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[Assistant] If you're contacted by a collector, all you would do is you immediately dispute the validity of the debt because you haven't been provided with any documentation. The debt would probably not hurt your credit.


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[Assistant] The collection agency would be a commercial collector, not one attempting to put.


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[Assistant] An item of collection on a consumer credit report is this is a business to business debt.


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[Assistant] So fantastic Dylan that you've been funding the 529 accounts. Normally you cease contributing when


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your kid enters college. Because the purpose of that money is to pay for eligible college expenses. And it becomes messier if later, you're like, oh man, look at all this money we have in here. Uhm, the only case you would


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Continue to contribute for either of your kids once they've entered college is if you are going to pay for let's say the first couple of years out of funds you already have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're going to use the 529 money for junior and senior year, or if your kids are on a direct path that they're going to go to a professional or graduate school, that would be a reason


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you might continue to contribute to a 529.


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[Assistant] Use resources you have for school. But otherwise, if you're gonna use the 529 money for college, you wanna go ahead and stop contributing at the point they enter.


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[Assistant] More for the second child. Yes, that would make absolute sense with the kids three years apart. I didn't mean you stopped contributing to the younger kids 529 when the older goes into college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You would definitely continue to contribute, particularly if in Nebraska there's a


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[Assistant] Uh, state tax benefit for contributing to a 529 plan.


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[Assistant] Speaking of benefits to your wallet, we're going to talk about one that is booming right now, and that is buying just about everything used in the marketplace instead of new, as a way to beat inflation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inflation has ravaged so many people's budgets and something that I've been into forever


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[Assistant] Is something that is really catching on big time and that's buying stuff from other people that's used rather than new. Um, I have done this for as far back as I can possibly remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I bought used furniture, damaged furniture, uh, my wife and I just bought some used and damaged furniture just recently.


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[Assistant] Not that the used is damaged. We bought used furniture and damaged furniture that we could repair ourselves. It was funny. Uh, Lane was showing me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, we've got all this repair kit stuff when there's minor...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Damage to furniture and we were looking at colors. We've got all these, uh, markers you used where there's a place that scuff that you want to, uh, basically


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[Assistant] Fix the color so where this little scuffed or a little dented that it matches right up and we're going through the colors, which is hard for me because I'm not colorblind, but I have trouble with anything other than really clear colors. Like I can tell my Bucky's cup is red and yellow. I mean, obviously really.


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[Assistant] Bright colors, but when something is more subtle, not easy for me. Thank goodness she's able to do that kind of stuff. But people are buying, uh, furniture


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[Assistant] That trash pickup was happening the next day and there's all this stuff on the street. And this was crazy in Manhattan as people's leases were up.


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[Assistant] People had put furniture they weren't gonna move that they were abandoning right out on the street next to the garbage. And it was like a flea market. People are walking down the sidewalk looking at what furniture people whose leases had ended.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they had just abandoned on the street and people were picking up pieces and they were deciding and people were just walking away with furniture to take to their places free. Uh, I had talked in the past about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, a thing called free cycle and there are different exchanges people do where you pick up furniture for free.


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[Assistant] But people are buying all different kinds of things, sporting goods. I talked last month about how continuing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be a great opportunity is any kind of fitness equipment free that people bought as pandemic puppies that they


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Couldn't go to the gym, so they bought equipment at home. Now they're back at the gym.


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[Assistant] And they're selling that stuff so cheap, thing after thing, that's such a deal. And so you're able, instead of having to deal with the inflationary cycle.


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[Assistant] You're able to save so much money. Clothing right now...


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[Assistant] I don't know if the used clothing business has been affected by this, but with the massive overstocks.


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[Assistant] And discounters trying to get rid of excess clothing. Gosh, you may not need to look at used clothing or the used clothing may even be a better deal now.


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[Assistant] Because the overhang of all the new stuff is being cleared out.


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[Assistant] And then an area that I've always been wishy washy on. Electronics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Buying those that have been refurb. I'm not a big refurb person because I'm always worried about am I buying


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[Assistant] Something that was trouble or am I buying something somebody just didn't want? They took it back and it's now being sold as a refurb.


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[Assistant] Walmart, seeing an opportunity in the market has launched a program called Walmart Restore. And so they're selling stuff in certain categories where you're getting, uh, significant discounts allegedly from what you pay new TVs, computers, cell phones, tablets,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cameras, appliances of various sizes, uh,


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[Assistant] Those are the main categories. What I like about it.


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[Assistant] Is it's 90 day right to return for a full refund. So if something turns out to be in terrible condition, it's not reliable with a refurb. You're going to know pretty quickly that you were sent a piece of junk. And so this is an opportunity with, they call it Walmart restored. So they're calling it refurb anyway.


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[Assistant] With the Walmart restored that you've got this 90 day period that you can just say, nah, take it back, get your money back and at the same time get a lower price. But this is a true inflation fighter. You know, it's hard to fight inflation in the supermarket, hard to fight it on energy, hard to fight it on housing costs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But other stuff in our lives, we can really fight those higher costs. And so this is an opportunity. Now, Christa, I have a beef about my beloved Aldi.


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[Assistant] Yeah, my Aldi yogurt I love so much.


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[Assistant] Before we got into all these much higher grocery prices.


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[Assistant] The yogurt was 29 cents, then it was 34 and then it has some other increases. Now it's 49 cents.


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[Assistant] For that cup of yogurt. So it's gone from 29 to 49 because of the inflation. But then


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[Assistant] Or equivalent yogurt. And I stopped being unhappy about, well, I'm not happy with my 49 cents, but I felt not as unhappy when I saw that price increase.


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[Assistant] This is a great question. The credit reporting system is very poor on this. Uhm, fortunately hard inquiries are a tiny, tiny impact on your, uhm, credit score.


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[Assistant] Hard inquiries are one of the most minor of all things. Now you can,


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[Assistant] Attempt to dispute that hard inquiry with the credit bureau and in the same time you have to contact the giant monster mega bank and I want to tell you


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[Assistant] You might as well be able by yourself to move one of the great pyramids in Egypt or move the great wall of China before you get a giant monster megabank to do the right thing. So I don't know that because the, the impact of a single hard inquiry is so small.


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[Assistant] I don't know that I would spend the time on it. The great thing when you have a credit freeze in place as you do now is you don't end up with that hard inquiry because it just bounces back when a criminal attempts to pretend to be you and apply for credit as if they are you. So now that you've got the credit freeze in place is never going to happen again.


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[Assistant] So depends where you live in the country, Brenda, if you can completely avoid.


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[Assistant] The cost with the gas company. I love it. This has saved you, uh, what? 300 bucks. 300.


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[Assistant] So this is, this is really great. Some jurisdictions you have to pay just to be there for a gas company. You have monthly fees, but for you to avoid the $50 a month is really great. And in states where you can do that, if you're not using


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gas at all for any purpose during warmer weather? Great way to save some money.


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[Assistant] Laurie, I am the bearer of bad news. The employer match is treated as traditional pre-tax money and you will have to pay tax on it when you retire. Now, the good news for you, you got all that money from your employer and they didn't have to give you all that.


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[Assistant] The other thing is that there's actually positive advantages to having money in a pre-tax pile and a post-tax pile and you'll have both.


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[Assistant] And each year you'll be able to figure out based on


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[Assistant] Your income in retirement, your current tax situation, not hurting eligibility for any federal benefits, that, uh, retiree benefits, social security, Medicare costs, things like that, that you can pull little bits out


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[Assistant] of the pre-tax pile that your employer is so generously provided to you.


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[Assistant] So it's just a matter of managing those levers once you are in retirement, but it is a wonderful gift from your employer. And yes, eventually it is a bit of a tax time bomb. And I want to tell you that investing in retirement so interestingly are some of the most popular questions we receive. And this is a real change over the years. When I started doing, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Consumer advice in the 1980s. Yeah, there was life that long ago and I was doing it principally on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was doing radio, TV, newspaper, and then later books.


