[Assistant] And Craig in Indiana says my daughter got a fraud alert from a university that she recently applied to. Since she is now 18, I thought it would be a great time to freeze her credit.


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[Assistant] The credit bureaus are telling me that she has to open a line of credit to freeze it. Is that really true? What options do I have? That has to be the dumbest thing in the world.


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[Assistant] Don in Nevada says, I have T-Mobile home internet at $50 a month. It works quite well.


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[Assistant] But Verizon is offering home internet for $25, no contract.


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[Assistant] Should I try them, stay with T-Mobile, or maybe see if T-Mobile will make me a customer retention offer to stay with them?


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[Assistant] How the estate is distributed was left up to us. Obviously we don't want to hand over the entire amount to him at once. We need a safe place to put the money, a structured payout, and if he should pass away, a way to pass the remainder on to the secondary charity beneficiaries. Can you suggest something?


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[Assistant] This is from Chase in New Mexico. I have three areas of spending that I am not getting good cash back. These are Costco, Lowe's and restaurants. Any suggestions on a credit card or rewards program that can help me save in these areas?


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[Assistant] Okay, this first question is from CJ in Alaska. Last year my 18 year old daughter opened a Roth account thanks to your constant harping on the subject.


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[Assistant] This year she won't have saved up enough from her job to deposit any into her Roth. Since we live in the great state of Alaska, my daughter has received a PFD and I've invested it for her in a custodial trust account at Schwab.


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[Assistant] So hers is, it's invested in a custodial account. There's roughly $50,000 in the account and this account hurts her when it comes to FAFSA accounting. I was thinking of taking out some of the money in the trust account and putting it into her Roth. Is this a good idea or no?


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[Assistant] Rather than continue with the lease payments, it's a fairly rare car and worth far more than what my buyout is.


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[Assistant] After sometimes six months, they take delivery when the car arrives, but then the vehicle depreciation of six months has depreciated six months and new year models are around the corner. Is it smart to get on a wait list?


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[Assistant] I do. We got this one from Crazed Commuter.


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[Assistant] And he says the Mr. Rogers of Finance best podcast on personal finance. His sincere, insightful advice has saved me and my family thousands of dollars over the years. His YouTube videos should be required in schools. Clark stinks like a fresh sack of hundreds from the credit union.


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[Assistant] Uhm, we're gonna start with this one. I'm all for advocating for people to go to the cash back route on credit cards, but Clark recently stunk it up like a Taco Bell bathroom when he mentioned his $320 city double cash redemption as a statement credit.


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[Assistant] Clark should know that for Citi Double Cash, it's imperative to redeem as a direct deposit.


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[Assistant] Because of their rule that you get the other 1% when you pay, and getting a statement credit means you don't pay.


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[Assistant] Clark therefore only got 1% on $320 worth of his purchases, Ben, and Ben represents so many people who wrote in about this.


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[Assistant] And a couple of people wrote in about that too.


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[Assistant] But that noise sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Spend a little money and get a good mic, Jim.


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[Assistant] Good information generally for while we are living, but once we die, your advice could have been better. Congratulations on choosing to give to charity after only some to kids. However, how much is a sum? Instead of your plan to reward the most needy,


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[Assistant] I have put in place an annual increase of the lifestyle of 25% of each child's reported annual income.


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[Assistant] My plan is a way to enhance my children's lifestyle instead of giving them enough to buy a lifestyle they have not earned.


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[Assistant] This further serves to reward industrious producers.


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[Assistant] There are more details, but generally I want to encourage my children to continue to be productive members of society instead of living a lifestyle they didn't earn and can't afford Clarence.


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[Assistant] That makes me a little sad. I mean, I think you do whatever you want with your own money, but what if your kid decides they want to be a teacher? Or they're working for a non-profit to help people.


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[Assistant] But your other kid goes to law school, like, but you're rewarding one for, for that, I guess. That's just, but I mean, Clarence can do what he wants to do, but uhm, that confuses him.


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[Assistant] Clark, regarding your answer as to the safety of sending EE series savings bonds to the Treasury Department, rather than using Priority Mail Express, the preferred and safer option for sending valuables via the U.S. Mail is to use Registered Mail.


