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[Assistant] I guess Italy, probably, because I've been there the most and I love Italy.


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[Assistant] But I'd be nervous to buy property anywhere because of their country's laws and everything and you just don't know what's gonna happen. It would, a lot of people I hear, oh you should buy.


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[Assistant] I'd love to be a global, I'd like to hop every six months from place to place to experience different countries. That's what I would love to do. For a while.


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[Assistant] Alright, well should I get to some questions here? Angie in Texas is actually moving. I may be moving out of state for a new job. What tips can you provide about using a moving company?


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[Assistant] What do I need to be mindful of before selecting one? And how does the insurance work and how much should one purchase to cover items? And I'm also looking to have my car transported with my items because of current medical conditions. Do you consider this an issue?


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[Assistant] They threaten collections even though the drug plan admits their employee advised me incorrectly. Is there anything I can do?


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


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[Assistant] It's September, and that means...


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[Assistant] It's time to start thinking about Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's travel. Not kidding. I'm going to tell you when to book and whether you need travel insurance with that trip and later with Labor Day weekend happening.


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[Assistant] Thought it'd be a good time to update you on some news around the job market opportunities you won't want to miss. So airfares this summer were berserk.


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[Assistant] And it wasn't like we were trying to go on a lunar launch somewhere, but the fairs were charged like that. But like a launch to space, a huge number of flights kept being scrubbed.


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[Assistant] And delayed, and delayed, and delayed. I want you to know...


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[Assistant] So a lot of the factors with the flight delays and cancels aren't going to be present over the fall. A lot of airlines like American just for one month


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[Assistant] Uh, canceled 31,000 flights coming up later this fall. They're pairing schedules to become more reliable, which is also going to relieve pressure on airport workers, flight attendants, gate agents, pilots, you name it, reservationists, blah, blah, blah. Things are not going to be as bad, ugly as they've been.


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[Assistant] Because the fall is a slower travel time, the corporate travelers are not back in mass yet.


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[Assistant] And so airlines live in the fall and the winter on this corporate travelers and they're just not.


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[Assistant] Flying like they were. They're back some, but not flying like they were. So they're going to be smaller number of flights, but at the same time,


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[Assistant] The fairs are posting much, much, much, much better for fall. And I've been looking closely at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's fairs.


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[Assistant] And if you avoid a small number of days through the holidays,


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[Assistant] The fares are actually really good for holiday travel if you buy now.


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[Assistant] I've been looking, what I do is I look at calendar maps. That's what I call them. There's probably a better term for it, where you can put in a sample of city pairs.


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[Assistant] And you bring up a calendar for November and December and you look and you see what the fairs are day by day.


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[Assistant] And you really get a sense in Southwest, you can do this, uh, google.com slash flights for airlines other than Southwest. You can see the fairs day by day and.


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[Assistant] As long as you avoid the four most expensive travel days of the year,


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[Assistant] You won't have to sell a family member to afford the ticket.


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[Assistant] What are those four days at Thanksgiving?


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[Assistant] Normally are the highest volume traffic days of the year, and the airfares in turn reflect that. And I was amazed, I was taking notes


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[Assistant] And what was fascinating is switching the days just a little bit at Thanksgiving.


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[Assistant] And where you work if you have the flexibility to flex around those four days. Christmas, New Year's is much easier, but there is a wrinkle this year.


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[Assistant] When Christmas and New Year's fall on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, airfares are generally, lower airfares are much easier to find.


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[Assistant] With Christmas and New Year's being midweek, people disperse their travel much more. This year, Christmas and New Year's on a Sunday, which is one of the real expensive days in particular for, uh, Christmas, New Year's travel that they tend to concentrate around the, um, the day before, day after Christmas, the day after New Year's, very, very expensive.


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[Assistant] You stay away from those days. Again, you'll see when you look at those, uh, fair calendars.


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[Assistant] Those fair maps, you'll see how much money you can save by flexing, but


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[Assistant] This is a case where procrastination I don't think will pay, because the first part I told you,


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[Assistant] The airlines reducing their flying load schedules through the fall.


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[Assistant] Means that the lower cost tickets will be soaked up earlier, not later. And so that's why it's important to not procrastinate. So, trip insurance. Trip insurance has been much more popular than it used to be.


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[Assistant] Because of all the endless disruptions to people's lives and wallets and travel plans because of COVID. But trip insurance,


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[Assistant] Is good in narrow circumstances. You're simply buying an airline ticket.


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[Assistant] Unless you never ever fly except very occasionally and you hate the whole thing and you never want to go.


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[Assistant] Trip insurance is not really that valuable to you.


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[Assistant] Because airlines now don't charge except on the, uh,


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[Assistant] The full fair lines do on their basic economy. Those are non-refundable, non-changeable, non-everything. But on other fair classes, the money doesn't go away and there's no penalty. It just becomes like, almost like gift card money.


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[Assistant] That has to be used within a certain time unless it's Southwestern can be used forever. And hopefully marketplace pressures.


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[Assistant] To cancel typically three to seven days out from travel. Generally, that's not something you need to ensure. Usually, you know, you're going when you get that close to travel. What do you need to ensure? A cruise, a tour that is non-refundable, an exotic foreign itinerary. Those are the cases that scream for trip insurance.