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[Assistant] When I was doing it, I never ever had questions about retirement.


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[Assistant] But over the decades, we become more and more responsible for our own retirement. And so we've had to learn things that nobody taught us about basic investing and we're happy to help with that.


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[Assistant] Also I want to tell you whatever your question is that might be on your mind.


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[Assistant] Know that we provide free one-on-one advice to you, 30 hours each week, with our volunteers and paid staff at our Team Clark Consumer Action Center.


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[Assistant] They're here to help you from 10 in the morning Eastern time zone.


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[Assistant] Till four in the afternoon Eastern time zone, Monday through Friday.


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[Assistant] Oh, because then they can, well either people will go away or they'll use an online chat or some cheaper form of customer service.


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[Assistant] And if you want to see information about that, Clark.com slash CAC.


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[Assistant] Lochelle in Missouri wrote in and said, I'm traveling to Florida in January of 23 for five days. I have two rental car reservations. Will the rental car shortage still be a problem at that point or do I need to make another reservation just in case?


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[Assistant] You kind of bent over. Is there anything I should do to protect myself besides canceling the checks? What digital payment platforms would you suggest for paying her in the future?


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[Assistant] New checking account number too, with those checks being stolen.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Steven in Pennsylvania says, I'm 49 and was able to retire early this year and I'm wondering whether I should keep my term insurance. It's a one million dollar policy and about 10 years of remaining on it.


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[Assistant] My wife is 38 and still working. She also has a term policy. Since I'm no longer working, should I keep paying $70 a month? I may go back to work someday, but not because I have to.


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[Assistant] Well, speaking of homes and heating, Fernando in California says, help Clark. I bought a new home in July of 2021.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was doing my annual review of my budget versus expenses


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[Assistant] When I realize that I am not paying for electricity.


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[Assistant] Nothing at all. All my bills are paid automatically. I checked the company, the power company's website and it turns out I don't even have an account set up.


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[Assistant] Every month I check my credit card and bank statements to ensure there aren't any outrageous charges. I've never thought to look out for what is not being charged.


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[Assistant] I'm worried if this is an error by the power company and one day they'll realize it and back bill me.


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[Assistant] Can they do that? Worse yet, who is paying? I certainly am not, nor have I ever received a bill.


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[Assistant] I'd love to be able to ride this wave of free electricity, but sooner or later someone is going to notice.


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[Assistant] I know I can fill out a form, have my signature notarized, and mail them to the government, but I'm not comfortable mailing about $2,000 worth of bonds. What should I do? Thanks for all the great advice you give.


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[Assistant] To capitalize on this interest rate, we have just moved our entire checking account and our emergency fund as well to maximize the savings. My wife is uncomfortable with all of our cash being in one spot, but the interest is so good. She also does not love the idea of having random accounts open with online banks. Is the money safe enough in this checking account or should we look elsewhere to place some of it?


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show. Our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. It's time for our weekly Clark stink segment. Can't wait to hear what I've messed up on and also


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[Assistant] So much fear out there among people who've worked hard to save money for their future, invested in the stock market through retirement accounts at work, mutual funds, index funds, individual stocks, whatever. I'm going to address that. But before we begin, I want to know,


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[Assistant] Have you subscribed to our free daily newsletter yet? Go check it out at Clark.com slash newsletters. Remember I said it's free.


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[Assistant] That's my price, you know, I really like. So Christa, it's time to hear how I have messed up with Clark Stinks. So before you start, uh, for new listeners, we haven't said who you are. So Christa,


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[Assistant] She's been with me since 1997, started the first webpage we had.


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[Assistant] What, what was then called the Clark Howard page and has been with me ever since.


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[Assistant] I will never forget when, uh, we


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[Assistant] My wife and I both spoke at career day at a school years ago. And so I'm before the kids and I said, I'm a teacher. They were like, they were like just.


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[Assistant] That was not interesting to them. My wife who's an actress gets up and starts talking about...


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[Assistant] Roles like we do in society, and what could be more important than being a teacher in a classroom teaching kids?


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[Assistant] Well, I appreciate, uh, both of you and everyone else who wrote about the carbon monoxide detector.


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[Assistant] Uh, give a short short version of what that whole segment was about on a prior podcast. So hotels.


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[Assistant] Uh, have fought regulations around the world and here in the United States to require carbon monoxide detectors because it would cost hotels like five dollars a room to do so.


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[Assistant] And they've calculated it's cheaper to just pay death claims when people die from carbon monoxide in a hotel occasionally.


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[Assistant] Then to have to outfit all their rooms with carbon monoxide detectors. So I bought one of the travel carbon monoxide detectors, which is teensy tiny. I mean just a, uh, something that fits in the palm of your hand.


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[Assistant] And I bought a no name and so Richard and others were like, okay, so you're doing all this to stay alive and then you rely on somebody who doesn't even have a name on it.


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[Assistant] And point well taken, that probably was not my best decision. So thank you all for responding to it. And now you know.


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[Assistant] That hotels are playing roulette with your lives by not having carbon monoxide detectors.


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[Assistant] So get a portable brand name one that you take with you in your backpack or suitcase.


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[Assistant] Eric, thank you for that. That was quite a conundrum where, uh, the individual was told the package had been delivered and eBay said to drop dead. And that was unfortunate, obviously.


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[Assistant] Stephen, thank you and I obviously have to respect your expertise as a professor. I will tell you that there is, that it is actually a law that requires the healthcare disclosure and the hospitals have chosen not to comply. I saw recently in one of the big states


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[Assistant] That will use AI to be able to where I'm expecting what's going to come along is that when hospitals finally do comply with the law, which eventually they will cause they'll be forced to.


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[Assistant] That you'll be able to put in the procedure or surgery or whatever you're having at a third party website.


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[Assistant] And they will almost certainly be able to calculate an estimate.


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[Assistant] Based on your insurance or lack of insurance and the


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[Assistant] Specific insurance you have, what the cost will be at different medical facilities for those procedures. You are correct that right now just the raw data


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[Assistant] Is too hard for anyone other than somebody somehow connected to the medical field to be able to make sense of the data.


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[Assistant] And medical's a tough area, uh, but hospitals not wanting to comply with the law, with the requirements, is very upsetting to me.


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[Assistant] Jacob, uh, uh, valid point that the, uh, that one fidelity, the zero holds a thousand less stocks than the, uh, than the traditional fidelity total stock market fund.


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[Assistant] But the reality is, if you look at the overall market cap,


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[Assistant] Of the companies that make up the fidelity zero, you're pretty much most of the way there. The, the thousand that you're missing don't have a lot of market cap, but it is also true that the zero fund is really a marketing phenomenon and paying, uh,


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[Assistant] One and a half basis points, which is basically almost free and having the wider exposure.


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[Assistant] Quite likely is a better idea, but what Fidelity's done with the zero funds is they've gotten people into their house and they're investing with them


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[Assistant] And they can do small investments because there's no minimum account size.


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[Assistant] And have no fees to have the account and no ongoing management of it. I think the Fidelity Zero funds are in fact a brilliant product that works very well for most everybody.


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[Assistant] Anonymous, thank you. Uhm, I, I have such a bias against, uh, government doing something like the EV charging stations because of the,


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[Assistant] Inefficiency that comes with government trying to figure it out. So I have.


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[Assistant] Trouble sometimes seeing the forest for the trees and this chicken and egg. I'm using all these analogies. The chicken and egg issue with the electric vehicle charging.


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[Assistant] Economics of electric vehicles is so overwhelmingly compelling versus buying gas engine vehicles. Uh, right now


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[Assistant] Electric vehicles are in many cases not competitive.