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[Assistant] Which provides secure handling and insurance coverage of up to $50,000. Thanks for all you do, Allen.


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[Assistant] You talked about the healthy benefits of walking, referring to a British study when you stated,


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[Assistant] There will be no further benefit by walking more than 6,300 steps a day if you walk at a fast pace. You failed to clarify your response, which by itself didn't make sense. Mark.


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[Assistant] If I made a purchase online, put a couple hundred dollar bills in an envelope and mailed it to the seller and you didn't get the goods and the seller disappeared, would you complain about the U.S. Postal Service and demand that they pay you back? Zelle clearly states, use it to pay only people you know and trust. Kosh.


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[Assistant] A related question. I'm wondering why you would recommend Ally as one of the online banks. I was looking to open an account and was shocked to find that they are partnered with Zelle.


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[Assistant] And it says see pages 11 through 29 of their online banking service agreement. Do you still recommend them?


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[Assistant] Thanks for your straight talk on finance and your warm delivery. Danielle in north central Florida. And I'll note Schwab also that we talk about a lot as well.


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[Assistant] I'm surprised by your unthoughtful promotion of artificial turf, which is a disaster for the environment.


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[Assistant] I agree that Americans have an unhealthy addiction to lawns that millions of dollars are wasted on that requires unnecessary burning of fossil fuels, the application of poisonous fertilizers, and in some states irresponsible consumption of water to maintain. But promoting artificial turf is not the solution.


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[Assistant] Promoting one environmental disaster as a trade for another does not add up. This is my interpretation of Clark. Hey guys, let's cover the planet in toxic plastic carpeting as a solution to costly traditional lawn care. You'll love it and so will all the insects, worms, birds, squirrels, and wildlife you kill with this application. They'll love it too.


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[Assistant] After that turf gets old and nasty, just pull it up and haul it off to the landfill. We won't have to worry about the forever toxins and poisons it creates. That will be a problem for future generations to solve.


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[Assistant] This is bad advice, Clark. How about promoting natural solutions like zero-scaping or zero-scaping?


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[Assistant] Zero escaping with an X. I said that wrong, probably. That's Benjamin.


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[Assistant] Clark, you blew my mind with your explanation of the impact on credit card debt when payments are broken into multiple increments over the course of the month instead of paid only once per month.


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[Assistant] The only stinky part is I've been listening to you for months and this is the first you've mentioned of this. If you could bring it up more often, it would be great for newer and less frequent listeners. Everyone should know how to stick it to the credit card companies and get out from under their thumb as quickly as possible. Love your show, Annette.


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[Assistant] Normally, taxes are paid on required minimum distributions, but by giving some or all of them as QCDs, the money goes to charity of your choice instead of the IRS. Gerald.


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[Assistant] Clark listed careers that do not require a college degree. Paralegal was included.


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[Assistant] I worked as a paralegal in three different states and none of the private law firms I worked for hired individuals who did not have a bachelor's degree for paralegal positions.


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[Assistant] The best sources of information on required qualifications would be to seek out people working as paralegals. They would also be able to explain the difference between paralegal positions at a private law firm, corporation, financial institution, etc.


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[Assistant] Clark, how can you get your insurance through Tesla? Isn't beating some pseudo sports car off the line part of the joy? Brandon.


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[Assistant] You recently answered a question about young people 5 and 7 years old who picked up lost golf balls and resold them. You recommended the father open at Roth IRA with the self-employment earnings at Fidelity because they have a $1 minimum.


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[Assistant] What you didn't mention was that if an individual has self-employment income over $400, the individual must pay self-employment taxes.


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[Assistant] I believe that at higher income levels a half, one half of self-employment tax is federal tax deductible bill.


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[Assistant] Recently you told listeners that all home warranty companies were a waste of money intended to deny claims.


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[Assistant] I was an HVAC contractor for 20 years and worked with the largest of them all.


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[Assistant] Not once was a claim denied or questioned. Even when a full unit change out was necessary, I never had an issue. For people who can't come up with thousands of dollars on the spot, this isn't a bad option, Peter.