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[Assistant] Shop around for trip insurance. The premiums vary enormously. Do not buy


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[Assistant] Coverage for your cruise ever from a cruise line. Cruise lines are carrying massive amounts of debt. There's no assurance that they're all going to make it because COVID was like an endless sucker punch for the cruise lines.


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[Assistant] And they could face liquidity crises. In other words, they could be broke at some point.


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[Assistant] So you buy insurance for your crew's third party.


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[Assistant] Uh, aggregators like InsureMyTrip, there are several now.


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[Assistant] Where you can compare, mix and match, see what's available from different insurers for your trip. That's where you buy it.


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[Assistant] For one of these exotic tours, exotic overseas trips or a cruise. Krista?


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[Assistant] Yeah. So Laurie, uhm, you mentioned Skylux. There are perhaps a couple of dozen of these that are,


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[Assistant] Consolidators. So if you go read reviews on Skylux or any of its competitors, the reviews will be from greatest thing ever.


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[Assistant] To unfortunately quite a few, this was the nightmare experience of my life. These people are running a scam, blah, blah, blah. The problem is you're inserting an unusual business model into the purchase of a ticket because you're not just dealing with somebody like Expedia Travelocity, somebody like that Priceline. You're dealing with someone who is a third party.


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[Assistant] And doing whatever they can to get you a discount and something goes wrong and that's when things seem to fall apart.


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[Assistant] Of things that happen, uh, some of these that are for a business class or first class tickets, a lot of times they're acting as a broker. I don't know if Skylux does this, but they act as a broker for people's frequent flyer miles.


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[Assistant] So you're, um, acquiring a zillion miles on your favorite airline, Krista. They fly all over the world and people want to go from the plane or at least not in crunch class. And so you might need some money to pay bills. So you would sell your points to someone.


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[Assistant] Who then uses them to issue a ticket at a discount to somebody else.


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[Assistant] So that's one strategy. Another is airlines, particularly for international travel, may be running a surplus of seats. They don't want a discount for everybody. They may offer an off the book special to certain favored consolidators. And so the retail price might be, uh, let's say 2000 for a ticket.


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[Assistant] And they sell it to the consolidator for $1,200, then the consolidator sells it to you for $1,600.


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[Assistant] The airline gets the 1200 that they would have gotten zero for the seat.


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[Assistant] You get it for 1600 and the consolidator gets the difference. A lot of things go wrong there too. Uhm, there's one player in this that for premium seats, uh, does offer discounts that are published and that's American Express. Uhm, American Express through its travel organization, if you sign into your American Express account,


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[Assistant] You'll see if they're offering discounts below the published price and they show you the published price and then what American Express has negotiated


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[Assistant] With that airline, I assume American Express is paying less than that. You're paying the markup that they have come up with. Uhm, American Express, you're not worried about, uh, hopefully messing with you.


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[Assistant] But when you start dealing with these smaller organizations, it's a gamble. It's a bit like a roll of the dice, I guess I could say.


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[Assistant] So Keith, first again, thank you so much for your service to our great nation serving in the US military in Japan. I appreciate what you're doing for our freedom. And then the Pacific where showing


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[Assistant] Force and strength on our part is really important right now against a hostile enemy and communist China. So the dollar has been the super currency of the world. It is the mega currency of the world lately, which is ironic because for many years people have been talking about the decline of the U S dollars, the world's reserve currency.


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[Assistant] To the point that it's almost certainly overshot in value. So you got some time before your trip, uh, not much time, but


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[Assistant] I would give it just the few weeks you have remaining to see if there is any recovery because the losses are already baked in.


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[Assistant] And the odds of the dollar continues to strengthen from here.


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[Assistant] Not as likely as the dollar weakening some from here. And the reality is even though the yen have lost value over this time, the fact that you've saved the money means you have the 200,000 yen saved to defray the cost of the trip.


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[Assistant] So speaking of taking this trip to Indonesia.


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[Assistant] What if the military said to you, you know what? We love you, Keith. Take as much vacation as you want. Take.


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[Assistant] Take the next year off if you want, what would you do? Well, more and more companies.


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[Assistant] Or offering unlimited vacation. Can I have unlimited vacation Chris? Sure. Okay, bye. No, more and more are.


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[Assistant] But how's it actually playing out in real life? I want to talk about that. And I also want to talk about since I mentioned earlier, it's labor day weekend. What if you've retired?


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[Assistant] You'd like to get back in the workforce just a little bit. I want to talk about that where it could come with some very interesting perks. So I have always said, and I, I talk about this every late in the year year, I guess in November, usually I say, take your vacation. It drives me crazy. How many people leave vacation on the table?


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[Assistant] That is use it or lose it in a year. And it's not fair to yourself. And old expression, I never knew a dying man who wished he spent more time at his work. Right?


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[Assistant] And you learn, think about a job you're really invested in and you leave or they throw you out the door. And then later it's like,


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[Assistant] Why did I do all that at that job? Why did I not take care of myself while I was at that job? Well, employers now are trying all different kinds of things to try to keep people from leaving because there's been


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[Assistant] Such an increase in what sounds velocity, the number of people.


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[Assistant] Uh, quitting jobs, the quit rate has been really high and employers still


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[Assistant] Facing a situation where there's far more jobs they're trying to fill than there are people looking for work right now.


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[Assistant] So employers on the benefits side are doing things and the hot thing lately that I remember we first talked about


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[Assistant] Back in 2019, where just a few employers were doing it, was unlimited vacation. There's no light.