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[Assistant] With their gas engine competitors except at the higher end of the car market. But that is almost certainly going to change as we're at a point now where the cost of manufacturing the electric power plants for a vehicle is getting to a point where it's going to fall below


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[Assistant] The gas engine equivalent of engine and transmission infrastructure in months. I don't know how many months, but we're getting there and then it's just going to work. Um, is somebody who might be considering buying an electric vehicle and you're worried about the whole charging thing. The biggest issue I see is for people who don't have a garage to charge at on a regular basis because people do


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[Assistant] That's really hard at apartments. My daughter who lives in Pasadena, California, there's


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[Assistant] And I think there's 55 electric vehicles she counted in the garage.


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[Assistant] So it is Hunger Games when that, when that space becomes available. And, uh, guess what they do to somebody who parks in that space who's not an electric vehicle?


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[Assistant] Wow. That's how fired up the 55 people are about being able to charge their vehicle. So obviously they need a lot more than one charger. So the charging thing is an issue.


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[Assistant] Cruzland, what did they get from the federal government is COVID relief.


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[Assistant] Do you know how much the cruise lines got? Not a single penny.


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[Assistant] And the airlines have always been extremely politically powerful in Washington. And the, uh, justification, if there is one, is National Defense Homeland Security because under federal law,


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[Assistant] In the event of a, uh, true national emergency, the federal government is


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[Assistant] Taxpayer gifts, including your math, 54 billion. I didn't realize it was 54 billion that they got to keep operating during COVID and not go bankrupt. So,


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[Assistant] That's something the airline should not have gotten. On the other hand, I'm very much in favor of an Air Passengers Bill of Rights. That what the Europeans have done


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is actually much smarter than what we've done with air travel. Where if an airline has a flight delay or cancel, there are clear rules what an airline must do. Like provide you alternative transportation on a competitor.


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[Assistant] Uh, which is something we used to have as law in the United States. That should be law again. Provide hotel accommodations when you get stranded overnight. I mean, we should have these things. The European airlines said it was going to be the end of their existence and they all have handled it just fine.


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[Assistant] And the U.S. airline saying that treating people right


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[Assistant] Would be the end of air travel as we know it is garbage. And all it does is force them to become more efficient.


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[Assistant] On the other hand, having the government decide seat size if it's not related to safety,


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[Assistant] So I guess this is an area where people are really fed up. A lot of people were very unhappy with me not wanting the government to regulate seat size and leg room, but I just don't think that's


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[Assistant] A great role for government. So I guess I respectfully agree to disagree, but Harrison I'm with you.


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[Assistant] We shouldn't have given the airlines one penny of that $54 billion. That was bonkers. So speaking of dollars, do you got enough in that wallet to stay retired?


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[Assistant] To be retired, to feel comfortable about an upcoming retirement. I want to talk about that with what's been going on with the stock market.


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[Assistant] Maybe even more than before about money that they built up as a nest egg. And I got this message came in.


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[Assistant] Here's one. Find out in five minutes if you have enough to retire. Saw another one that was a two minute questionnaire to see if you have enough to retire.


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[Assistant] Over the last few months is people just completely are taken aback by the declines in the stock market. When are they going to stop? Where are they going to stop? What's going to happen? And so if we go back in the way back machine to last year,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it was not exactly brain science.


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[Assistant] In answers to people's questions, I would say, yeah, the stock market's overvalued. It's priced for perfection. There will be a correction. I'm changing nothing even knowing that's coming. And


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[Assistant] The, you know, I got my statements and I see that the value of my account


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[Assistant] What it was on January 1st and what it is now and all that. And I'm chill and I'm 67 and I'm chill. But a lot of the people I'm hearing from are in their thirties and forties and you should be completely chill.


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[Assistant] Because if you're at the accumulation stage.


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[Assistant] Where you're putting money in every pay period at work or something like that.


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[Assistant] You're contributing to, let's say your own Roth IRA once a month, you're buying everything on the clearance rack. Confidence for now is down. And at the same time.


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[Assistant] The relative values we're assigning to companies, down.


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[Assistant] And remember, it was inflated before. What people were willing to pay for company profits before was insane. And now it's coming back to earth. And plus there's worries.


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[Assistant] With the economy and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and Russia's invasion of Ukraine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.


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[Assistant] What's that going to mean to profits as we look forward? And so in the short term markets go through downturns.


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[Assistant] As they should because you end up with people too excited with investing and then you end up with people too terrified of investing. So the question is all where you are in your life and


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[Assistant] If you are at the quote unquote accumulation phase, you're in your job, career, whatever you're contributing.


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[Assistant] Added space, I know capitalism with some people's a dirty word. Don't get it. Anyway, people go into business to make money, right?


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[Assistant] And you can watch the conspiracy movies about how they're trying to cheat people or exploit them or whatever. No.


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[Assistant] There are always going to be people who try to shortcut and take advantage of others in business. But most people in business are working hard


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[Assistant] With a product or service they offer, from a small business to the biggest corporation, they're trying to figure out how to serve a want or need in the marketplace.


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[Assistant] Provide a product or service better than a competitor, cheaper than a competitor, or whatever that you would want to buy it to serve a need in the market. And that's not evil.


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[Assistant] And over time, companies succeed, others fail.


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[Assistant] But when you own the funds like I like you to own, where you own an ETF that's an index fund or you own an index mutual fund, whatever.


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[Assistant] You're owning little pieces of hundreds or thousands of companies, and over time, economies grow, the value of those companies grow, and at base that's why you do it.


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[Assistant] In the short term, you're going to see values go through rough cycles.


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[Assistant] And you're going to see people reassessing, am I okay? And if you're in retirement,


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[Assistant] There's a legitimate reason to make sure you got enough money.


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[Assistant] If you're approaching retirement and in the cycle where you're just getting ready to enter retirement, if you don't have enough money anymore to be able to retire your intended date, it's not the end of the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you have to work a little longer, it's a bummer, but it's not the end of the world. And so if you're in early retirement,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're worried about how much money you have, is we don't know how long a down market lasts.


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[Assistant] We don't know how long it is till values start the next cycle of climbing. I can tell you that usually though, once


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've reached a bottom and a market starts to re-emerge.


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[Assistant] From investing, but it might mean you run to a part time job as an early retiree to supplement what you would have used your investments for. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have a friend who every time there's a decline in the market, he goes into full panic mode and I make fun of him all the time for this. And he calls me and says, so.


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[Assistant] Have you sold anything? I'm on a phone call, but I just imagine his eyes are big as saucers and he's like not sleeping and worried about it and all that. And truth be told, he's got plenty of money. He's got nothing to worry about, even if it declines.


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[Assistant] The emotional reactions can get us into trouble.


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[Assistant] So, as for me, I've changed nothing in my allocation.


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[Assistant] My work is my, uh, you know, they talk about work being a bond, you know, the bonds are the,


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[Assistant] Safe part of your investing portfolio. They've not been this year, but normally they are. I'm still working. I'm not worried. I have nothing to worry about. I just have to be happy, right?


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[Assistant] Yeah, but when, when I start saying things that make no sense at all, you know, it's time.


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[Assistant] I can't believe a bank told you instead of you telling them. Okay, so escrow is a profit center for the banks on mortgages.


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[Assistant] If it's free, like some lenders will say, hey, uh, we'll charge you a quarter point to remove this. But if they're just saying, you know, you've reached the eligibility point, you can remove your escrow as long as you'd never forget to pay your taxes or insurance, go for it.


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[Assistant] Right, but generally, if you've got that much equity...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You probably have pretty good discipline anyway. Oh and with the big run up and home values that happened across the country, a lot of people very early in the paying of their mortgage can probably appraise out


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of having escrow and can appraise out a private mortgage insurance which is a huge additional expense every month.


