[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instant decisions. You're filling out a form. Now today online. Say, would you like to designate a beneficiary? And you're like, sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you put in whoever or you split it like with whoever and then you do pass away and it could be many decades later hopefully and then your money goes not where you intended


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But to where you did actually in an instant put it on a form forever before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't dame beneficiaries. No, just make sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now this is something, if you have a lot of assets, you're, you're hopefully going to a state attorney anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most people consider they're really rich if they have somewhere approaching a million dollars. And so that's a point where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's really a good idea. If you own a business, good idea to see a lawyer who does wills, estates, and trusts. I mean, there are situations, blended families. Probably a good idea to go see a lawyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who does wills, estates, and trusts. And then you do that kind of housekeeping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lawyer does wills, estates, and trusts. Well, that's one of the questions I'll ask.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you know if you have beneficiary designations on any of these accounts that you have?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they'll ask you for an account list, an asset list, and then they'll say, do you have beneficiary designations? Well, most of us aren't going to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The privilege of sitting there with one of those expensive per hour estate attorneys. So we've got to do this for ourselves. When you make an asset list,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If your life has been through changes over the years, which whose hasn't,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want to make sure what your beneficiary designations are, which you can usually see by signing in to your account. It'll be under, uh, profile and you change them or


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People who have more assets may be asked to delete.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beneficiary designations, because it may be better for assets to pass through a will or a trust or something like that, that an estate attorney would advise you on. But for everyday earthlings, just remember


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is an unintended consequence when stuff doesn't go where you might intend. And by the way,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are a lot of us who think we're invincible and we're going to live forever and we never do a will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That can be a really bad idea. Particularly if you have minor children. You need to have a will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause that's key to who ends up raising your kids. You don't want the state to decide who raises your kids for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We actually do it four times a year, Jennifer, but I guess it's cause.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I do for a living, it's something that we do more often than a typical person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think it's good for a couple to have a house account, one that's a joint account because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the time of either of your untimely demise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There may be a need to have immediate access to money that the two of you would have together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other than what you each have in your own name. So even as designated beneficiary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you may need access to more funds than what you each have in your own hands. So having a joint account that either of you could access


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the event of the sad loss of one or the other of you, I think is a good idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't need to read their site. This is a problem in the long-term care insurance business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a general rule, virtually without exception, there's no equity you've built up over all these years. Uhm, 17 years of ownership of the policy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No equity. So you either take it on the chin,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And accept a reduced benefit under the policy for a lower premium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or these policies that are older are in what they call in the insurance industry a death spiral.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only people that are continuing to pay the premiums and what's known as adverse selection are people who are, uh, facing difficulties health wise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they'll pay whatever to keep the policy in place. And then the premiums as people fall by the wayside, as the premiums go up, you end up with a pool of people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who are motivated because they need the benefit or expect they soon will and so the thing spirals out of control and basically


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the policies become impossible to keep in place. Uh, Genworth has a long history of controversy involved in the long-term care industry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For being difficult to get claims paid just as you related to. So this one is a really hard one. Uh, you can either look at it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As if you continue to pay, are you throwing good money after bad?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or should you do so, and I would say you're 60 years old, which is about the age I like for people to buy long-term care insurance policies, ironically enough, late fifties, early sixties.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might be better off allowing this policy to lapse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And coming up with a fresh start on long-term care. I mean this one's so hard to call because the premiums are not guaranteed and at 60 you may not need this for another 20-25 years. There are alternatives now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Five or so years is what's known as a hybrid policy where you have a guaranteed benefit for a set premium instead of an open ended benefit like this would involve. So I don't want you to just go ahead and dump this. I want you to do research.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I want you to see if, if it makes sense for you to continue to pay. And if you're, if you can medically underwrite, in other words, you're in good health now at age 60, it may be better for you to let this one die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you get something else as a replacement, like one of the hybrids simplest form of a hybrid. You buy a traditional whole life insurance policy with a longterm care rider that allows you to use the face amount of the policy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a living benefit instead of a death benefit for the amount of coverage that you buy for a premium that's clear and set.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's, it's a vehicle that's worked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then there's a benefit for heirs or your favorite charity to receive at time of your passing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For having done an application for new credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is temporary and very small. It's a low impact factor in setting your credit score, credit standing. So if basically this was an oops, where there's no value in getting these cards, um, if they have no annual fee, you could just let them sit and not use them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you have that available credit in your mix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you could go ahead and just cut your losses, not activate, not have the account. And that would be fine too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, cause it's, it's not going to have big impact. The only thing that does have big impact, there are two factors. They're the only two things that ultimately really bend the curve on your credit standing and credit score. And that's paying every bill every month on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And second, using a low amount of your available credit. If this 15, no, you didn't say what the limit is, 15,000, you had to have a checking account. If you have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, decent number of credit cards and decent available credit. You're good. You're fine. Even if you give this, uh, new card at Heave Ho, you also might consider that a bank that does a bait and switch like this,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe they're not the bank you should be with for your banking if they're just not straight honest out and out with the offers they make to you as a customer. And I want to tell you, we have hit the end of our podcast week. It's Friday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I hope you have an absolutely great weekend. If you tune into this Friday podcast on the weekend, I hope you're in the midst of an absolutely great weekend. And remember what we're about that you save more, spend less, and don't let anyone ever rip you off.


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[Assistant] Our in depth coverage of cell phone plans, including prepaid options. There are so many new plans out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want you to consider switching to save yourself giant dollars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something else you can save a lot of money on?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I've gotten a lot of strong pushback on over the years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clark stinks from Dennis? Well, I know they're coming. So I want to talk about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How the cell phone industry is splitting in two directions at the same time. The market


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For cell phones is not growing like it used to. Not cell phone, the phone itself, but cell phone service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the cell phone carriers are complaining how difficult it is for them to get new subscribers. So the big three are doing everything they can


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, AT&T and Verizon just raise rates. T-Mobile is under a legal provision that outlaws them raising rates on the plans that existed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they took over sprint, it was part of the condition when they took over sprint. So what they're doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is there coming up with one new plan after another after another trying to get you to migrate?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the plan your grandfather in that can't raise rates on into a higher price plan. That's why anyone who's T-Mobile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're getting these constant pitches from them to go to this other plan like the one they're pushing right now is where you can get an upgrade to your phone like willy nilly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By going into a much higher monthly rate plan. So there's nothing free about the free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Upgrade when you're paying a much higher price per month, right? So you got the big three who are trying to please their shareholders and pushing rates to the sky.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at a time of marginal growth and then at the same time.


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[Assistant] We now are at a point that we've got one in four American adults who have gone to discounters for cell phone service. The gap's getting larger and larger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Between the brand name companies, the big three, and everybody else, and so this price gap is getting to be large enough


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That now over 70, somewhere like 75 million something like that of Americans have gone to discounters because the savings are so incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you've got discounters that are owned fully by the big three.


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[Assistant] To serve ultra price sensitive customers. And then there are independents out in the marketplace that offer variety rate plans that are ridiculously dirt cheap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walmart for a sector of Americans has always been the cell phone store.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's where people go, they buy a phone, they buy a plan from various companies that are either, in Walmart's case, very heavily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've been, uh, with Verizon selling plans owned by Verizon with various discount brands that Verizon uses as their names. And now AT&T,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Both into Walmart and Target, I'm not jazzed about the price plans that AT&T is putting in the two discount stores. But then at the same time, AT&T owns Cricket and Cricket


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is offering wonderful new rate plans based on your being loyal and the way the new cricket thing works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, uh, Visible, which I've talked about a lot, which is Verizon's main discount brand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The brand names you're so familiar with from TV ads that run every four seconds during a college football game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are being billed after the fact. They're extending credit to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The problem of having to collect money, not having to write off bad debt, you get much cheaper plans and you should really look at our guide to these.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And reduce expenses. People are feeling so much pressure from inflation and now separate from inflation, feeling this pressure from the big three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pushing rates higher and higher and higher for services that are actually costing them less and less to provide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why you want to look at these alternatives that we have available for you.