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[Assistant] You're in so many days per year of employment and all that. You just, hey, take as much as you want. But what's happened so often.


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[Assistant] Is people are afraid that if they take too much time off, they're going to stand out in a bad way. And so people, uh, I mean, it's like true behavioral economics.


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[Assistant] People are taking in many cases less vacation than they took before. So be good to yourself, be fair to yourself and make sure you're allowing time for yourself.


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[Assistant] To chill. To be with family and friends. To see things you want to see. If the purpose of vacation is to get away from your family, make sure you take it so you can do that. Whatever it is.


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[Assistant] Remember I'm the same guy. If you've listened to me long enough, you know how much fun I've made of the French where the French government used to have, um, work place who would find companies.


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[Assistant] If they saw people leave the office with a work laptop, it's not a joke. And there are


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[Assistant] Situations where people go too far the other way.


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[Assistant] But Americans work. I mean, we work and work too much.


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[Assistant] And squeeze some of the joy out of life by how much we do work.


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[Assistant] So this Labor Day weekend, please.


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[Assistant] Remember that Labor Day supposedly is to appreciate us for working, right? But remember part of the whole picture that gives you time in the machine is making sure that you take time to recharge, to rest, reflect, relax, enjoy, and go see.


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[Assistant] I'm really into the go-see part and that's what I want to talk about. My brother, my oldest brother, when he was 70, went to work for Southwest airlines as a gate agent so he could get flight privileges. And he was so excited. He was so excited until he started doing the work and work and work and work and work.


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[Assistant] And it was mandatory over time all the time and all that.


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[Assistant] That the happiest day in their life is the day they buy the boat and the happiest day in their lives is the day they sell their boat. My brother was so excited the day he got hired and even more excited the day he quit.


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[Assistant] Well now the airlines need people so badly that several of the nation's airlines


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[Assistant] Limited number of hours and it varies by airline how many hours you have to work to qualify to get flight privileges. And so this is a new way of trying to attract labor that deals with bumps in volume.


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[Assistant] That the airlines face certain times of the week are much busier than other times and what a deal to pick up free flight privileges.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you know, but Costco wouldn't want me as a door greeter because I'd be saying, Hey, by the way, there's really good clearance items on aisle 117 right now. That's not what you're supposed to do at the door. So, uh, that, that's not what I'm going to do, but.


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[Assistant] One other thing with the job market I've been meaning to mention is,


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[Assistant] The job market is still great, but it's not as strong as before. And we've had questions from people. Hey, is it okay to...


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[Assistant] Pretend I have a job offer when I don't to try to beat money out of my employer.


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[Assistant] That was never a good idea and now it's a bad idea because a lot of employers are worried about labor costs more than they've been in a while.


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[Assistant] And you pull that and they might say, okay, well it's been really nice having you here. Hope you enjoy working for the new company. So be careful trying to bluff your way to a higher wage with your employer.


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[Assistant] Before you use that as a playing card to get more money out of your boss. So I shouldn't tell you.


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[Assistant] That I got this great job offer from Alaska Airlines and you better match it where I'm going.


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[Assistant] So the Noah's Ark rule I use of the two cards, that's the minimum. If your goal is to buy a home.


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[Assistant] Having multiple lines of credit they can evaluate are good. Uhm, if you end up


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[Assistant] Buying a vehicle and you have a vehicle loan, that's a great additional source of credit.


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[Assistant] So you don't necessarily have to have more than the two credit cards. Just make sure the two cards are from two different issuers.


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[Assistant] If a better offer comes along for a card and you want to get another card later, fine.


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[Assistant] Do not apply for any form of credit, any form of credit in the six months before you plan to apply for a mortgage for a home. Recent applications for credit are looked at really badly in the mortgage business, but an overall traditional credit reporting, they don't affect you that badly for a mortgage. They can.


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[Assistant] Yes, it does. The risk level, as I've explained, Bill, gets higher on the insurance a lot of times when the risk is unloaded to another company.


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[Assistant] But you remain eligible under state guarantee funds.


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[Assistant] That are not like FDIC insurance. Very important for you to understand the state equivalent


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[Assistant] For insurance products like life insurance and annuities and stuff is a poor, measly, terrible imitation of FDIC or NCUA insurance on bank accounts and credit union accounts. So you never want to have too much money with any one insurer at risk and know that the state guarantee systems


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[Assistant] Don't have real money backing them like you have with the federal government backing bank accounts.


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[Assistant] And that's why I talk so much about the strength of an insurer when you buy a policy. And what Bill's talking about


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[Assistant] Is you would have done everything right. You would have checked the financial strength of an insurer before you buy from them.


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[Assistant] And then they decide they don't want the book of business you're part of and they sell it off to who knows who that could be of questionable financial strength.


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[Assistant] And it's the states that are letting the insureds down.


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[Assistant] By allowing the sales of these books of business.


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[Assistant] To organizations that don't have solid financial strength.


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[Assistant] There have been very, very few failures. The biggest problem is not so much losing money is losing access to your money for a meaningful period of time.


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[Assistant] Because the state guarantee associations are so pathetic.


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[Assistant] I would say better than one of my books. If I was going to recommend any of the books, it would be the Living Large series.


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[Assistant] Which is living large in lean times and living large for the long haul.