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[Assistant] So it is not typical. There's so much additional air service to Hawaii from Southwest in particular.


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[Assistant] And airfares to Hawaii because of Southwest's entry into the Hawaiian market.


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[Assistant] Has ended up being one of those things that should be in the next Freakonomics book. That the cost of staying in Hawaii...


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[Assistant] Is a lot more expensive because the airfares are so much lower than they were.


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[Assistant] Before Southwest entered the Hawaiian air market. And so the number of people going to Hawaii has gone up so much that you can blame Southwest Veronica for this because they're really at fault. If the, if you would say that's fault. So my middle brother,


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[Assistant] And his wife went to Hawaii for three weeks recently and they had the best time.


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[Assistant] But they are still talking about the sticker shock from the accommodations and


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[Assistant] The hotels are off the charts. I found a couple of things in Hawaii though. One,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that if you're willing to do VRBO, which seems to be a bigger factor in the Hawaiian Islands than Airbnb,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You may find a place that you're happy with. Just know that the VRBOs are going to be non-refundable almost always. So if later your trip changes, you're out the money.


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[Assistant] The other thing I've found is that the resorts that you would book, like a traditional hotel resort, many times their rates go down much closer to arrival than what you're quoted upfront. So you're going early November, which is not a peak time for travel to Hawaii.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you may find that closer to your travel, you're going to find better deals on those resorts and I really like Priceline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For shopping those resorts, Priceline tends to be more aggressive.


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[Assistant] With offering deals and other outlets for getting hotel rooms.


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[Assistant] All right, Brendan, you are one lucky dude. So uhm,


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[Assistant] Usually only people of a certain, considered a certain level of value to a big corporation.


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[Assistant] Get these full Reload packages like you're getting.


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[Assistant] The Rilo companies, uhm, have to satisfy


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[Assistant] Those big corporations, I can think of only a single time


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[Assistant] In all the years that we had someone who had a series of


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[Assistant] The litany of just terrible complaints and problems from a corporate reload that usually you do better with a corporate reload umbrella.


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[Assistant] With the moving company and all the rest than you would do on your own. So I think it would be very, very unlikely that you would have a problem and get burned. Now the Reno company


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[Assistant] Uh, you're unable to get a good price selling on your own. Just know that you want to be very careful and usually you get to


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[Assistant] They have an appraiser, you get to have your own appraiser and there's some kind of compromise between the values. Uh, you want to make sure you choose that appraiser carefully who's doing the appraisal for you for the price that is the backup price you get.


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[Assistant] If your home does not sell, I can't tell from what you said. You said they're taking care of your home sale.


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[Assistant] I don't know if that means you don't have to put your house on the market.


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[Assistant] Or if that's the backstop, if it is a backstop though, or even if it is, they're just going to buy it. You got to make sure that price is one.


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[Assistant] I hope that we've made you happy today, and that no matter where you live, that we have served your wallet and you well today.


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[Assistant] And all the resources we've talked about today.


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[Assistant] Or in our show notes that we post after each podcast.


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[Assistant] And you can see all the show notes, the links, everything we talk about at Clark.com slash podcast. Have a wonderful day.


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[Assistant] Okay, we'll go to some questions now. This one's from James who's in California. I've owned a property in San Diego for more than three years and plan to relocate to North Carolina. Would it be worth it to rent my property for the next three years and sell before I'm required to pay capital gains tax? Or should I just sell and get out of Dodge?


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[Assistant] That doesn't seem correct. Why bother with having the HSA as an investment if it's not earning much at all for interest?


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[Assistant] And this is from Diane in Georgia. Is it true that you can pay off your mortgage faster if you send the monthly payment in two payments each month? Also, I pay extra principal each month. Should that be sent in two times?


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, it's been going on since, since I started working with you before then, so.


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[Assistant] He says, I'm a retired military veteran as we are on a limited income. My wife and I often look for discounts on many of the things we purchased for the last 20 years. That is included using a vacation club for the military to book resort vacation rentals.


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[Assistant] Usually we have been very happy with our experiences. Last December we purchased three certificates for discounts on their regular seven nights days for $299 each.


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[Assistant] There are numerous resorts available at the regular price, but when we attempt to book a stay using these certificates, the availability of resorts is vastly reduced.


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[Assistant] Reduced. We can not, we can book many resorts for the regular price or pay an upgrade fee of $350 or more, not including the certificate.


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[Assistant] Depending upon the resort. This essentially makes the three certificates all but worthless. We feel that the certificates were advertised and sold under false pretenses.


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[Assistant] And this is from Emma in South Carolina. Unfortunately my husband's family bought burial plots for everyone decades ago. We do not need them as we all plan to be cremated.


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[Assistant] Any thoughts on how to sell these plots? I've been unsuccessful with Craigslist.


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[Assistant] Here's another option to enjoy the benefits of yoga without paying big bucks. There are great apps out there like Down Dog Yoga.


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[Assistant] Right, but remember the person was shocked that you would pay for yoga cause it's so expensive.


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[Assistant] Oh, an actual mirror, cause you know there's a very expensive device called the mirror.


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[Assistant] Okay, this was written, uhm, before Hurricane Ian, so I just want to say that. As an insurance professional, your segment on the rising cost of homeowners insurance, particularly in coastal states, missed the mark.


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[Assistant] In fact, your message only worsens the situation by spreading inaccurate information. The primary drivers of rising premiums in states susceptible to natural disaster are not actually tied to extreme weather as you suggest.


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[Assistant] It is a result of three main factors. Legal system abuse, which is, uhm, lawsuit, inflation, third party litigation, funding and nuclear verdicts, etc.


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[Assistant] Fraud and abuse, false and exaggerated claims, bid rigging by contractors, repair scams, and out of state opportunities.


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[Assistant] And government interference. Interference with the marketplace that allows insurers to accurately price risk.


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[Assistant] Take Florida, for example, where there has not been a hurricane that has caused major damage since 2018, yet where property insurance is in complete, a complete meltdown. The state accounts for roughly 7% of the nation's homeowners claims, but is facing 67, 76% of the nation's homeowners insurance lawsuits due to lawsuit abuse.


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[Assistant] Louisiana and California are other examples of states where the marketplace is not functioning properly due to abuse, fraud, and government interference. In these instances, insurance may not have no other choice but to exit a market completely, and that's from Evan.


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[Assistant] Sometimes your advice is less than complete. On relatives being asked to pay for someone's nursing home bill, you failed to mention two important issues.


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[Assistant] For a fear of confusing your listeners. I think your listeners may be brighter than you think, Dwight.


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[Assistant] You recently sounded off on car dealers as being inefficiency, there being inefficiencies in the market and downright bad for the customer.


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[Assistant] It's true that today people are paying more than ever for a car, but pre-pandemic most people were paying less than MSRP thanks to dealers. If dealers are removed from the market, there will be less competition and higher prices.


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[Assistant] Dealers need to be more transparent and straightforward, but they shouldn't disappear completely, Neil. And we also got a similar one, uhm, from Sean.


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[Assistant] Clark not only stinks, but he jumps to the negative. On today's episode, a lady wrote in about how her husband


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[Assistant] Had a $400 receipt from the self-checkout lane at a hardware store because the person before him left the transaction open on the terminal.


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[Assistant] Clark automatically assumed the negative and said the first person stole the high dollar item because they didn't complete the transaction and they walked out with it. Perhaps the person just scanned the item to check the price or maybe they scanned and discovered it was too expensive so they left the store, left it at the store.


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[Assistant] Clark, the world is really already too negative. Please look at all angles before assuming the worst. Cheryl.


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[Assistant] Hurricane warning or other such messages of impending doom.


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[Assistant] You'd want this location data available to the app whether you have the app open or not.