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[Assistant] Either you stink worse than 13 year old boys sneakers or maybe I do. You frequently recommend the Roth.


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[Assistant] As an earn, an earned dollar goes into a Roth as a, as 68 cents at a nominal tax rate of 32%.


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[Assistant] That same dollar is invested in a traditional IRA as one dollar.


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[Assistant] Take this example, the 30 year old teacher who wrote into you.


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[Assistant] A conservative growth rate of 5% and drawing out the investment at 65.


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[Assistant] Assuming a retirement tax rate of 15%, then the Roth dollar grows to and yields $3.43, while the traditional IRA money grows to and yields $4.05 at the 15% tax rate.


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[Assistant] Even at a 28% tax rate which very few retirees pay.


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[Assistant] The traditional IRA yields the same $3.43 a breakeven. What am I missing, Len?


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[Assistant] Yeah, and especially with all, I would say also like if you're buying like lotions or medicines, things like that, go over the counter stuff.


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[Assistant] The generics are so much cheaper too and they're basically have to be the same, right?


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[Assistant] But Amazon Music is free without ads for those with Prime.


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[Assistant] I catch plenty of flack from my friends for being the only person they know of that uses Amazon music, but hey, it's free.


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[Assistant] And it's technically not free, you have to pay for Prime, but yes.


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[Assistant] But I was thinking this might be an extension of that. My question is, how would an account like the one provided at Fidelity or others, if there are any, affect a student loan application in the future for college?


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[Assistant] And not getting email statements. Your belief was that if something went wrong banks and credit card companies could not argue against something they printed and had their logo on.


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[Assistant] I've kept this advice, but I'm now curious if this is still something you recommend.


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[Assistant] Kathy in Maryland said, hello, I'd previously placed a freeze with all three of the credit bureaus. We decided to apply for a HELOC, so I had to unfreeze my credit.


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[Assistant] Within a day or two of unfreezing my credit and applying with our local credit union, we were inundated with calls from lenders. I'm thinking this can't be a coincidence. Can you tell me how this could happen?


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[Assistant] But when we make larger payments to the university for tuition and housing,


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[Assistant] We don't want to pay the credit card convenience fee they charge.


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[Assistant] And then she pays the bill in the local currency. Do you know of a better option?


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[Assistant] To deal with legitimate buyers and not scammers.


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[Assistant] It's basically like saying you list things on Nextdoor, but you have to prove that you live where you do for Nextdoor, so it's a little better.


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[Assistant] Something I've seen people do on Facebook Marketplace, and then I, there are Facebook exchange groups usually for different cities and neighborhoods, so you might want to look into that, Sean, so you know they're actually local.


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[Assistant] As in their listing, they say, I don't accept Zelle, I don't accept anything, I only go through this so that maybe it eliminates some of those people from contacting you.


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[Assistant] This poor guy who works at my gym, he's awesome and he just started his own business and he was so excited to tell me that he's set up accepting payments through Zelle.


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[Assistant] You get a blue check mark when you're verified, uhm, and so these people figure out a way to get around it and get verified, uhm, and then sell it to other people or...


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[Assistant] I quickly downloaded the app and did the setup. I did not link my bank account to the app. The whole thing waddles like a scam, quacks like a scam, and smells like a scam.


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[Assistant] Ryan messaged me to say that he sent the money via cash app. I received an email that supposedly came from cash app, but the grammar is so bad, it gave me concern. Also, the email address was not a cash app address.


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[Assistant] These are two sure indications of a fraud or scam. The email said Ryan needed to send me an additional $200 and something about making my account a business account to complete the transaction. I don't know how the scam would have played out, but I decided not to engage any further with Ryan on the phone deal. Can you confirm this was a scam?


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[Assistant] They asked him to change the account to business and they're sending an additional 200. Do you think they were going to pull out more money? They can maybe directly pull it out if it's a business. I'm not sure. Jay in Pennsylvania says Clark needs to warn his listeners about the Amazon tricksters trying to force customers to subscribe and save.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I've done it on a couple of things that I know I order regularly, but I've also been caught where things came, I meant to cancel the subscription.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but what it does is it often will default to subscribe and save and you have to change it when you're buying one item as a one time purchase.