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[Assistant] So there's a really funky rule that makes this


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[Assistant] With the very generous rules on withdrawal.


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[Assistant] And Roth IRA, so you can withdraw your contributions tax and penalty free at any time.


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[Assistant] From the 401k over to the Roth. It's been in there months, not many years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're five years away from being able to do that.


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[Assistant] And not having it be an ugly taxable event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I'm gonna say something that uhm, I'm shocked I'm going to say. In this case, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in this case, I'm going to make an exception to normal advice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you do go back to work in one year's time from now, then it'll all be about rebuilding


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two years reserved for you to be able to stay home with your now two year old and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the Roth option does not apply in your case in this circumstance.


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[Assistant] Uh, there's the big barn theory of finances. You got a big barn door with money coming in, uh, 300,000 in income as a couple. That's a huge income.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you got the mortgage. You've got improvements. You're going to need to do the house. Uh, gosh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the same time, 60,000 for a wedding is a giant amount of money for a wedding. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And avoiding that expense. And then you have a party. You have a party to celebrate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which will be a whole lot less.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and the pressures as a, a new couple dealing with all those debts you've got, that's not good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a new marriage. So, not throwing an additional sixty thousand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Until the credit card debt is zeroed out. Credit card debt, I mean you pay the loans as agreed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Student loans. Yes, the interest rate on the student loans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is far lower than the carry cost of those credit cards. You know, you have enough income as a couple. You shouldn't be carrying 60 thousand dollars in credit card debt. You should be carrying


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Zero dollars in credit card debt. So getting the finances in order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is the highest priority that I have for the two of you. So you can have couples


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have so much angst together over money, you want to pull that out of the mix by not having the pressure of having all these debts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Satellite phones, if, if we're in a catastrophic environment and a foreign enemy likely has taken out cell phone networks, odds are they're going to hit other forms of communication like satellites, satellites becoming


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So important as a, uh, method of national defense, as part of national defense. So I don't know that's going to work. I, I know that, uhm, Federal Emergency Management Agency talks about having a, uh, relay system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where if phones are down in one part of the country or something like that, cell phone networks, whatever it is, internet, that you have a relay where, where you can reach somebody, that's the go to designee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Could be, uh, a sibling somewhere else in the country, aunt, uncle, uh, niece, nephew, uh, trusted friend that in a situation where there is a national emergency of some kind, you have who you try to contact by whatever means is working, whether it is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure ham radio operators are saying wait, why aren't you mentioning us?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't have a sat phone, uh, sat phone thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody's working on that as a capability.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sits as a backup to the cell phone networks and that, that will certainly happen. And there are these satellite devices you can buy that are standalone devices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as was clear with all the stuff that came out in the Elon Musk, um, biography that was just released that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Elon Musk, the facts are an argument that Elon Musk prevented a Ukrainian attack on Russia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, on Russian assets by pulling down their access to SpaceX at that time as they were using SpaceX satellite technology to target Russian targets and pulled that down and prevented the attack to the benefit of Russia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These satellite networks, communications networks of various types, in a time of national emergency, particularly one that's defense based,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are at risk of various types. And yes, communication with each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is going to be something we're going to have to be very creative about when like me and like you, we have families scattered all over the country and that was a real downer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A scenario to talk about, wasn't it? But, but that's good thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure. Ways to do this stuff. From the Clarksters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the Clarksters. That's what we've settled on, the Clarksters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Albuquerque have done this for decades where they cross


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The border and border towns, border communities just across the border in Mexico and get significant dental work done at a fraction of the cost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the United States, it was a new write-up Bloomberg did about how there are billboards along the interstates, along the southern, southwestern tier


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Telling people, hey, come here for your dinner work, come there, blah, blah, blah. There's even a place referred to as molar city.


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[Assistant] Which has 350 dental offices at a border community that is near Yuma, Arizona. So it's accessible with a decent drive from across Southern California and the major pop centers of Arizona. And this little city in Mexico, they refer to as the dental capital of the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 350 different dental offices and you see the U.S. border.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you walk into these offices, I mean, right at the border, root canals, 250 bucks, crown 500 bucks, a filling 50, but most of what people come for is more extensive dental work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wimberg talks about how Canadians are crossing the United States and going all the way to these dental offices across the U S border in Mexico because it's so much cheaper and they talk to people who


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who face thousands and thousands of dollars in dental work that it's, they save at least half the cost by crossing to these dental offices right across the border. And this, this dental tourism has long been a very popular thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For expensive procedures and extensive procedures in Costa Rica, Americans from the Eastern half of the United States. It's common. We'll fly to Costa Rica for extreme dental care and dental surgery. People go to Hungary in Europe and Asia. People go to Hungary for the same reason because of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A very large dental market at a tiny fraction of the cost of having dental care in their home countries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The number of Americans who have no dental coverage at all.


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[Assistant] Is something about a quarter of the nation's population. And even if you have dental coverage, it's pretty minimal that this is not something that I've run off to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cheap as I am. I have a dentist I've been going to for 20 plus years. I trust her. I trust her practice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the bills are not cheap sometimes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I have been willing to pay them. But what happens with so many people is the cost of dental care is so high they go without. And as any dentist will tell you, you neglect your teeth, it will then affect your overall health. And that's why deferring dental care,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is a lousy alternative, but if you got no money to afford the care where you live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is an alternative. I am incapable, unqualified and incapable to tell you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Potentially that you would not get done otherwise because of the price difference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who am I to tell you that what the marketplace is speaking, that this has become such a big thing that so many Americans, Canadians,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People around the world going to alternative places, alternative countries for dental care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It means that if you're facing a big expense that you keep putting off and off and off, you should consider these alternatives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So many medical procedures that are life saving people don't get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they even with health insurance, they can't afford them and they go overseas for it. And that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A reality of the healthcare marketplace in the United States.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so the processing fees in the United States, the world's highest by far. And yes, there are, there are dollars flowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That are wonderful for the banks, not so good for the overall economy. And so that's why


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The credit card companies with their reward cards are seeking high volume chargers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they have somebody who's charging enough dollars every month


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They become profitable even if they're never paying a penny of interest. You are right, but they still prefer it for us to run balances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then pay the average 22% interest on those balances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Pete, this is why I, I like to buy REITs indirectly through a REIT index fund where you can buy a REIT ETF, index ETF, where you can buy and sell them as you wish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That get you in these non-tradable REITs is one example.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The people who work at these non-fiduciary investment houses, including the bank based ones, love selling, uh, non-marketable securities. And these REITs are an equivalent. They do not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trade on public exchanges where you can buy and sell at will. And that's how they have the money to provide the massive ginormous commission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way they cover those gigantic commissions is by locking you in as a prisoner for a long time. It's kind of like how the insurance industry works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those, uh, variable and index annuities and all those horrible annuity products that have the gigantic commissions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are a prisoner for up to 15 years. Otherwise you pay, uh, very, very large.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very large surrender fees, which is kind of the equivalent you face was selling third party trying to get out of these reeds. Pete, as painful as it is, the least bad strategy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is to stay in the reach till they roll out, roll off till the normal redemption period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With non-fiduciary investment providers because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You may think you're getting advice for free. It's the most expensive advice you could ever receive because you're going to get ripped off with, beep, commissions and fees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, Ryan, I, I hope that there was just a misunderstanding in what you heard from the advisor. I have never, ever heard an advisor recommend a single