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[Assistant] or what have you in addition to the new crash detection recently introduced by Apple. As for very inconvenient,


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[Assistant] Some home automation apps turn lights on at your home and can even be programmed to adjust your thermostat if the app senses you are returning to your home.


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[Assistant] You might not be using the app at all until you get home, but the app needs this location data on at all times for full functionality. The best bet is to make certain that you trust the app provider


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[Assistant] And not some sketchy app where you don't know what will be done with your location data.


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[Assistant] And I didn't put the name on that, I'm sorry.


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[Assistant] Okay, I normally love Clark and quote him constantly, but when I listen to his advice, cash is king, cash is it, you have earned the reward of not having to pay interest at all.


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[Assistant] Clark says, you can't expect, well I'm going to earn more on it, so I should borrow money at one and a half percent.


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[Assistant] Uh oh, pay cash, be done. I know you own that Model Y free and clear, and I paid off my 1.8% car loan. I made a huge mistake. I should have kept my cash. I would be earning more interest in my high-yield savings on a short-term CD.


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[Assistant] Then I would have even more extra cash in case of an emergency. In this case, I wish I hadn't listened to Clark. Rachel.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm seeing stuff left in the back seat pockets, but I've been doing this wipe down thing for years. I was ahead of, ahead of COVID. I've always brought wipes on. Yeah. I wipe down the tray.


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[Assistant] And this side arms and, you know, and then I go into a hotel room and I wipe down the remote. They were cleaning those and putting them in baggies in the hotels, but I noticed that's not happening anymore either. Like we're going backwards to, you know, I appreciate cleanliness.


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[Assistant] You probably are, but I just, I don't know, there's certain things with me.


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[Assistant] Okay, this is from Gerald in California. We are looking to start international travel again specifically to Japan where they will be easing travel restrictions.


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[Assistant] Given that the chance of getting mildly to critically ill is still a very real possibility, what are your recommendations for getting international coverage health insurance?


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[Assistant] Bill in Georgia says, I know Clark loves Aldi and he buys golf balls for a quarter a piece. Where do you get those? I saw a YouTube video where a guy bought a set of golf clubs from Aldi for $100 and something. He loved the irons.


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[Assistant] And Lauren, Lauren in Pennsylvania says, I bought a lemon Meg tag washer three days after the warranty expired. The mechanism that holds the lid to the body, crack the lid. I pestered them and they gave us a new lid.


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[Assistant] But we had to pay for installation. Now the same thing has happened again, but on a different side. Do I have any recourse? No more lonely Maytag repairman. The washer's about four years old.


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. One way we serve you is one-on-one through our Team Clark Consumer Action Center for roughly 30 years now. We have been available for free to answer your questions, concerns, complaints, provide info to you and guidance one-on-one for nothing.


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[Assistant] That you have someplace you can turn to that you can trust. And that's why we do it.


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[Assistant] And so it's made up of employees and volunteers, team Clark. And so you can talk with one of our team members.


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[Assistant] From 10 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon. Those are Eastern time zone times.


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[Assistant] I recently talked about how, what you can earn on,


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[Assistant] Savings accounts, money market funds, CDs.


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[Assistant] How now you can actually earn money on your money again. But what's really funny.


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[Assistant] Was I read an item bashing the big banks and no, I didn't write it. I just enjoyed it about how the big banks find that it doesn't matter if they pay people no interest.


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[Assistant] That so many people are so tied into the giant banks, they'll just give them the money anyway and are nothing on it. And then the bank turns around and says, Oh, well, interest rates are rising. So we're charged more money on the money we lend to businesses and for auto loans and whatever else we do.


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[Assistant] With money that we lend out. So we're just making more bank now at the bank.


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[Assistant] Because we're still paying you nothing on your savings and we're charging you as a borrower much more money.


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[Assistant] So do you want to play in that ball yard? Do you want to get ripped off by the bank? I mean, why do that?


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[Assistant] When I say bank, I'm talking about bank where there's a physical branch.


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[Assistant] And yes, some small local banks are actually offering better deals like credit unions do, but generally.


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[Assistant] Most banking is now controlled by bigger players.


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[Assistant] And it's your choice if you want to be squeezed and taken advantage of. It was funny, I was looking to see what


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[Assistant] Some of the big banks are paying, like Bank of America.


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[Assistant] Paying one one hundredth of one percent on savings, unless you're a primo customer of theirs, then they're paying four one hundredths of one percent on your savings. Similar things at the other giant monster megabanks. At the same time, I walked into one of the credit unions I'm a member of, actually went physically in person, I had to, uh, get a cashier's check. And the teller said, you know, we have a special coming next week.


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[Assistant] Into a CD there because it's been novel. I mean, when's the last time you saw 3.3% on a CD?


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[Assistant] Cause you only put so much money into those series high savings bonds I talk about that are paying right now, triple that. But anyway.


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[Assistant] If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read our briefing at Clark.com on Series I savings bonds. So if you


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[Assistant] Do business with Fidelity Investments or Charles Schwab. They're both paying over 2% right now on money market.


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[Assistant] Again, if you got money sitting in one of those giant monster megabanks, you either hate yourself or you just don't know.


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[Assistant] That you hate yourself. No, you just don't know and you haven't done anything about it. Don't let inertia be your enemy. Move that money. A lot of the online banks offering really good rates. You know, uhm,


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[Assistant] You know who's a big backer of the online banking sector? Somebody who's such a traditionalist. Warren Buffett.


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[Assistant] And he I think is the largest owner now of Ally Bank.


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[Assistant] And Ally Bank offers much better deals on savings even though Ally is an online bank has actually become a


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[Assistant] Uh, I said it actually like three times. It has become a pretty large bank by itself, but because they're online only,


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[Assistant] They don't have all the normal bank overhead. And so they can pay you much better deals. So we're headed towards over 2%. And from here, who knows, maybe we're still headed higher.


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[Assistant] Uh, depends on how successful the Federal Reserve is at ringing inflation from the economy.


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[Assistant] It's going to take longer. Wall Street's been declaring victory over inflation. Not done yet, but we have turned a corner on inflation.


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[Assistant] It's not going the wrong direction now, but it's not defeated yet. So for a while we should see better rates on saving CDs.


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[Assistant] Money market accounts, money market, mutual funds and the like, and we'll continue for a while.


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[Assistant] Is the series I savings bonds, you know, the rate resets that you earn every six months. We're going to continue to see decent rates of earning on the series I savings bonds for a while to come. So the most important thing


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[Assistant] At a traditional bricks and mortar bank. Again, unless you don't like your money. Krista?


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[Assistant] This is like back to the future. I mean, this is something we talked about 20 years ago.


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[Assistant] Is what are called brokerage place CDs and they're back.


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[Assistant] So you can go to the discount brokers and go to Schwab Fidelity or another discount broker and they can place CD money for you with an FDIC insured institution potentially at a higher rate


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[Assistant] Uh, doing it through their wholesale operation, you can get a higher rate than you can on your own going to a financial institution.


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[Assistant] So the question is answered by this. If the student loans your daughter has carry no interest till graduation, which certain federal loans carry no interest


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[Assistant] Then she would not want to pay down the balance. On the other hand, if it does carry interest, then it would be a good idea


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[Assistant] To use this money towards that loan balance so she's not accruing interest.


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[Assistant] While she's waiting till she finishes school to start paying on the loans.


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[Assistant] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 221 hours?


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[Assistant] So a lawyer who specializes in wills, estates, and trusts, they bill a pretty high hourly rate.


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[Assistant] Generally considered to be a part of the law that's geared towards wealthy families, business owners, that kind of thing. And it's a very specialized area of the law. So you do have a very high hourly rate


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[Assistant] Uh, several hundred an hour to as much as like six or seven hundred dollars an hour, believe it or not, to have a lawyer


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[Assistant] Uh, that, that's their, his or her specialty. In this case, you got a relative and billing, I don't know what the cousin's hourly rate was.