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[Assistant] Uh, long haul in particular might be interesting to people, uh, let's say 18 to 24 because


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[Assistant] Situations in their lives with money or things that they accomplished in their lives just through their creativity and hard work. But I love


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[Assistant] The YouTube videos we do, I think they're really wonderful.


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[Assistant] We have a free YouTube channel with a bunch of videos. They're relatively short.


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[Assistant] They're good teaching vehicles on specific topics.


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[Assistant] And they refer back to more in depth information we have available on Clark.com. So I would say.


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[Assistant] Uh, you've got such a visual generation in the workforce you're talking about.


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[Assistant] That watching the videos is probably going to make a better connection to them than reading a traditional book. Just my thought.


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[Assistant] So using the full guilt card and a little bounty of money.


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[Assistant] To try to change the nature and tone of reviews. Oh, that is disturbing, isn't it?


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[Assistant] So on the tablet front, if you're looking for an inexpensive tablet,


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[Assistant] Look at either the Amazon fire line of tablets or look at the Walmart, uh,


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[Assistant] Tablet line, which I think is referred to as O N N tablets. They're both.


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[Assistant] Both companies sell very inexpensive tablets that seem to be pretty reliable and speaking of reviews, I want to read one of our fake reviews. No, this was not fake.


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[Assistant] So I thank VexterW for this review on Apple Podcasts. It says, it may be an addiction.


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[Assistant] I've been listening to Clark Howard for probably two decades now. I love the info.


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[Assistant] I enjoy how he teaches. I'm talking about myself like third person here. And it's just a relaxing, soothing educational show. My family laughs at me about it, but they always ask me, what would Clark say?


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[Assistant] Then I have my own show as I impart wisdom to my family.


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[Assistant] And thank you for making me seem smart, Clark, instead of saying, thank you for making me Clark smart.


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[Assistant] So thank you for the review. I'm glad you enjoy what we do on each of these podcasts and what this is all about.


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[Assistant] Is empowering you. I talk about that at the beginning of each podcast. You know, knowledge has lots of, um, results. The result I want you to have from the information that I give you, the dividend being


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[Assistant] That you're able to take more control of your own life, your own wallet. It is not about worshipping money.


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[Assistant] It is about you having more independence in your life to do with your life what you want. Have a great day.


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[Assistant] Even when accounting for the trade-in sales tax adjustment, that amounted to over $5,000. But also, CarMax's offer was 15% better than Car-Caravan's.


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[Assistant] Before the listeners con-conclude that CarMax is always better, last year I sold a different used car and at that time Carvana was about 15% better than CarMax with Vroom again somewhere in between.


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[Assistant] This is from Douglas in Florida. I'm planning a trip with my son to three baseball cities, Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee, to see games in each city. I refuse to pay $600 for a rental car plus gas, so I'm considering flying into Detroit and taking Amtrak to Chicago and then Milwaukee.


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[Assistant] The problem is what to do with our luggage and backpacks while we attend the games or sightsee.


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[Assistant] Since we have no car and may already have checked out of a non-fancy hotel where they don't offer bag check.


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[Assistant] Uh, I don't know the exact amount, but they're in a lot of cities. They help you find luggage storage near you, and they get good reviews so far. So, you go to luggage hero.


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[Assistant] Log into a whole bunch of websites to change my payment information. Is there a better way?


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[Assistant] 16 dollars and 66 cents. So round it up, it's what you said.


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[Assistant] There's a fantastic book called Atomic Habits. If you're into this stuff about the neuroscience behind creating these little habits and how long it takes to get something ingrained in your brain. So if anyone is interested, that's a fantastic, that's just a great book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, let's go to some questions. This is from Ashton in Utah. Hey Clark, my wife and I currently have a small single family home of 1,550 square feet being built and we have not closed on it yet. 60 days before the completion we can close. We have a locked in price at around 460k and we have 5% ready to put down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, we are worried about the recession driving home prices down and us missing out on market corrected priced homes. Would you recommend maybe waiting to see how a recession would affect the housing market or move forward with the house?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is from Roger in Alaska. I discovered that Starlink satellite will be available in my area in early 2023. This is a SpaceX enterprise. Would this be a good option or is it too experimental at this point?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's an upfront hardware fee and it appears to be around $110 a month for the service and about $600 for the hardware.


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[Assistant] Katie in Maryland says my husband is active duty army with just over 13 years left to full retirement, which is our current plan.


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[Assistant] Uhm, our financial plan over the last 8 years has been renting while saving to purchase a house once we are out of the military. We maxed Roth series I bonds and add to 529s and 401k on the side. The rest of the savings has been going to Vanguard mutual funds to build up a nest egg for a future home purchase. With the market in its current state, is this the best place to save for the future home?


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[Assistant] In m- in mutual funds, it's challenging to put the funds in the account and then watch it decrease.


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[Assistant] And I'm back to the starling thing. Remember I sent you that video. It's so funny. SNL did a parody of all the billionaires in space. It's called billionaire Star Trek on SNL. If you want to look it up on YouTube.


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[Assistant] Oh, that's, you know, I pulled up the, uh, video for you of the SNL skit. Is this the real winners at Saturday Night Live? So they, they had that same reaction. Oh, it was awesome. I thought I showed it to you. It's so funny.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I would knock on wood, the last one would have been mine when someone sideswiped me, so it's been like two years I guess.