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 529 account with the intended purpose of being for more than one child. That is not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you never, never, ever, not ever, without exception, never buy a 529 account through a human being.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You only buy direct, direct sold 529 accounts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No commissions and the overall ongoing expenses far, far, far lower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To know how to do this, I have a briefing at Clark.com. Clark.com slash 529. You'll see the good plans. We review them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And rate them in terms of quality once a year. The only ones you should even consider are the ones that are on our top list.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 529s will be activated where if you hold them long enough and money in them goes unused,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a tax free transfer of wealth from one generation to another


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the excess funds up to, as today's law stands, $35,000 max can be put in over time that can be moved from a 529 plan to a Roth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a fantastic thing because people have been under


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Saving N-529 plans cause they're worried kid doesn't go to college, kid gets scholarships, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kid doesn't need all that money for whatever reason. At college they, in the military they get benefits, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now you don't have to worry about those what ifs. At least up to $35,000 can then migrate


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Into a retirement account, tax free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A retirement account then grows and is spent tax free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decades, decades later and a Roth IRA is fantastic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I want to thank you so much for joining us today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hope there's something you heard in today's episode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you can act on in your life, that you can make a difference in your financial situation, financial security, or move you closer to the path of financial independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you found something useful or you find what we do useful, please share it with a friend or a family member that you like so they can benefit


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the financial advice, the guidance and the information. And I hope you have an absolutely great day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You ready for questions? Sure. This one's about investing from James in Ohio. He says, index mutual funds are a staple of my investing strategy. Is there a place to find the best low cost funds for the indexes like the S&P 400 and or the S&P 600?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Justin says, I would like to invest it in index funds, but I'm nervous about the market crashing. Would it be best to invest it all now or put it into a five-year ladder CD and dollar cost average as the CDs mature?


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[Assistant] In fact, I have you slotted to talk about that. Uhm, I think it's later this week to do a back to basics on that.


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[Assistant] And Dallas Cox, who writes much of our cell phone content and reviews all these services regularly, also said if you do end up with track phone, uhm, she recommends trying a 30 day plan first. Just so you can see how you like it and then you can commit to longer.


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[Assistant] Yeah, we can link both of those in the episode notes. We try to link every, every website we give out or we try to link in our uhm, daily episode notes. Wow.


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[Assistant] Alright, let's start with Sue in Wisconsin's question. She says we're planning to book a tour to Ireland with a tour company. If we pay with our Chase Preferred card for the tour and book airfare separately,


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[Assistant] Alex in California says, I have a story of thanks for Clark's advice. My now wife had indexed universal life insurance before we were married and I tried so hard to get her to get rid of it. You suggested to a listener that they reach out to James Hunt, an individual that runs a service where he reviews in force evaluations of the insurance. I reached out to him, paid the fee and got the evaluation very quickly.


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[Assistant] And was able to show some evidence to the insurance being crummy as opposed to me saying, well, Clark Howard says this. In conclusion, we ended the policy much to the dismay of her family friend who sold it to us in the first place.


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[Assistant] Gay in Ohio says regarding the article on long-term care insurance, you might want to mention limited pay.


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[Assistant] Long-term care insurance policies. The premiums are substantially more than a standard policy, but the policy is paid in full in 10 years.


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[Assistant] My husband and I have this type of policy and have, and have had only one price increase in over seven years.


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[Assistant] I'm so glad you're with us here on the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. Let me ask you a question. What do you wish someone would have said to you forever ago


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[Assistant] To get you in more control of your financial future. I'm going to hit you with a couple of things I think are key to your financial future that are the kind of things that


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[Assistant] Well, we kind of know, but maybe we need a little nudge to do and later streaming is going


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[Assistant] Up in price and down in price at the same time. You know we got video streaming.


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[Assistant] That is everybody's fallen all over themselves with price increases, Spotify increased rates recently and they're all the, all the content providers with these streaming services are all trying to get a bigger chunk out of your and my wallet.


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[Assistant] What's that about? What can you do about it? I'm going to tell you later, but right now I want to talk about some core principles of how we handle money as Americans.


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[Assistant] And our neighbors in the north, Canadians are pretty much right there along with this as well. So.


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[Assistant] And a lot of other countries that are growing economically, but had not been affluent, what are known as middle income countries, people save roughly a third of what they make. Um,


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[Assistant] Won't call them dollars because they wouldn't be dollars. Well, maybe in this case, I'll just say it that way to keep it simple for every $3 somebody makes and other cultures. So many other cultures, people save a dollar. It is like an article of faith, $2 to live on one to save in the United States.


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[Assistant] Our traditional pattern and it floats some, but the typical American save six cents of every dollar, six cents of every dollar, where in so much of the rest of the world, it's 33 cents of every dollar equivalent. Our culture has long been one about, Hey, let's have fun today. Tomorrow we'll take care of itself.


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[Assistant] How you do something to have a better result for you down the road.


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[Assistant] And so there are two principles that I want to draw out right now that are central and core to what I try to do to change your path with money. The first thing across income scale, it's amazing that even as you move to very high income in the United States, a large percent of people who make a lot of money,


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[Assistant] Aren't saving any. They're wheezing financially. And that's an unnecessary risk. There, once you get past


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[Assistant] The basics of life, more and more of spending becomes discretionary, as does the saving.


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[Assistant] So I have the crawl before you walk, the walk before you run and the run before you marathon idea of how you build up financial security, either through if you're lucky enough to have the ability to put money aside at work or you're not.


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[Assistant] I want you to start, if you're not saving anything, you're living a deficit life and even if you're running debts.


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[Assistant] I want you to start automatically saving in whatever vehicle you can, one cent of every dollar you make.


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[Assistant] If you're thinking right now, listening to me or if you're watching me, you may be thinking, come on.


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[Assistant] I'm saving, blah, blah, blah. Well, a lot of other people aren't, and there's not a guilt trip. It's just a fact of our culture. So if you start saving a penny of each dollar in whatever way you would do it, it could be a savings account. It could be in a 401k. It could be in a Roth IRA, whatever.


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[Assistant] What you'll find is that if you go from not being a saver at all, even if you're living a dead existence,


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[Assistant] You can create a mentality in your life of living on less than what you make one little step at a time.


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[Assistant] In five years, you will have gone from not being a saver at all to saving a dime of every dollar you make. And that's a great baseline.


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[Assistant] So this is something that is for you.


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[Assistant] And what it does is it creates a whole different scenario moving forward. When you live on less than what you make, it means later you need less to live on because you've learned to live a less costly lifestyle and


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[Assistant] You're building up money so that you can make choices other than having to feel like you have to work forever.


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[Assistant] The second part of this is I am the man from Roth. The Roth IRA is a wonderful gift that we got from the US Congress.


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[Assistant] Senator William Roth of Delaware came up with this idea and that's why it's named the Roth. To encourage people to save.


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[Assistant] Cause savings before had really been so heavily tilted with the tax code only towards wealthy people. The Roth is an equalizer. You can put money in a Roth IRA.


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[Assistant] Only ultra high income earners have restrictions. You put money in a Roth IRA and your money grows tax free and it's spent tax free down the road.


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[Assistant] Again, crawl before you walk, walk before you run, run before you marathon. But if I can leave you with anything, if


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[Assistant] If building savings and building security has been really hard for you, you do these two things.


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[Assistant] And I don't need to go more into the Roth cause I talk about the Roth in different ways all the time.


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[Assistant] But building up the habit of savings first, building a Roth is maybe part of that. Or in addition to those two things, you create a whole new story. You know, your name, your own adventure book.