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[Assistant] But how it took 221 hours, there must've been a big mess with that trust or you were taken advantage of by a relative and


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[Assistant] Where they're billing you in six minute increments most often. So this is, uh,


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[Assistant] This is really sticky because we are talking about a relative who build for a massive number of hours and I think Fadia was reasonable is for you to, in a polite way,


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[Assistant] Send a friendly note because you may not be friendly asking it verbally and make sure the note is friendly. Say, uh, that you were surprised by the number of hours of work. Why did it, uh, as friendly as you can say, why did it take so many hours?


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[Assistant] And then the question is, what do you hope to accomplish and what you hope to accomplish?


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[Assistant] Is that the cousin will, and this is why the tone being extra friendly is important, may say, okay, uh, as a gesture to family, I'm going to cut my bill X percent to keep peace and harmony in the family. I don't even want to go to where we go to next. If the cousin's response is very unfriendly, but, uh, the question would be, was this an abusive action by the cousin?


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[Assistant] Billing for so many hours or was there a lot of drama involved with dispersing or handling the trust?


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[Assistant] Because of language that was not clear or disputes within the family and that we don't know.


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[Assistant] I mean, this would have to be a lawyer. I mean, if it's involving the trust.


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[Assistant] How could it not be a lawyer and billing for hours?


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[Assistant] This being anything other, so I'm making a lot of assumptions. Funny, and you're helping me out here by saying, Clark, don't make that assumption. So.


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[Assistant] Let us know what happens after and remember, make the tone of that letter to your cousin very collegial friendly, not hostile.


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[Assistant] Cause if you make the tone of the letter you send hostile, the response you get back.


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[Assistant] So, uh, gosh, it's a weird thing and there's some justification for it in today's workforce, but at the same time it can get bad, ugly. We're going to talk about that.


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[Assistant] I have, uh, I went to business school for grad school and I think often about the cases, the, you know, at business school, you study cases on what companies did right or wrong. And I remember.


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[Assistant] In grad school studying so many decisions that were made, a single decision or a group of decisions that led to disaster for a business or led to success.


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[Assistant] And one that I think is a modern example is why does the cell phone carrier Sprint no longer exist? What destroyed Sprint? Sprint destroyed itself. It was because they had management with an IQ of like 12 that early before this was a thing,


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[Assistant] Started using productivity software to judge their employees.


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[Assistant] And the productivity software, remember this is in theory supposed to be a service business, the cell phone business.


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[Assistant] The employees were only judged on how many customers they could handle per hour per shift. Never what they actually did for those customers.


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[Assistant] And so generally when somebody makes point of contact with a cell phone carrier,


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[Assistant] They're not calling in to talk about the weather. They're calling in because there's a problem with their bill, there's a problem with their phone, there's a problem with their service.


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[Assistant] Well, the Sprint employees knew if they actually helped anybody, they'd get fired.


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[Assistant] Cause they had to go through those calls or their productivity score was going to go down. And what happened instead is sprint went down and became extinct because they use productivity measurement, employee measurement and spying tools for the wrong goal. They were trying to hold down costs instead of retain customers. And that's a death spiral for a business.


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[Assistant] Is when it's all about looking myopically.


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[Assistant] At the operation of a business instead of wholly at the operation of a business. How is it that we.


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[Assistant] Um, improve our reputation, improve our, our perception with people and the quality, the actual quality of service and the key and any business that involves


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[Assistant] Are you there for the customer when something goes wrong or do you treat them like dirt?


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[Assistant] And so that's how the loyalty is earned or destroyed.


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[Assistant] So today I'm really, really skeptical about all this technology now available for companies to spy on their workers.


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[Assistant] And gauge their productivity on different scales. That there's been even more of an emphasis on


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[Assistant] Because of all the remote work. And there's this generation gap that is a huge gap.


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[Assistant] Between what younger workers today want and expect


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[Assistant] With work autonomy and remote work and hybrid work and the generally older


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[Assistant] People who dominate the executive suite at most companies who are like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I only trust somebody who's working if they're sitting right in front of me. If I can see them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So since I gotta go along with this stupid thing of people being able to work hybrid or remote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I'm going to spy on them every way I can. And so companies are buying all this technology, some off the shelf, some that's being, uh, custom sold to them to track their workers. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Know that you are being tracked. You're being, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're being scaled, you know, where they'll use a Likert scale. They'll use some kind of scaling to say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good employee, mediocre employee, terrible employee, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is a dilemma because there are people who working at home are going to be, well, they're going to loaf some, right? They're always going to be people who, well, they're not looking. So I'm off to do ba-ba.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there is a pattern around the country and the large metros.


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[Assistant] Where traffic is a lot worse in the afternoon than it is in the mornings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's because people are working harder in the morning and the afternoon, they're like, well, wouldn't it be great to go play tennis right now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're like, I wish I could go play tennis. I'm working too much. But the point is there is this expectation gap between a mostly younger workforce and a mostly older management or executive force. And so the question always is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why are you spying on people? And what do you hope to achieve? Buy it. And are you measuring the right things?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are you doing a sprint to yourself? Are you going to destroy your company?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just like those highly paid executives destroyed Sprint. Are you going to do that to your own company with how you're measuring people? And for you as an employee, know that likely you are being somehow watched


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who works in a company provided work truck?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Know that the company's likely got some stuff in that truck that's monitoring you. So just be aware.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of what's going on here. And Krista, you and I have talked a lot about this, about uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where that line is, do you have your thoughts as cause you're, you manage a lot of people where that line is between


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Expectations of trusting people and when you actually verify.


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[Assistant] Well, he's perhaps the second greatest coach of all time in the NFL.


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[Assistant] Okay, so let me say in this case two, I'm going to mention two company names in this case. Uh, one is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who knows if this is tied up in the Equifax booboo. Uh, we haven't talked a lot about the most recent Equifax problems.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Equifax had a, uh, internal error that gave improper information to credit granders and it's not clear how many millions of people are involved and how many different types of loan products


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It applies to now Equifax says it was principally about mortgages, which would not explain Equifax as being an angle on the problem you had with such a high score being approved for a credit card. So again, we don't know all the details yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the latest Equifax snafu. That, it's funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of all the things about the Equifax snafu that really have, has annoyed me, it's that Equifax to this moment,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has not apologized at any level, including the CEO.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who acted like, oh yeaah, so we messed up. It's not gonna hurt us. Uh, financially, how did the CEO say it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not gonna affect our finances materially, I think was the expression.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The CEO used something to that effect. Very annoying to me. Why not just say, Hey, if we caused you a problem with the interest rate,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And chase has some unusual criteria for granting credit cards. They use the, um, the revolving account average age and then they said insufficient balance and deposits and investments with chase. So they made a loyalty decision on you that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You were not into chase for enough stuff to be somebody who they wanted to issue a card to. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that it could particularly be a chase issue. Chase also has some internal criteria they use depending on whether you have have in the past or currently applied for so many cards with chase over a period of time, they will deny you just because they've decided you're somebody whose profitability is not going to be enough for them. So I would not take the denial for,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This card to be because of an issue with your credit. It, I think it was a decision of chase looking at your profile and saying, you know what? We don't want Mick and Jean. And I think that's more likely the case. Your credit's probably fine, but to make sure if you haven't done so yet, set up a credit karma account where for free you'll be able to track what your status is with your credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'll tell you your likelihood to be approved for various cards from excellent on down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you'll know what your standing is to get another credit card. So the only question I have for you being from Nebraska, how could you talk about an NFL coach instead of talking about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have a bias on this kind of question right now.


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[Assistant] And it's that Fidelity Investments is doing the best job for serving this situation. If you have a young child, Fidelity has become very welcoming to custodial accounts that's, uh, accounts for minor children.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kids are allowed at a relatively young age to actually manage how the investing is done.