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[Assistant] I know, you know, and some buildings, they're very hard to avoid in parking garages. I mean, they are, I totally empathize with her.


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[Assistant] Alright, well I have a question about car insurance actually. This is from Katie. She says, I've read that it's recommended to shop insurance every three years to get the best rates.


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[Assistant] I've had my insurance with USAA for 15 years. They're consistently rated the best. Is it still advisable to shop and possibly change carriers in this case? Also, we just paid off our mortgage. We carry high liability insurance on our homeowners and auto policies. Do you feel an umbrella policy is warranted?


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[Assistant] And this is from Katie in, or Carly in Georgia.


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[Assistant] She says I would like to store my COVID vaccination card digitally on my phone's wallet.


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[Assistant] Is there a safe way to do that? My daughter suggested using Go Get Doc, but I do not love that they require me to upload a photo of my driver's license. Isn't that a bit risky with the prevalence of identity theft these days? Hoping you have a good solution.


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[Assistant] It was Carla. Carla. I did that in the beginning. I said Katie. Katie was the prior one, sorry. Oh.


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[Assistant] And from Brad in Colorado, I paid off my home two years ago and then started using credit cards for day to day purchases. My credit report shows that my credit history is only two years. It does not reflect that I paid a mortgage without any late payments. It shows nothing about me having one. Is there anything I can do?


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[Assistant] I mean, I think we have, like you said, since we already had work from home in place, uhm, and it works really well for our employees to work from home and there's a lot of collaboration online and, uhm, Zoom meetings and we also already had people out of state. We haven't lost much. I do think it's nice to get together and we're trying to do more.


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[Assistant] Right, we do, and that, and it's great, and, and, uh, we hope to see, you know, luckily we can fly them in to see everybody in person once in a while, and you usually want to meet someone and...


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[Assistant] And see them sometimes, and since you take us on a staff trip every year too. That was especially, that actually added a lot to it, I think.


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[Assistant] I also remember before this all happened, an executive, uhm, at another company.


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[Assistant] I was talking to me about how we did the Fridays from home and she said to me, how does that work? How can you even make sure people are working? She was horrified. And now I know that she has a lot of people working from home and she had to work from home for so long. So it's really changed the world.


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[Assistant] Maybe he needs to invent, uhm, software that, you know, where people's holograms are together and they can collaborate. You know what I mean? He's so smart. I feel like he could do that.


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[Assistant] How much value does TLH bring for long-term investing and is this something I should be concerned about losing?


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[Assistant] This is from Katherine in Michigan, valued at around $9,000. My wedding engagement ring is covered under our MECA home insurance policy. There's no deductible if something were to happen to it.


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[Assistant] However, it would count against the policy if we were to file a claim. We have our normal home deduction.


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[Assistant] Deductible set at $15,000. Is it even worth it to have the ring insurance?


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[Assistant] And this is just a fun one I threw in here from Nathan in Missouri. On a recent episode I heard Clark say his birthday was the same as mine, June 20th.


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[Assistant] When I got home, I asked my wife, guess who has the same birthday as me? She asked me who and I excitedly replied, Clark Howard. She paused, looked at me and said, you guys are twin nerds. I've never been more proud. Thanks for all the hard work and help you and your staff provide.


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[Assistant] I, one of the better financial decisions you make is to save for your future. We have our investing guide at Clark.com to walk you through basic strategies, basic ones about how to do just that. That.


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[Assistant] It's not a stinky thing. It's great when you save for your future. But there are times that I stink.


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[Assistant] And that's why we have the Clark Stinks segment.


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[Assistant] And also the Clark Stinks post where you go to Clark.com slash Clark Stinks to post where you feel like I was incomplete, inaccurate, or just plain dumb. And also in this episode, you may or may not know.


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[Assistant] So having artificial turf in my yard, I mean, it makes me feel like I'm at the game, right?


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[Assistant] Well, actually I don't have artificial turf, but lots of Americans are choosing artificial turf for their lawns. I want to talk about the pros and cons of doing just this, but right now it is time for.


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[Assistant] Clark Stinks. Before you start, I've done a terrible job. I never say, and Krista is here to share the Clark Stinks with you.


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[Assistant] I do post that you're the meanie for reading them, but I actually love this because how do you grow as a person? How do you learn? We tend to get stuck in our habits. And so I know we've had a lot of posts from people saying, I hate Clark Sinks. I hate for people to say,


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[Assistant] Okay. So I haven't lost my mind. Promise. I've not lost my mind. Long standing position. Debit cards are dangerous.


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[Assistant] They directly attack your checking account, you know, over the protections you do with the credit card. I don't care what somebody at customer no service tells you at a bank.


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[Assistant] Or even a credit union. You do not have the same protections with a debit card you have with a credit card. That's why I want you to use a d- a credit card.


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[Assistant] And the rewards are so much more rewarding with a credit card than with a debit card.


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[Assistant] However, there are people who know they can't handle a credit card, that they will spend money they don't have, and often that's the background.


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[Assistant] Where someone wants to use a debit card instead of a credit card, even full well knowing they don't have the protections with it they have with a credit card.


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[Assistant] And so you can get 1% back on that debit card better than nothing back on the debit card.