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[Assistant] You're creating a new ending for that adventure book, a new cycle in that adventure book when you live.


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[Assistant] On less than what you make as the way you live your life. Christa?


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[Assistant] Jesse, you know, with the Chapter 13s.


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[Assistant] First of all, I'm so glad it sounds like the 13 is working for you. If you're not aware of what this is.


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[Assistant] Under the bankruptcy code for individuals, I'm going to oversimplify.


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[Assistant] But there's, uh, chapter seven, which is where your debts are instantly wiped out. It's called fresh start. Uhm, you have, uh,


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[Assistant] You have a mark on your credit for 10 years for the bankruptcy, but most people at least start in a chapter 13. And if you have four years left, it means you have been in for a while. You're making your payments as agreed and you're going to have success with it.


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[Assistant] Satisfying the amount of debt that your plan calls for. And I think that's fantastic. I would worry more about, uh, your reestablishing credit four years from now. I want everything to be devoted to your payment plan and succeeding with it.


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[Assistant] If you have a situation where you just have to have a credit card for paying a deposit somewhere or booking travel or whatever that is,


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[Assistant] Then yes, you can look at secured card programs, but a lot of them are junk.


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[Assistant] I want you to look at the ones offered by credit unions.


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[Assistant] To the general marketplace for secured cards. We do have some briefing on secured cards.


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[Assistant] At Clark.com some information in our briefing, I should say.


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[Assistant] So risks Richard I'm not familiar with. We have reviewed several of these. We've got six of them.


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[Assistant] We've reviewed, if I remember right on Clark.com and you can see how each of them work.


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[Assistant] Uh, the thing is, none of these are gonna move the needle a lot in how much money they'll generate for you. And they do require some work. So, uh, you can consider them


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[Assistant] But I would not make these a high priority.


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[Assistant] But they're not just, many of them go beyond groceries, but that's the title we have for it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, we've been, I have had so many suggestions. I thank you all.


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[Assistant] For the many suggestions, because I talked about what a wimp I am that I don't want to go through the trach passage.


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[Assistant] Yeah, because it's the only, um, it's the only continent I've not been to is Antarctica. And so I appreciate it very much.


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[Assistant] What I'd love to do is fly on a C-17 down there. You don't know that military plane, do you? It's what a great aircraft. Uh, I had the privilege in my years of service to spend some time around the C-17 and that would be a wonderful way to get to Antarctica and I appreciate


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[Assistant] You and all the others who have made suggestions, uhm, I don't think I'm gonna go take a contractor job.


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[Assistant] And I can tell you one person who's not going there with me on a contractor job. That's Lane.


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[Assistant] Because she has, uh, she has something called renodes, which is, uh, uh, I guess like a rheumatoid arthritis kind of thing that's aggravated by cold.


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[Assistant] And, uh, her fingers turn ashen and hurt and stuff.


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[Assistant] So it's an adventure I'm going to have to do by myself, but it will be, uh, it will not be long enough to do seasonal work, but thanks for the advice. And maybe someone else will say, Hey, I love that idea.


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[Assistant] I'm going to go live a season in Antarctica. I'm going to go be a contractor there. So I appreciate that so much. Coming up ahead, uh, you want to sit there and,


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[Assistant] When it gets cold, if you want to be inside watching video content, but then you may not be able to pay your heating bill.


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[Assistant] When it's cold, because how much video content's costing them?


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[Assistant] Well, what if I could tell you there is a free lunch for video content? We're going to talk about that straight ahead.


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[Assistant] It's not a coincidence that over the last couple of months


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[Assistant] I've addressed streaming services a few times. What's going on?


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[Assistant] There've been big, big price increases.


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[Assistant] For streaming services of the various types, whether it's the streaming services that mimic


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[Assistant] Traditional cable fair, where you have live channels, the broadcast channels and the traditional cable channels coming at you. Think of like, uh, YouTube TV, Hoot Loot Live, Fubo, uh, Sling.


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[Assistant] These kind of things, they've steadily been marching their prices upward.


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[Assistant] And that's because they'd been in a market share war.


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[Assistant] And now they're much more worried about the fact that, hey,


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[Assistant] Look how many hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars we're losing. Same things happening with the streaming services like, uh, the Disney channel and regular Hulu and Netflix. Although Netflix remains profitable through this, um,


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[Assistant] Paramount. I'm thinking all these things have been going through a rough ride because they've all been


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[Assistant] Uh, not able to make money and break through. Cause you and I have only so much money.


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[Assistant] That we can spend on things. And then, uh, something I haven't addressed in a long time, I don't think.


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[Assistant] They overproduced content. The original content provider services that offer, uh, their own show content.


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[Assistant] There are so many various series. There are like five times the historical number of original productions that have been going on. Uh, now with the strikes going on, not so much, but anyway,


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[Assistant] There's too much content, too small audience, the budgets don't work and things have to give. So the first thing they've done is


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[Assistant] The whole concept of the market share and mind share they expected to have from us at various streaming services. So now they're like, the accountants are in the mix now. What are you going to do to make these profitable? So the push comes to shove. They raise prices on us at the same time.


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[Assistant] That the prices of the closest thing to traditional cable and all these streaming services that are not like original cable. You watch stuff when you want to, blah, blah, blah on demand.


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[Assistant] All those going up at the same time, the fastest growing and I think in part because of it area or as supported free streaming services.


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[Assistant] And in our household, we watch a lot of what's available on these free services. Then you have


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[Assistant] The Amazon Prime streaming, that if people have Amazon Prime, well, in your mind, that's like a free stream because you already have Amazon Prime. If you have


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[Assistant] Uh, Walmart plus they've got a free stream for you, uh, with one of the services and.


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[Assistant] Uh, so there's all this stuff out there, and even if people don't have Amazon Prime, there's freebie from Amazon. But, we watch a lot of Pluto.


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[Assistant] And now there are more and more odd birds like that. And I think the biggest of them now is 2B. But again, there's, there's one after another after another that are free. And even some of the paid streaming services have free offshoots. Like Sling has freestream, which is their free one. And so,


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[Assistant] The TV manufacturers are in this now. Samsung has a free streaming service. LG has a free streaming service.


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[Assistant] If you have Roku, Roku has the Roku channel with free streaming. You could run out of time.


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[Assistant] To watch video 168 hours a week, just watching the free streams.


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[Assistant] And I would be remiss if I did not mention the ultimate freebie.


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[Assistant] And that is a simple antenna depending on how close you are to broadcast channels. Costs you as low as 10 bucks to as much as maybe 75 dollars for an antenna that will bring


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[Assistant] From dozens and dozens of channels of live programming.


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[Assistant] And if you are a sports enthusiast like I am,


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[Assistant] The picture if you get a signal will be far better on your TV from a free broadcast signal coming into your home than it will be through any streaming service at all. And the other thing


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[Assistant] Is, if you've got a friend or relative that you're talking to and you're watching a game with them.


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[Assistant] You know what's happened in a play 30 to 40 seconds before they do because the streamings are so delayed from live. Your husband's so into his alma mater.


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[Assistant] No, Elon Musk is a brilliant man and he's got his own stuff. I don't, I don't get that whole rebranding.


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[Assistant] Okay, so, let me explain this. If you travel internationally,


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[Assistant] Google Fi is far and away without doubt. Nobody's close. The best international service there is.