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[Assistant] Fidelity charges no account fees, has no minimums.


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[Assistant] And, uh, you want something ultra tax-efficient.


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[Assistant] And Fidelity has their zero index funds where you pay no commissions and no ongoing expenses. So if I were looking for one recommendation


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would say that for this situation, fidelity rises above the competition.


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[Assistant] The 401k is with is not where I'd move money. It's with an ultra high cost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Administrator for 401ks is an insurance company.


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[Assistant] And it's going to be a very expensive place to move that money. Now then here's the other issue. So right now you're in the teacher's pension fund and what I don't know from what you've written,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is if you leave the money there, now that you're no longer teaching,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is your benefit frozen or does the benefit continue to grow over the years leaving it in the pension fund? Generally the pension funds in Illinois, the public pension funds in Illinois have what are considered to be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you compare them to pension funds for public employees in other states, very, very generous. And I don't know if you could talk to someone at the teachers union, uhm, where you used to work, if they could tell you what, uh, with the city of Chicago teachers pension,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If the money will continue to grow if you leave it behind and at what rate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it does continue to grow and it's a decent rate, it would make sense to leave the money there in the pension fund. But if it does not continue to grow and the amount you have is frozen, I would move the money into your own IRA. It would have to be a traditional and I do it at one of the low cost companies rather than going into the 401k


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is administered by this high cost insurance company. And on my investment guide, I show you low cost companies.


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[Assistant] And recommended low cost investments you could look at, but it may be.


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[Assistant] Considering the narrow circumstances you asked me about that you're going to be better off leaving the money in the pension fund. And I want to thank you. And you know, I should mention this is becoming more and more rare. And most states public employees that are hired today no longer have access to pensions. They have access to the equivalent of 401ks being provided to eliminate the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the promises made on these public employee pensions. No, I thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that if you enjoyed our podcast, you'll tell a friend or a family member. And if you did not enjoy it, make sure you share it with a family member you don't like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show where our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. Today, we all know that car prices have gone up, up and away. Well,


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[Assistant] Got a warning for you with your car loan and also some good news about how the marketplace is starting to adjust.


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[Assistant] And later I want to talk about a mental trick that I find can help you save more.


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[Assistant] There have been local TV news stories about what are known as illegal repos of people's vehicles. That dealers that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or buy here, pay here. Want the inventory back so badly because they can apparently resell the vehicles either at auction or to another buyer for more than you're on the hook for for the vehicle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is really, again, I don't want to emphasize this too much. It's just a sign of the times with how much used vehicles at one time had gone up 70% in price because of the severe shortage of rental cars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then because of the issues in manufacturing new vehicles, because the chip shortages and compounding what had happened earlier with factories being closed down because of COVID spreading through workforces. So,


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[Assistant] It's hard to believe and I don't, again, I don't want to dwell too long on the illegal repos, but the most important thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is if you have purchased a vehicle from a dealer where you're paying them instead of paying a traditional lender, please.


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[Assistant] Document every payment you make. Many times people will go by and they'll hand cash over at the lot. Well, where's that receipt?


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[Assistant] You can't trust right now on that and what a terrible thing for me to say, but you want that receipt showing every payment. If you're paying a high risk lender.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want to make sure you have an electronic record of every payment you make because you're likely making them online in some way. You want to have that electronic record. And enough said about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But because of the high costs, all kinds of things are being affected.


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[Assistant] The volume of people riding in ubers and lifts has gone way down because it's costing so much.


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[Assistant] To ride an Uber and a Lyft right now, people are doing anything else. And what I do.


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[Assistant] Is when I'm in a city that, that's big enough that has some form of public transit.


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[Assistant] I just did this the other day. I landed in an airport.


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[Assistant] And the cost of an Uber was so cost prohibitive, I then went to Lyft.


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[Assistant] It was off the charts even higher than Uber in that case.


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[Assistant] So then I went on my phone and figured out how to ride public transit from that airport and that's exactly what I did. My daughter had landed, my middle child had landed at Newark airport two weeks ago and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had gone on, uh, Uber and Lyft and one of them was $155 and the other was a hundred and something. She said, dad.


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[Assistant] And so I walked her through the three trains she was going to have to take.


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[Assistant] Uber and Lyft are now offering something to try to get people back.


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[Assistant] And it's the kind of flexibility that goes along with, do you know what's selling like crazy around the country right now? Electric bikes.


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[Assistant] People who live within 10 miles of where they're trying to go?


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[Assistant] Are now riding electric bikes because those, unlike putting a vehicle on the road, electric bikes cost like nothing to run.


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[Assistant] That's more than I can handle, but you were talking to me the other day when I had landed in an airport and I was riding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, public transit thing and you were like, you were, you were really laughing at me.


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[Assistant] So, uh, I, I remember the last time I sold a used vehicle. I went, uh, you know, you got the price from Carvan online. Uh, CarMax sometimes will give you a price online and then other times you have to come in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they'll give you the price. Room's always online. So I'm going dealer to dealer to dealer to sell a vehicle and.


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[Assistant] So I got an offer, not from one of these three, but I got from a traditional dealership. I got an offer that was, uh, it was.


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[Assistant] Uh, $2,500 better than I'd gotten anywhere else. And I didn't want them to change their mind or anything like that. I left it right there. I was with my son and he's like, dad, how are we getting home? I said, I don't care. Uber, whatever stupid public transportation.


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[Assistant] And she thought I was kidding. I said, no, I need a trash bag. So she gets me this little teeny trash bag. I mean this...


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[Assistant] Like not even a kitchen size trash bag. I said, no, no, no, I need the one that the cleaning service uses. One of the big. And so.


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[Assistant] So there I am. Oh my gosh. Like Santa with...


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[Assistant] His sack of gifts, carrying all this junk that we were carrying around in the trunk of the vehicle and, uh, and left it and, and it was done. But it's, it's, let's make a deal right now. And what Rick said,


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[Assistant] There is no one pattern, there is no one place that will give you the best deal, but what is almost always true right now is that treating


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[Assistant] The vehicle you're getting rid of, separate from the vehicle you're buying?


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[Assistant] Even in states that have a sales tax benefit to doing a trade in instead of selling and buying separately.


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[Assistant] It will almost always generate you a much better overall deal.


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[Assistant] Shopping the sale of your existing vehicle and separately the vehicle you're buying.


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[Assistant] That is a problem if you're staying at a hotel that offers no baggage check, but in


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[Assistant] Pretty much any mid-size or large city, there will be some kind of baggage storage service in downtown. And, uh, there are several situations where people end up


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[Assistant] With bags they need to store somewhere, concerts, sports events, something like that. And these are generally bonded places you go and you drop your bag.


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[Assistant] And you leave it while you go to the sports event.


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[Assistant] Uhm, there's a chain called Luggage Hero that's, how many cities are they in?


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[Assistant] It's not terribly expensive. Uh, and you may surprise yourself with some of the hotels you stay at, particularly if you'll use my Priceline methods for the hotels.


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[Assistant] In, uh, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit, you may end up at a really nice hotel at not a terrible amount of money. And I, my oldest brother,


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[Assistant] I just can't convince him to book this way.


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[Assistant] And last night he ended up at a hotel, I'm not going to say the chain, but he told me the chain. I'm like, Gary, that could be a real dump.


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[Assistant] So William, I thank you for bringing this up and I talked about maybe last month.


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[Assistant] That credit card fraud is up by massive percents in the last year. The number 70% sticks in my mind. That may be an inaccurate number. I mean, way, way, way up. Uh, hackers have figured out


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In your case, what I would do is I'd have one credit card that you use only for


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[Assistant] Any kind of automatic payments or payments you do online and that way if the credit card you use for wandering around or credit card to use for wandering around.