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[Assistant] And then once you've subscribed and changed, changing your, you know, deleting your cookies won't work. You have to actually go into my subscriptions and cancel that subscription.


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[Assistant] This is from anonymous. You mentioned that it's probably not good to bluff your boss for a raise by threatening them with another job offer.


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[Assistant] I'm 16 and I've worked with the same small medical office for five years. They don't give raises or bonuses. I went on several interviews recently, turned down many offers, and used that to info to my advantage. I was given exactly what I asked for, about 25% more. I would have left if necessary. I know I'm worth it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I need to get rid of some. I need to do some swap outs because I don't like keeping track of all the bills every month. Okay, from Jeff in Kentucky, I have a mortgage at a big bank that I'm about to pay off.


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[Assistant] They tell me I have to pay $46 recording fee. Is there any way out of paying this?


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[Assistant] And from Jake in Wisconsin, my wife and I are both 33 years old and teachers. We currently have retirement through our state retirement accounts. And in addition, both have Roth IRAs that we fully fund each year.


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[Assistant] That, what should be our, what should be our next steps for continuing to increase our retirement savings? You see, I gave you the company their Roths are through.


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[Assistant] And from Gail in Alabama, Captain Clark Howard, at times I get a pop-up asking for permission to access my pictures and files on my cell phone. What's your opinion on this?


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[Assistant] And when I get those pop-ups, it usually says you give these permissions only when using the app, you know, never only when using the app or always, and I always put only when using the app.


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[Assistant] This question is from Richard in Connecticut. Are credit unions a safer place to keep your money than a bank or the same if a crash should occur? And is there any difference if you wanted to draw out your money in cash?


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[Assistant] This is from Charles in Tennessee. How should we figure out how much to pay when you say to pay twice a month toward credit card debt? Would you pay the minimum twice or would you use the three year payoff amount twice?


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[Assistant] And from Joseph in Ohio, my wife recently graduated from college with a bachelor's degree and began teaching Spanish at a local school near our home.


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[Assistant] She had been taking classes while being a stay-at-home mom for our five kids. We were married in Guatemala and moved here with an infant son.


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[Assistant] My wife began to take college courses while learning English. She is amazing.


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[Assistant] She is being offered the opportunity to participate in a Vanguard, Vanguard IRA or Roth IRA.


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[Assistant] My question is, is an IRA a good investment idea? She's 46 years old and I'm 52 and work for a local government agency with about 9 years left until I'm eligible for full retirement.


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[Assistant] With a larger family, this is the first real opportunity for us to have a significant enough increase in income to think about how to move forward.


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[Assistant] And from Joseph in Ohio, my, oh, sorry that was Joseph in Ohio. From Mark in Illinois.


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[Assistant] Any downside to opening another brokerage account to get a free signup bonus. Besides the legwork of opening the account, Chase is offering $625 if I transfer stock or money from my Fidelity account.


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[Assistant] I'll say, I went to get my kids to do their Roth IRAs. I did mention, I didn't say retirement necessarily, but I said this will make you rich one day. In the beginning, before it went to... And they grabbed hold of that. That was, that was a key.


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[Assistant] We would move forward with this broth, but we also wanted to check out something through an app. Are you familiar with Bumper or Bloom?


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[Assistant] We're not talking a lot of money. A parent or guardian would be the primary on the account. It would be used for educational purposes and fun. Thoughts?


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[Assistant] I'll listen and literally none of it makes sense whatsoever and when he tries to clarify it gets worse haha. Do you have any advice or easy to understand or simplified resources for teens looking to learn about these things?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Jill says my son has quite a bit of money saved up and he would like to purchase a car. He is 23 years old and has no credit as of yet. He would like to build credit and is wondering if he should finance the car in order to build it. He could easily pay cash for the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though it's been on Clark.com and you've talked about it, I had not gone in. I'm a T-Mobile customer.