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[Assistant] Google Fi treats your travel pretty much identically to if you were in the United States. What happened is on message boards, like Reddit and other places, people were talking about how to game this. So people were signing up for Google Fi just before they'd go on an international trip


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[Assistant] And they were not using their Verizon or T-Mobile or AT&T or whatever. They were using Google Fi overseas. Well, when you travel overseas, they're having to pay big money for you to be able to use Google Fi


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[Assistant] Overseas, pretty much just like you're in the US. And this is something just spread


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[Assistant] Through, uh, through the internet that people learn to game it. So now they have explicit in their terms of service.


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[Assistant] That you can't, you can't just activate it when you're traveling outside the United States. That it has to be a feature of benefit of being a regular customer of Google Fi. So why is Google Fi


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[Assistant] Absolutely the superior choice for international.


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[Assistant] Because if you're with one of the three bigs and you travel overseas,


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[Assistant] T-Mobile will give you the first 5 gigs free to use overseas, but then after that, it's very pricey.


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[Assistant] AT&T and Verizon charge you huge fees per day or per month to use your phone overseas. Google Fi by not doing that.


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[Assistant] And treating you pretty much the same as if you're in the US is vastly superior outside the country. But all the rest of the year, you need to use it as your cell phone service. So that's what's going on and it's not like Doug


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[Assistant] Whoever, how many hundreds of days a year you're in the U.S.


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[Assistant] Okay, this is a great question. So Jennifer, every condo has, uhm, uh, virtually unique wording on what is the responsibility of the unit owner


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[Assistant] And what is the responsibility of the association? It may be.


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[Assistant] Wording like from the, uh, inside unfinished walls or something like that that determines


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[Assistant] What coverage you have to have of your own.


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[Assistant] Versus what is through your monthly association dues to the condo association. So you have to go to your actual docs to see what exposure you face. It's also a question of resources. You live on the North Carolina coast, which has had, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, bad outcomes from a series of hurricanes and homeowners insurance becomes more dicey. In your case, it's a condominium owners policy. It's still to your advantage if you can afford it to self-insure for a


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[Assistant] As much as is reasonable in your life and the resources you have for you to rebuild


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[Assistant] Beyond what the association covers. If the unit takes substantial damage,


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[Assistant] A lot of that repair is going to come on you, what happens inside the unit, not to the association. So that condo policy,


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[Assistant] Is important and is valuable to you, but because of the heightened risk of your location, taking on a higher deductible is a really good idea.


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[Assistant] No, the rules say you can't retroactively pay.


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[Assistant] For the private school prior to college, what affluent families are doing


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[Assistant] Is there funding a lot into 529 accounts and using it for both? Having money that is growing for college tax free and will be used tax free.


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[Assistant] And uhm, I'm trying to remember is the limit 10 grand for a private school each year? Yeaah.


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[Assistant] And they're taking 10 from it each year to use tax free money for money that's grown.


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[Assistant] Tax-free and spend tax-free for private school again.


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[Assistant] You have to be a really affluent family to be able to put in enough money


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[Assistant] Up to $35,000 from a long-term 529 account, which is considered to be 15 years or longer in place. 35 grand can be moved


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[Assistant] Into a Roth IRA for that child, tax free, penalty free, and so you've given them a huge leg up on saving for retirement.


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[Assistant] And this is because a lot of parents were reluctant


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[Assistant] They were worried, what if my kid doesn't go to college? What if we don't use all the money? Then we have the tax and the massive penalty.


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[Assistant] To pay for college other than maybe going into the military and having the military pay for your college education.


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[Assistant] And I want to thank you so much for being with us today. Remember if you have a question or you may be hearing this for the first time.


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[Assistant] And you don't know where to turn, you don't know how to get an answer about a problem you're having or just a question about something. You can call our Team Clark Consumer Action Center for free and it's available 30 hours each week, Monday through Friday only.


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[Assistant] 10 in the morning Eastern till four in the afternoon Eastern. No holidays covered.


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[Assistant] And you can talk to one of our Team Clark Consumer Action Center members one-on-one about your concern, your problem.


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[Assistant] And we've been doing so for just short of 31 years.


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[Assistant] It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show, our mission to serve you and empower you to make better financial decisions in your life.


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[Assistant] Hope you're enjoying the show enough to subscribe to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Leave us a review, rating, wherever you listen or watch.


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[Assistant] The extreme shortage of skilled workers. Wow. It's affecting everything out there from stuff at your home, your car and medicine shortage of people with skills of various types is really severe. And later I know I talk about Costco a lot.


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[Assistant] Second half of this podcast is going to be all about Costco.


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[Assistant] So I have some news to share. I'm saying we got a lot of questions and complaints we've gotten.


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[Assistant] Emails and messages people posted about Costco. We're going to address those. All right, so we got to talk.


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[Assistant] Like it's been so reported about the extreme shortage of nurses. There are so many fields where


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[Assistant] Either don't know how to connect to these things or whatever it is. And so most of the stories are about woe is me, woe is me for the consumer.


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[Assistant] Of getting a car repaired. We had to have a repair done on a car and it took me seven weeks to get an appointment. It was a specialty kind of repair. Seven weeks. That's a lot. I mean, it's hard and you got contractors who don't call you back. I read something recently, a story about how, um,


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[Assistant] They'll assess, you know, that job doesn't seem profitable enough. Oh, that house is too far. They'll even make an appointment, then they just don't show. Cause their phone's ringing all the time. I mean, it's a different era. What's not talked about enough,


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[Assistant] Is the opportunity this era presents.


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[Assistant] Everybody's talking about it from the perspective of you and me buying the services.


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[Assistant] And nobody's really talking about the fact that you got somebody who feels dead-ended in a job or they're not making enough money to pay their bills. What opportunity there is.


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[Assistant] In so many fields right now, we are in a time of structural labor shortage in the United States.


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[Assistant] And so normally a lot of these jobs are filled by having so many young people.


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[Assistant] And we don't have that right now. So people have a second chance.


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[Assistant] In life, people that are what you might call mid-career, mid-work cycle.


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[Assistant] You can go get skills if you're young. You can go get skills.


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[Assistant] And be trained. A lot of companies now so short of workers will apprentice you. A lot of state supported technical colleges offer


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[Assistant] Partnerships where you train and you apprentice and an employer they hook you up with and the opportunity if you have the aptitude and interest in being in any of these medical fields where the workers are really needed.


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[Assistant] And you think about all the tradesman jobs.


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[Assistant] Where the jobs are going, begging, unfilled, the opportunity, the pay scale you get, the career growth over time. There, there's really wonderful


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[Assistant] Chances for you to boost that paycheck and have a career that will grow with you, maybe even ultimately owning your own business. The nurse thing is a little bit different thing because nursing requires extensive education. And let's face it, the medical industry has not treated nurses well.


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[Assistant] The medical industry has come up with these enormous shortages because


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[Assistant] The medical industry works on this extreme hierarchy where doctors are treated like god-like creatures and they're referred to as doctor so-and-so


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[Assistant] If we expect people to not burn out in nursing.


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[Assistant] We have to consider making the jobs more enjoyable.


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[Assistant] Right now, so many nurses have jobs that are all responsibility and not sufficient authority. They are not being treated as medical professionals as they should be. And that's leading to burnout and people leaving the profession. And others who might come in aren't coming in because they don't see it


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[Assistant] As a wonderful career path. So who's this on? This is on the culture of the medical industry. It's on the medical directors of hospitals to start treating nurses, not as second class citizens. And I want to tell you, you are doing great work if you decide to go to nursing school.


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[Assistant] And you come in and you save people's lives. You can really make a difference and you're needed so badly right now. Christa, I can't wait for the Clark Stinks from the doctors.


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[Assistant] Well, you can calm down. I don't like the explanation, Pete, you got from Fidelity. But the deal is, it's actually considered a marketplace advantage.