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[Assistant] Uh, that one or those, any of those get compromised. You haven't affected any of the card, any of the payments you're doing with a payment only card.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's a pre-existing pattern of automatic payment, let's say you're paying a streaming subscription.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you're paying, uhm, what kind of things would people pay regularly, automatically? Phone bill. Phone bill, something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they allow that payment to continue even after they've changed your original number, just because of the disruptive patterns involved with having to change the number with everybody. So you may not have to change it, uh, with as many people as you might think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of the ability to continue using the old number just for those pre-existing automatic charges. But no, I mean this is a hassle and a half


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[Assistant] With having to change it, but the bigger issue is people who don't check their statements.


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[Assistant] It ended up after 60 days losing whatever money a hacker or criminal has charged using your number. And you know, I've got this thing about finance that up to a certain amount of income,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Life's a struggle. You just don't have enough to make it happen. But beyond that, it's all up here. It's all in our heads. And something I read recently proves how much of what goes on in money


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is about the mental emotional side of us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not the reasoning side of our lives. We're going to talk about that. One of the things about us as human beings is there's what we intend to do and then there's what happens. And this is.


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[Assistant] Nothing bad about us. It's just human beings. We, we're complicated creatures and we may have the best of intentions, but well, things happen. I think about when I talk to people who don't have a workplace savings and investment plan of any kind, which is about half a people.


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[Assistant] Or you're working for yourself and you're on your own to say that regardless of the best of intentions, it just doesn't really get done. Well, in our plan that I have for our employees, our 401k plan, I automatically enroll everybody. I'm that bad person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I automatically enroll people at 6% of their pay. And then I match it dollar for dollar so that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People are effectively are saving, uh, 12 cents of every dollar they make.


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[Assistant] And the participation rates, a hundred percent that once people are automatically enrolled, they stay in.


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[Assistant] And my hope over time is they increase what they save. Now the average person in a 401k plan


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And most employers now do the automatic enrollment.


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[Assistant] They're saving about 7.5% of what they make. A better number would obviously be higher.


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[Assistant] I talk about saving a dime of every dollar you make over your working lifetime, but seven and a half is good.


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[Assistant] So when an employer has a retirement plan, they automatically enroll you.


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[Assistant] Do you know participation is almost a hundred percent? It's way upper nineties percent.


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[Assistant] At a plan that, uh, where an employer offers a plan,


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[Assistant] And they don't offer automatic enrollment. It's up to you to sign up. You still get participation about 65%. But then when somebody doesn't have a retirement plan where they work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About doing this, but it just, life just keeps happening. You got all kinds of things to happen.


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[Assistant] So automatic investing, automatic savings, you know, with your paycheck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can have a certain amount of money split deposit from a paycheck.


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[Assistant] Never, never, never, not ever, never.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, half of Americans do their banking at a giant monster mega bank because they want to be abused by that bank. But that's a story for another time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you set up where you're automatically having a portion of the money go into, let's say an online savings account or a credit union savings account, you're going to earn what's finally again, a decent


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amount of interest, not enough to cover inflation right now, but you'll earn some. And then if you go to the next step.


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[Assistant] And you set up a Roth IRA, a retirement account that, depending on your age, you can put six grand a year in or seven grand a year in.


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[Assistant] You're able to start doing that habit. Think of it as 500 bucks a month.


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[Assistant] But as behavioral economists say, never talk about what something is per month. Talk about what it is per day. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Roth IRA with one of the low cost companies, which are Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard. Set up one with one of them. You could do Betterment or Wealthfront. You set that up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you set up automatically depositing money into that Roth IRA every month. You have now done what


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[Assistant] Traditional employers with 401k is due for their workers. What was the answer?


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[Assistant] 17 dollars a day. So I did okay with my quick math. So 17 bucks a day. That's 30 days, yea. 17 bucks a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gets you to where you were saving substantial money and building financial security over the years for your life.


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[Assistant] Just think about it. So building habits, you know, we know what bad habits do in our lives, right?


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[Assistant] Doing the same thing with good habits really has such impact over time. But again,


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[Assistant] Intentions don't lead to results.


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[Assistant] It is setting things on automatic pilot that leads to results.


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[Assistant] Okay, you are such a thoughtful, deep person and I'm just not that person.


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[Assistant] No, I think about all the things you tell me over time about you've read this and you've studied that.


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[Assistant] I'm not expecting, I could be completely wrong, but I don't see.


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[Assistant] House price collapse. It could be some softening of home prices, but there's not going to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any conditions moving forward that support in my mind that we're going to have anything like what you may have heard about from 15 years ago, where home prices just collapsed. This is not that environment. Uh, number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've got so many people that are in loans that are just fantastic loans you'd never want to give up.


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[Assistant] Krista, I always forget, you 1.75% or 1.875%?


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[Assistant] Uhm, you, you're talking about in, uh, Utah, I assume you're in the valley, uh, from Provo to Ogden and


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[Assistant] It's one of the fastest growing metro areas in the United States and


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[Assistant] That's not going to stop. Even if population growth slows because of a recession, it's not going to modify the long trend for the Salt Lake Valley.


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[Assistant] North and south and the valley itself, the core of the valley. So.


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[Assistant] I would not fret. Remember you're playing a long game. The mortgage you're going to take out when this home ends up closing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is going to be higher than any of the loans that we're talking about that people have had. But when the recession does come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's possible there will be some softening in home braces, but the odds do not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Support that there's going to be any collapse that you're going to regret having bought the home at this time.


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[Assistant] So Roger, Starlink is some, how many years have you heard me talking about Starlink?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so Starlink is in more and more places. Starlink has proved its value in Ukraine when, uh, the early invasion of Russia, when they tried to disrupt communication in Ukraine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By taking out the ability for military units to communicate with each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've been able to coordinate attacks on the Russians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the war because of Starlink. Starlink is a very flexible service. That's why airlines are testing it. Cruise lines are testing it. And its original design was fixed wireless for people in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is a perfect kind of service. People have been very happy with the speed. They've been very happy with the low latency and, uh, relative to what people have had available in areas before with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only the crummy satellite services, the old fashioned satellite internet. People can't believe how it changed their lives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Using Starlink. And they're not going to be the only one in future years. There are going to be a number of these available. As I recall Bezos, Bezos and Musk don't like each other. Bezos is doing the former CEO of Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is doing one of these things as well. We'll see what pans out, what doesn't, but there will be several different competing ones in the United States and around the world.


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[Assistant] Four high speed internet that are specifically geared towards


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hard to reach areas, and I think you'll be very happy.


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[Assistant] Based on what I've read to this point and heard from people with Starlink.


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[Assistant] To your husband, Katie, for his service to our great nation, I'm really, really appreciative of what he does for our country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So 13 years, steady as you go, keep doing it, straight into the index funds, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, and with index funds, the costs are as little as zero with Fidelity, so extremely cheap with Vanguard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Downside in the market is not going to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really matter as long as you keep putting money in regularly. 13 years from now is going to be a lucky 13 not an unlucky because you'll have the resources for the home. Now one thing you did not mention


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is, it sounds like your husband is not participating in the TSP and the Thrift Savings Plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In spite of some of the administrative problems it's having right now, remains


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A great, great place to sock money because it's the lowest cost retirement plan offered in the marketplace. You can do the Roth TSP, have that money grow tax free, and then ultimately, uh, in retirement, spend it tax free. That would be one additional thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For you to look at or even move money that you're putting somewhere else and participate in the TSP that the Army offers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you ever see the video of Bezos doing his first Blue Origin flight?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, it, it by itself, when they're doing the after press conference looks like a Saturday Night Live skit. And Bezos is wearing this whole cowboy ghetto.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All right. This is actually not the midlife. This is the end of this podcast episode.