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[Assistant] So Joe, thank you. So much interest in this, especially with the Euro. The US dollar is intensely strong right now and nobody knows how long it will last. Uh, it is having


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[Assistant] serious, negative economic effects for other countries in the world and actually as part of what will help us in our battle with inflation.


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[Assistant] And so it is a very unusual time. You figure the euro used to be about $1.60.


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[Assistant] Uhm, gosh, I, I remember when the British pound was worth $5.20. Now it's worth $1.20 or something, Euro down about parity.


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[Assistant] So these are unusual times and currencies do swing significantly over the years. So it's possible they'll go down more versus the dollar and then it won't have been so great.


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[Assistant] To about, but based on historical numbers, having, if you're a regular international traveler,


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[Assistant] Having these currencies that are so weak against the dollar, buying them now, if you can buy them efficiently, uh, is a potential way to save money on your trip.


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[Assistant] Adam, thank you. And, uh, you know, I, I know there was a, a good public policy reason for having these electric vehicle tax credits.


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[Assistant] Unbelievably expensive compared to putting a gas engine and transmission into a vehicle.


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[Assistant] I think we're past that now and I think the tax credits only inflate the selling price of a vehicle that then it's discounted from and it creates market distortions. Companies that have done a good job selling electric vehicles


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[Assistant] Their buyers aren't eligible for them. The companies that are Johnny come lately, their buyers get the credits. It's just so, uh, so unhealthy if you believe in the free market system. So I just wish these credits would go away. And the, the issue of,


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[Assistant] Deflating the value of electric vehicles used, completely true as well.


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[Assistant] Oh, Jeb, I've thought this one through. So what happens?


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[Assistant] The winner of the lottery, uhm, is the one who turns the ticket in.


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[Assistant] So you have the winning numbers, you just anonymously give that ticket to the charity and they are the ones that are the winner so that you are never assigned the income and what he's talking about is that


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[Assistant] If you give away 100% of the income you receive, you still owe an enormous amount of tax. You don't get to deduct away all that. And that's why you never actually claim the winning ticket. I, I see, I daydreamed about all this. We're so funny, Krista, since you never buy lottery tickets.


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[Assistant] I mean that is completely possible. There are...


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[Assistant] Job categories where that could certainly happen.


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[Assistant] I think of several in my head right now. I don't want to name them to cause paranoia in people working remotely.


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[Assistant] That people had in a physical office they were reporting to every day. Probably yes, because employers have adjusted so much more to how to have a business work with people working remotely. Uh, so far, uh, knock on, this is not wood, whatever this is.


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[Assistant] Uh, that hopefully that will not happen in the numbers it used to because the psychology of the country seems to have turned away from


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[Assistant] The kind of wholesale, offshoring of jobs, it was so much a part of the corporate mentality for the last 30 years.


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[Assistant] Appreciate the suggestion. Uhm, somebody made that suggestion a few years ago about the vacuum sealer as a way to preserve food. Do you ever doing that?


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[Assistant] Uh, buy the, the perishable items as well. So you think about, uhm, everything for me is a football analogy. You think about you're trying to get that, that person to get the first down, right? Not necessarily the touchdown. And if people aren't,


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[Assistant] Doing things to save money that are the easy ways to do it.


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[Assistant] That's the first step. That's the first down. And then the long drive is doing things more like this.


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[Assistant] So it is a continuum of knowledge and strategies.


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[Assistant] And implementation of those strategies that leads to you.


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[Assistant] Living on substantially less than what you make, which is for many of us, the ultimate goal. Now one of the ways that we spend a lot of money at our house.


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[Assistant] Is taking care of outside of the house. I'm going to talk about.


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[Assistant] To cut down the cost of the outside maintenance straight ahead. Many, many years ago, probably 15 years ago.


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[Assistant] My middle brother, Neil, uh, he and his wife at their then home installed fake grass in their yard. And it was, I mean, that was really pioneering that long ago. And truth is it didn't much look like grass that you'd plant. They had a tree shaded lawn,


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[Assistant] And regular grass just didn't want to grow there. There was so much of a problem getting real grass to grow. So they finally said, forget it and put in the fake grass. Well, it turns out now that my brother and his wife were


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[Assistant] Pioneers in something that is now booming. In fact, uh, Bloomberg reported


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[Assistant] Because of the extreme drought conditions that so many places, not just in the United States, but around the world are suffering from that.


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[Assistant] Taking care of a lawn uses massive amounts of water.


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[Assistant] And I will tell you over the years when I've talked about the artificial grass.


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[Assistant] A lot of people have gotten really, really agitated with me about it. Uh, but it is something that has potential tremendous benefits for society. I think about Las Vegas where people


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[Assistant] Receive a payment from the water district for tearing up


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[Assistant] Real grass in the yard because the Vegas metro areas we have talked about has such a severe issue with water supply and getting people to go back to desert scape or put in the artificial grass eliminates the use of all that water for watering a lawn and


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[Assistant] That have adequate supplies of rainfall each year that people are putting in artificial grass and where we live in Florida part time.


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[Assistant] I would say that about oh, 20% of the lawns in our neighborhood are now artificial.


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[Assistant] If you go back five years ago, there was one house in the whole neighborhood that I knew of that had artificial grass. And now one after another, after another, after another are putting in the artificial turf.


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[Assistant] Because now the manufacturers, the designers,


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[Assistant] Have learned to make it look like a lot of the products look like actual real, uh, grass lawns. They'll even put in fake weeds in it.