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[Assistant] When you buy CDs through Vanguard Schwab or Fidelity, because when you buy them from them,


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[Assistant] You also generally will have the ability if you buy let's say a five year CD and that's not working out for you.


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[Assistant] You can sell it in the secondary market through the brokerage and you get it mark to market. Meaning if interest rates have gone up since you bought it at fidelity,


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[Assistant] Then your CD is worth less than you paid. On the other hand, if interest rates have gone down, the CD you have from when you bought it,


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[Assistant] Your CD is now worth above market. That's only for people


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[Assistant] Who need to sell before the end of the holding period of that CD one to five years.


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[Assistant] So all they're doing is marking it to market. When you call about it, it doesn't mean


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[Assistant] That if you hold the CD to its maturity, you're gonna lose any money. Think about if you buy a CD from a bank and you decide to terminate it.


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[Assistant] Short of its holding period, you're in a contract. What does the contract say? You forfeit typically the last 90 days interest, which is always going to happen.


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[Assistant] If you own a CD through one of the discount brokers,


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[Assistant] If the interest rate curve is in your favor when you need to sell, you actually make money and you don't suffer the early redemption penalty.


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[Assistant] That CDs bought directly from a bank or credit union would charge you.


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[Assistant] So if you were to ask a simple question that actually has an incredibly more complicated answer than this, I don't know exactly what it is. Because when you take money from a Roth 401k and put it into a Roth IRA,


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[Assistant] There's this weird arcane provision called the Five Year Rule.


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[Assistant] Maybe the best place to go would be Investopedia.


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[Assistant] And there are a number of things that you'll see an explanation of under the five year rule.


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[Assistant] The money is subject to any federal penalty pulling out again, contributions only, not earnings. If you would violate the five year rule or not taking money from that Roth IRA that had been in the employer provided Roth 401k, it is a very weird, complicated thing. And it is true that when you're using money to buy a home,


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[Assistant] There's a provision where with a Roth IRA, you can take some of that money.


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[Assistant] Even before 59 and a half and not suffer.


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[Assistant] The 10% penalty you pay for premature using of a retirement account, but your situation comes under this weirdo five year rule and you need to go read it and hope your eyes don't glaze over.


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[Assistant] Uh, perhaps depends on the airline. With many airlines, the number one most, uh, common redemption of points is a cabin upgrade.


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[Assistant] Where someone buys a ticket with actual real dollars and then uses points for the upgrade. Uhm, that became popular years ago because of the difficulty in redeeming, uh, upgraded class tickets to business class or first class or whatever.


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[Assistant] To be able to do that, the allocations of seats were so narrow, it was usually easier to buy an upgrade, and that is an alternative. Although,


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[Assistant] Sometimes, have you seen, because you fly heavily on Delta, Krista, have you seen the redemptions and points required for an upgrade where they'll tell you, hey, you can upgrade this now for X dollars or these points.


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[Assistant] You're just trying to upgrade the seat on the plane. So the airlines have gotten better at being greedy.


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[Assistant] On the upgrades and it has gotten tougher. I got good news though for people who are people who like to fly front of the plane.


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[Assistant] There's been so many news stories about how expensive front of the plane is trans-oceanic, trans-atlantic, trans-pacific, going to South America, whatever.


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[Assistant] Those fairs have been dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping lately. So where those fairs would have been


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[Assistant] Uh, totally outrageous. Now they're just outrageous. And so it is becoming more and more your friend to watch the sales


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[Assistant] To subscribe to Scott's, they have one that just follows special deals in points or in dollars for overseas business class seats and


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[Assistant] You may find you're able to actually use those points effectively. The best points to have, Chase or American Express points.


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[Assistant] Because they can be used on so many different airlines. You're not going to miss a deal.


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[Assistant] The American Express point transfer or chase point transfer.


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[Assistant] Overwhelmingly superior to points captive on one of the three full fare airlines.


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[Assistant] Coming up next, we're going to talk about the opposite of a full fare airline. We're going to talk about Costco wholesale and how attached am I to Costco?


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[Assistant] We used to have a dog named Costco wholesale who's gone to the great beyond. And now we have a dog named Kirkland signature. So I'm all things Costco, but they've done something lately that's brought them some negative ink, negative publicity.


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[Assistant] And we're going to talk about it. Plus your questions and complaints about Costco straight ahead. You would think that Costco was beating its members when they come in from the extreme negative publicity Costco has gotten on TV, on the internet, on social media and in print because Costco discovered


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[Assistant] Who were shopping in Costco were not actually members. They were using a member's card.


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[Assistant] And the weak link for Costco became self checkout.


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[Assistant] Because the way it had always worked at Costco going back to when they were founded in the early eighties was you'd go through a register and they'd see that the picture on the card didn't match the person


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[Assistant] Coming through that register and they'd say, sorry, you can't shop. Well then people realized, Hey, I can just.


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[Assistant] Uh, use the card of somebody else, family member, friend, and come through self-checkout and then I'm good to go. So Costco realized they had an


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[Assistant] Unusual number increase in people shopping in the stores.


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[Assistant] And so that's when they started doing these random checks of membership cards.


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[Assistant] At self checkout and to their horror, they discovered.


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[Assistant] They had all these people coming in and shopping who were not members. Now most stores would be thrilled.


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[Assistant] To have all these people coming in and shopping, spending money in the store.


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[Assistant] And that that was boosting revenue for Costco. Why did that not work for them? Because Costco is set up like a co-op.


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[Assistant] Their maximum markup on items is 14%.


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[Assistant] That they were selling stuff to people that weren't paying memberships. They were like, we got to do something about it. Well, they got just hammered for this. There's outrage that was expressed about it and the number of news stories about it were shocking. I didn't realize how.


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[Assistant] Influential Costco was in society, there was such a big fuss. So the question is, should they have a thing where people can come in and pay 10% more per item and shop without a membership as an alternative thing in the situation? Well, what they actually have is you can shop through


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[Assistant] Krista, which of the shopping services is it? It was so big. Instacart.


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[Assistant] Instacart. So you shop through Instacart and you pay a big markup.


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[Assistant] Beyond what Costco members pay and they deliver to you and you don't have to have a membership for that. And on Costco.com, they sell items that are member only items, then they sell items that are available to the general public.


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[Assistant] They've tried to come up with a way to accommodate, but the real thing that they came across is such a meanie.


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[Assistant] Is they wouldn't let you use your sister or brother's card or your friend's card or your neighbor's card because that's where all their profit comes from. So if they're mean for that, but it makes sense to me from a business standpoint.


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[Assistant] See, I used my Costco Visa card there. That's a credit card. The debit card thing is they don't take


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[Assistant] MasterCard, American Express, anything like that, just Visa. Doesn't have to be a Costco Visa card. And I'm not aware of


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[Assistant] Them not accepting other visa cards, other credit cards.


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[Assistant] And the employees hate it when, cause they're so busy behind that food counter.


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[Assistant] When they have to do a manual transaction like somebody paying cash.


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[Assistant] So I heard a different thing, MJ, and I don't know if they've eliminated it in all markets.


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[Assistant] But the volume of sales of the combo pizza was teensy tiny.


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[Assistant] Compared to the massive volumes they were selling of pepperoni and cheese.


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[Assistant] So I don't know, I think that maybe the pizza, they were having to throw out a lot of the product with the combo, with the combo, it was like a veggie combo thingy, something like that. Was it veggie?


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[Assistant] So Terry, I can tell you they were trying to do everybody a favor. So you'd go by the cinnamon rolls at Aldi, which are all world fantastic.


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[Assistant] Right. Cause they have regional offices and so you'll see different merchandise in a Costco in different parts of the country. And speaking of which, I don't know if Terry, you have Aldi near where you are in New Mexico, but if you do, I'm telling you, go try their cinnamon rolls. They are incredible. My wife hates them. She says they're way too sweet. They're way too sugary. I think they're like the greatest cinnamon rolls.


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[Assistant] I don't, and I don't know how the economics would work raising


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[Assistant] The reward to ten per, I don't think that would work for them.


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[Assistant] I don't know, that's pretty exciting. 10% additional discount.


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[Assistant] Isn't that weird? You know, the time's going to come where you try to explain to someone, yeah, mattresses used to be like really big when you bought them in a store.


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[Assistant] I mean that's not, there's almost nothing being sold that way anymore, is it? It's all compressed in a box.


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[Assistant] With mattresses, any mattress, I don't care what mattress you buy.


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[Assistant] You need to have a sleep guarantee with it, which is usually 90 days, 100 days, 6 months.


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[Assistant] That for any reason you can decide you don't want it and you get a full refund. Full refund. Mattress stores that say, oh, we'll take it back and give you a store credit. Uh, uh.


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[Assistant] Store credits and no, no, that's not any good. That's worthless. That's the place that sold you the bad mattress in the first place. You want to only buy a mattress that you have that guarantee where if you don't like it for that period of months, they take it back and you get your money back. You want them to pick it up.


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[Assistant] Which depending on the company, they either pick them up or you gotta haul them back somehow. Yeah. But better that than getting a bad night's sleep.


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[Assistant] All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on today's episode. Hope you had an absolutely great day and I do shop other places besides Costco. You'll see me in Sam's club. In fact, this shirt, for those of you who watch the video podcast, this shirt is a member's mark, private label, Sam's club shirt. These pants I'm wearing are also from Sam's club.


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[Assistant] And our members Mark pants, shorts, shorts.


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[Assistant] In fact, I buy more clothes at Sam's club than I do at Costco. How about that?


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[Assistant] I don't know if you, if you're new to our podcast, you may not know this. I wanted to name our dog Aldi and we did a vote of people on social media and they voted that the name should be gave him a choice. They voted for Kirkland signature.


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[Assistant] And my wife says, well, don't you think we should get another dog and name that Aldi? I'm like, no, no, two dog limit, but two dogs right now. The other dog, if you're wondering what it's called, uh, her name is Winston Churchill because well, she looks like Winston Churchill looked. And when she has a stick in her mouth, she looks just like Winston Churchill with a cigar.


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[Assistant] The leather started cracking after two hours of wear. They were not exposed to heat, cold or water.


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[Assistant] I reached out twice to their customer service and both times they made it sound like I would receive a refund once their warehouse received the shoes. And both times the shoes were sent back to me with a letter denying a refund.


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[Assistant] They said the damage was normal wear and tear and not a manufacturer defect.


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[Assistant] My mistake was not reading the reviews before I bought the shoes because both reviews published gave them one star for the same issue I was having.


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[Assistant] I reached out to the manufacturer's customer care and they said they could do nothing because the shoe was not sold in their store. I'm furious because I'm out $100. I even wrote a review online giving the store and the shoe one star and the store has never published it.


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[Assistant] Allison in Texas says in the last five years the toll roads have gotten pretty expensive and it adds up.


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[Assistant] I have when I've taken road trips, but I would never, I mean, I actually might pay that much if it's going to delay me. I mean, that's incredibly high. I've never paid a toll more than like $2 on that.


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[Assistant] Ken in California says, is the fuel at Sam's Club equal to the quality at Costco?


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[Assistant] Oh, this came up before, uhm. We actually have an article about it on Clark.com.


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[Assistant] Cause people don't take care of it like they take care of their own.


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[Assistant] Joe in Wisconsin says Clark is a Chromebook sufficient for doing basic bill pay and TurboTax.


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[Assistant] So, some of them you can download software on, right? So, as long as you're using...


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[Assistant] Lou in Nevada says I'm looking for an older, reliable car for a student that they can purchase with cash like I did when I went to college. I bought one for $700. Parents cannot pay thousands of dollars for cars, even for themselves.


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[Assistant] Jacqueline in Missouri says, I want to thank you for the callback I received from your Consumer Action Center about my 2017 Ford Escape's bad transmission. I listen to your podcast all the time, but I was hesitant when one of your volunteers called me back.


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[Assistant] I got a call back in a couple of days and boy was I happy after I talked to Ford and they talked to the dealer.


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[Assistant] I'm getting my transmission fix and I'm happy with the results. Clark, I am so grateful for your help. I'm truly a believer in The Clark Howard Show.


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[Assistant] Unless of course he has a medical problem that requires such low temperatures in an age of global warming, this would be unacceptable to me. Definitely not smelling like a rose, tourney.


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[Assistant] Maybe or maybe he will adapt on other things, cause you, you know, you want to spend money on things that are important, especially getting a good night's sleep, I think is really important. And you have passed on.


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[Assistant] Love the show and all you do, but you smell like your beloved Atlanta Falcon socks after a day of training camp. That's smelly.


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[Assistant] Okay, you said there's a bunch of phony baloney marketing of gadgets that are miracle gadgets that lower your energy bill to nothing.


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[Assistant] That don't exist. Well, there is. It's called solar panels.


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[Assistant] We got ours installed a few years ago and currently have a credit for our electric bill. I've converted most of our appliances to electric and I'm working on getting a battery backup because we have to turn our solar panels off during power outages. I got an energy audit from the power company to tell me how and what I can do to make my house more energy efficient.


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[Assistant] Keep on practicing Mr. Howard, Dan.


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[Assistant] Clark on a recent podcast you talked about free and affordable education that was available. You should really use different words as nothing is free. Someone is paying the bills. A better choice of words is no cost to you education, Dwayne.


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[Assistant] My 82 year old mother is like you, cheap as the summer day is long. She pays for wireless service through some antiquated service where she pays for blocks of time and has to call them to reload the minutes.


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[Assistant] I helped her try to buy a SIM card on their website using her AOL email address. That's another story. And her credit card. The transaction wouldn't go through after trying a couple of times. There was no way to call or email the company. So we had to use the chat on their website. When I say we, I actually mean me because my mother wouldn't have known how to do that.


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[Assistant] The chat agent said the transaction was rejected and when we asked why they said they couldn't tell us.


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[Assistant] What? Needless to say, my mother wasn't about to open another email account for these people without knowing why the SIM card order was rejected.


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[Assistant] That was the end of the attempt to bring her into the 21st century. Text now stinks and so do you, Clark, for recommending them. Jeffrey.


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[Assistant] Clark and his travel henchwoman quickly devolved into a travel related babble. The more correct answer is the road to credit card cash is a long journey, an individual journey for all. The best cash back offers come from welcome bonuses where new cards are given huge payouts, 10, 20, 40%.


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[Assistant] But in applying for a $200 cash from $500 spend, you immediately begin to burn up your resources, namely time.


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[Assistant] As your travel henchwoman though, I will say Jeff is right and there are groups like Almond One on Facebook where people talk about reward cards and specifically travel reward cards and their strategies so it is an individual thing.


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[Assistant] Clark, you don't stink, but I think you gave some stinktastically incomplete advice recently when someone asked you about linking their credit card for one of the airline dining programs. By the way,


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[Assistant] And getting the airline points. I thought you'd love the double dip.


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[Assistant] Also, the most important reason for me to use the dining program is because it's a way to extend the expiration date of any airline points you have. If you aren't actively flying, the dining program is an easy way to keep extending that point's expiration. Tony.


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[Assistant] Someone wrote in asking about their daughter's art commissions and investing into a Roth IRA. You said in this case to just report the income and not the expenses like paints, canvas, etc. I'm a CPA and I wanted to let you know that that is technically illegal.