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[Assistant] So that it looks like a real yard. It doesn't look so uniform anymore. Doesn't look like a putting green anymore. And.


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[Assistant] So this isn't for everybody. It may not be for you, but this is in part a decent solution to the cost of maintaining a traditional yard.


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[Assistant] And I know that, uh, before I had somebody upset with me because what it does to people are in their living, mowing lawns, there's, don't worry, there'll still be plenty of people who want to have a traditional, real,


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[Assistant] Yard with real grass instead of one with the artificial stuff. It'll be plenty of business to go around.


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[Assistant] But this is a steady movement. Again, not just...


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[Assistant] And parts of the United States, this is all over the world.


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[Assistant] That people are migrating their lawns to the artificial turf. Krista?


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[Assistant] So uh, this is something people really got fired up about.


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[Assistant] It's happening all through American business and it really started.


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[Assistant] The whole junk fee thing and unbundling everything and having a gotcha for this, that and the other.


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[Assistant] And then the whole travel industry followed that. And now it's infesting everything else. And then Verizon recently increased a made up fee so they could raise rates on people without raising the cost of their calling plans.


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[Assistant] And by the way, Verizon reported terrible subscriber numbers recently. I wonder if...


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[Assistant] Putting through a sneaky, ugly increase had anything to do with that, but I digress.


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[Assistant] Right, right, right. So businesses are getting pinched, labor costs, everything else. And so a health and wellness charge, it may be if you asked them and somebody actually knew it may be for providing


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[Assistant] Health coverage to the employees. Who knows? But you're right. It should be baked into the cost of the items that they make for you in a restaurant and serve you. It should not be a gotcha when you get your bill.


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[Assistant] And it's happening all over in all different ways. So.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I don't know if I mentioned that there are hotels now starting to charge, uh, room damage fees that when you check in,


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[Assistant] One of the things that you're signing that you're agreeing to


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[Assistant] Is there charging you a fee for whatever damage you might cause the hotel room?


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[Assistant] And it's just added right into your hotel bill is one of the things, was that's, uh, you know, state taxes, local taxes, convention fee, blah, blah, blah fee, breathing fee, and uhm, now,


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[Assistant] There are hotels charging you to use a Shay's lounge at their swimming pool. And I mean all these things. So Americans seem to only look for the top line figure and not look at all the other things that are terms and conditions of staying somewhere or doing something. The restaurant meal thing to me is


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[Assistant] Probably worse than a lot of these other things because at least


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[Assistant] A lot of times they're disclosed to you as you go through the process. You want to pay to check a bag? Yes. You want to pay for a carry on? Yes. You want to pay for a better seat? Yes. You want to pay for your seat assignment? Yes. Whatever it is. Uh, you want to pay to board early? Yes. Uh, you know, all those things.


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[Assistant] And you have to choose. Yes, I'll pay for this. Yes, I'll pay for that. But nobody asked you, did you want to pay for the employee health and wellness?


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[Assistant] The extra three percent. So disclosure is key and choice is central.


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[Assistant] With junk fees. By the way, why is Verizon taking on the chin? Nobody was given a choice if they wanted to pay this new huge junk fee added into their cell phone bill every month. Remember that Verizon.


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[Assistant] So buying from the car rental agencies right now is doubly hazardous because the car rental companies liquidated their fleets, uh,


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[Assistant] Huge numbers of hundreds of thousands, maybe it crossed in the millions of vehicles back during the spring of 20.


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[Assistant] When basically everything in travel shut down for months with COVID.


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[Assistant] And they needed money just to keep the doors open. Wasn't even enough for hers. They went bankrupt and had to reorganize. And so they didn't have their fleets.


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[Assistant] And then they couldn't get new vehicles when the people were like traveling again. They're like, what are we going to do for vehicles? So they went in and bought very old used cars, car rental fleets. I get in car rentals now that


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[Assistant] Are in terrible condition, terrible condition. I mean, they've got, um,


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[Assistant] Miles that should not make them terrible. They just get beaten to death. I guess people run a car, don't take care of it like they might their own. And so it's not at all unusual for a car rental to have 50,000 or more miles on it. So by the time they get to the, uh, use vehicle lot of the car rental agencies that many operate their own lots, those vehicles have lost a lot of the useful life.


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[Assistant] Before the odometer would say they should. And so today I would say don't buy a vehicle that's been in a rental car fleet. It's just not a good bet for your teenager. So what do you do for your teenager? What do you do for his vehicle?


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[Assistant] That it is a difficult thing to buy a used vehicle and.


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[Assistant] I would look for brands that have, models that have been discontinued.


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[Assistant] Concentrate on cars, not SUVs or pickup trucks. The car market is unloved right now and particularly if you find a model, a lot of the automakers have been


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[Assistant] Uh, eliminating a lot of their passenger vehicles because they're just not popular in the market right now. And you get one of those, what they call in the car business, an orphan model. You may get a better deal on it.


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[Assistant] But I, I can't lie to you. It's tough buying a used vehicle right now.


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[Assistant] Well, first of all, Corey, I hope that you're fully healthy again. And I love that you were proactive about this, that you took this on instead of just saying, ah, well, I'm not going to worry about that. And medical debt has a way of sneaking up on you. You knew it was out there.