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[Assistant] You're required to report all income and expenses. This is important because sometimes people omit expense in order to show a higher income to qualify for loans or get credits like the EIC.


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[Assistant] That they should actually, they shouldn't actually be eligible for Matthew.


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[Assistant] Your cell phone device smells like my daughter's phone she dropped into the toilet. A woman asked you about GPS in Portugal. They ask about getting, using car rental GPS or your phone. Your answer was check with your provider or buy a SIM in the country.


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[Assistant] We spent three weeks in Europe, including Croatia and Montenegro. Before the trip, I downloaded local area maps. In Europe, I turned on my airplane mode and used my downloaded maps. The only regret was Google Travel did not track my progress. Steve.


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[Assistant] I have a huge, giant, massive problem with you. I just listened to you talk about your recent trip to Europe. Several times you screamed about a massive fear, a giant charge, or a huge whatever.


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[Assistant] How about you just tell us the amount or percent without all the hysterics. We can decide for ourselves if the fee or whatever is too much for us. I'm certain that my definition of massive is not yours, papa.


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[Assistant] Any company that's worth its weight should have a way to contact them to resolve issues like this. Only use them if you'll never need customer support, Jay.


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[Assistant] To be even, to be even better because it actually shows success of the college in the graduates' outcomes, their salary.


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[Assistant] You can compare both different majors at biology versus nursing and different schools what graduates make with the same degree but from different colleges. I found this to be truly eye-opening and highly influential when deciding where our kids would attend. Katie.


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[Assistant] Plus, I don't have to look up passwords or user IDs each time. What do you think?


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[Assistant] However, if you're interacting with a human, you always risk that that human could do something with your information.


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[Assistant] Okay, well some are not. I've experienced that where you talk to a person and give your credit card number.


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[Assistant] And a tax sheltered annuity for about $9,000. I want to discontinue these investments and roll them over into a Roth 401k. Any idea how to accomplish this feat?


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[Assistant] By the way, evaluatelifeinsurance.org charges $150 for the first illustration.


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[Assistant] And from Jennifer in Connecticut, just want to say thanks for all the great advice and tell you we do listen. Recently our child had an ER visit for something very minor. We were there just over an hour and nothing was done except for blood work and speaking to him.


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[Assistant] Once we received, we received the bill, I was shocked to see it was for thousands of dollars. Because of you, I immediately called and requested an itemized bill.


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[Assistant] Long story short, the hospital had billed us for a level five trauma, the worst kind there is, when it was actually a level one. They resubmitted everything to our insurance, and when we got the new bill, it was hundreds of dollars less. Never, never, never, not ever give up.


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[Assistant] You get one free tow every six months, they help with lockouts, etc. But AAA is extremely expensive and most insurance companies offer roadside very cheap. I pay a few dollars extra every six months with Progressive for roadside assistance and would never take a policy without it, Steve.


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[Assistant] I just listened to your answer about the gentleman saying that a traditional IRA would be better than a Roth IRA due to having substantially lower taxable income once retired. You correctly pointed out that that has not historically proven to be true.


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[Assistant] But the piece I think you forgot about is all the years of tax-free growth on that money in the Roth. That is the true carrot in the story, Linda.


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[Assistant] Clark does not stink, however I believe he missed a few details regarding telling parents they did the right thing by advising their daughter who's working a summer internship to stop contributing to the company's 401k even though she has a Roth IRA already set up.


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[Assistant] Most companies I'm aware of match the employee contributions and immediately own the balance of the 401k.


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[Assistant] And the time value of money having those funds from age 19 to 59 and a half or longer, Jack.


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[Assistant] You recently stated that Walmart is the greatest anti-poverty program in the history of the world. First, hyperbole much?


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[Assistant] Go to the socialist countries of Europe and try to find poor people like you do in my hometown of Fresno or the people in West Virginia and Kentucky. You won't find it.


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[Assistant] But more importantly, your idealization of companies like Walmart and your beloved McDonald's belies the fact


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[Assistant] That both companies employees have the highest rates of people collecting government money in the form of SNAP.


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[Assistant] Food stamps and welfare. So which is it? Hardworking people shouldn't have to rely on the government for supplemental income if they're paid a fair wage, Ken.


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[Assistant] Perhaps you've had, you're having a senior moment or maybe lightheaded from the smell of gasoline because you neglect to mention that the 5% cash back as you describe it is actually Sam's cash and not a 5% decrease in the price of fuel at the pump.


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[Assistant] It's time to tell the whole story, so fill her up with the truth, Stephen.


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[Assistant] You talked about the only options for old devices that you can't access anymore. While likely only good for Apple products, they will recycle your equipment for free, including addressing any security concerns.


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[Assistant] And they link to the policy. As I, I had this for an Apple watch last year that was smashed and it was the easiest process. While there could still be a risk by the people, the Apple employees that handle it, you'll get a record of the devices recycled. And that's from Deanna Anil.


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[Assistant] Everyone knows you don't stink but I wanted to respond to your recent comments about potentially saving 25% at warehouse clubs. We only have Costco in our area and with five kids we have had a membership for many years. You love Costco for the savings. I also love savings but there are so many fantastic things to buy.


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[Assistant] But in informal conversations with countless friends and family members, we all agree Costco is a dangerous place for your wallet. I will, however, continue to shop there as the bakery makes the danger worthwhile for me. All the best, Jeremy.


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[Assistant] Clark spoke about the internal conflict he feels between his love of NFL football, which includes paying for a premium NFL subscription service and the importance of frugality in his life.


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[Assistant] I encourage Clark to speak to his audience about having a healthy relationship with money and the idea that the frugal choices one makes can give a person the ability to spend money


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[Assistant] On the fine things that they, that they love. My wife is happy that we subscribed to the NFL premium content that Clark spoke about because she knows that it brings me joy and I suspect that Clark's wife would feel the same.


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[Assistant] Along those lines, Clark smells like a dictator, you know, like the communist China he despises so much. On the June 7th podcast, he went on a tirade about finding out who was paying $8.99 a month or $108 per year for a streaming service and assuming it was from his wife.


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[Assistant] She thought it was a free trial that had been cancelled and then it was still charging you.


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[Assistant] Okay Clark, you certainly don't stink but departed from your usual behavior, which we've come to expect.


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[Assistant] When helping the elderly lady at the New York ATM, in my opinion, you missed out on doing a greater good.


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[Assistant] Since you already helped her and probably had established a rapport with her, my expectations are that you could have and should have asked her about family and if any.


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[Assistant] I love your support to veterans, but you said something recently that makes you smell like a dirty army sock that's been buried in a duffle bag for months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though 9-11 happened before they were born, a big problem in the mil- the military faces today is that there are lots of people who want to serve but for various reasons cannot meet the medical standards, whether that is physical or mental. We as adults have to take some of the blame for that, John.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we'll go to questions now. This one's from James in Ohio. I will be retiring from the military next year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I currently have two credit cards with high annual fees, the Amex Platinum and the Amex Hilton Aspire. As an active duty member, I have these fees waived under the Service Members Civil Relief Act. I plan to close these cards next year to avert getting


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nathan Tennessee says, I recently booked a summer trip with my brother to Yosemite, but he had to cancel last minute. I'd purchased two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why could I not simply exchange the ticket to another person when giving the airline 10 days notice? I purchased the seat next to mine, I know it's open, so why can't I simply change the name?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mike in North Carolina says this is a good idea to pay a company to drive a purchase car across the country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] for you after you purchase it. Also are there reputable companies that offer this service?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My passport in the safe at the hotel and I was panicking and