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[Assistant] And you did what you had to to get the system to do what it should have done in the first place. And it ended up keeping your credit reputation clear. You didn't have to get into a huge hassle later and great. You pushed all the buttons.


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[Assistant] I'm disappointed to hear that the insurance department of the state of Ohio let you down. And I want to tell you,


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[Assistant] Our job, just like you think about the variety of topics we talk about, the variety of questions you pose to me, Christo, from our listeners.


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[Assistant] The goal is whatever it is, cars, houses, cell phones, travel. We are here to help you navigate the issues that affect your wallet. That's the goal. And if there's something going on in your life, a problem, a question, a concern,


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[Assistant] About your wallet. Something going on with your wallet.


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[Assistant] Somebody mistreating you, whatever. You don't know where to turn, what to do. Give us a try.


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[Assistant] Because one of the things we do is we provide one-on-one free advice.


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[Assistant] Something we've been doing in February, it'll be 30 years we've been providing


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[Assistant] Free one-on-one advice, guidance and information. And we've been doing it 30 hours a week for 30 years. So you want to get advice? You contact the team Clark consumer action center, 10 a.m. To 4 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday.


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[Assistant] So let's focus on how you stink, man. Okay, we're gonna start with this one from Don. Recently you discussed using music streaming from your phone to your car radio instead of using SiriusXM.


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[Assistant] That's a great idea, but you failed to mention that you can very quickly exceed the data plan on your cell service. We have three phones on our plan. My wife, my adult daughter and myself. Our plan allows 20 gigabytes of data per month. My daughter was using Apple Play as you suggested in her car.


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[Assistant] And used about 15 gigabytes with nine days remaining on the billing month. I received a notice that we'd used over 75% of our data and examined our usage to find who was using it.


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[Assistant] Fortunately, I was able to stop my daughter from doing this. And again, that's from Dawn.


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[Assistant] I appreciate Clark sharing his journey with prostate cancer with his listeners, but I would want him to stop repeating false information that's often presented in the media.


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[Assistant] Prostate cancer is not the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and breast cancer is not the leading cause of cancer deaths in women.


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[Assistant] The leading cancer death cause in both genders is lung cancer and continues to be so.


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[Assistant] Your advice warning never get roadside assistance from your insurance provider is not always true.


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[Assistant] When you have an accident and block in the road, police would want to move your car right away. So they will call their towing service to move your car and not wait for your AAA tow truck.


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[Assistant] In such a situation, you're required to pay for that towing service, which would be, will be covered by roadside assistance, a roadside assistance rider from your auto insurance. Hence your advice should be use auto insurance, roadside assistance only when police call, when the police want to call a towing service and use AAA at all other times. And that's from Chitin.


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[Assistant] And, uh, here's one. Clark, stop making fun of Krista for her love of Starbucks. We are all entitled to our small joys in life, and if she loves Starbucks, it is her right. She's worked for you for so long, I'm sure she's well aware that Starbucks costs more than Folgers, but if it was all about money and not about the small joys, wouldn't she have switched to the cheapest brand out there years ago?


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[Assistant] Uhm, perhaps I'm just speaking for myself but your public commentary towards a dear friend can make the rest of us feel awkward or ashamed for the things we do splurge on.


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[Assistant] And I think it's, you know what it is, we've known each other so long, we're like brother and sister, and we joke, and you exaggerate about me, and it's all in fun, and if you watched our YouTube videos, you would see that, but maybe some people don't realize it.


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[Assistant] The mic would go off and we would talk about it but I do not at all. You're like the nicest person ever.


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[Assistant] Well, I've learned so much from you, and I love the fun teasing. Really, that is all it is. And so now I'm gonna read one about, uh, that, that I stink, just to counter that. I think Krista stinks for her selection of emails, in particular the recent email from Confused who criticized Clark for buying jewelry that his wife enjoyed.


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[Assistant] The peanut butter from the fancy, uhm, the fancy peanut butter jar with Skippy he was buying and then his shampoo bottle for his daughter and stuff with


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[Assistant] As for the shampoo, if someone in the house colors their hair, has curly hair, or has anything else special about their hair, buying specific shampoos can keep you from going to the salon as often.


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[Assistant] I guarantee the cost of recoloring or deep conditioning hair at the salon is way higher than the specialty shampoo.


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[Assistant] Putting costs aside, certain shampoos can simply make hair easier to handle for someone with long curly colored or other special hair concerns. The presumption that this person has in order to make life a little more difficult for someone else simply because they may not have the same concern is disturbing.


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[Assistant] I cannot imagine how I'd feel if my partner did this to me. You'd miss the boat on this one.


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[Assistant] Okay, we have a question here from Iris in Georgia. What is the best place to apply for a small business loan?


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[Assistant] And how much should it be to open a restaurant from the ground up?


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[Assistant] My family's dream is to own a Mexican grill and bar, but we have no idea where to go.


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[Assistant] I was also going to say maybe go to other towns where you wouldn't be competing and find some Mexican restaurants and see if the owners will do like an informational interview and like what they, what mistakes they made and how, you know, how they started their business and that may help.


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[Assistant] Uhm, this is from Tee in Maryland. Hi Clark, I recently read an article about Arrived, which is a Jeff Bezos backed startup allowing persons to invest in rental houses for as little as $100 for fractional ownership. I'm interested in your thoughts and whether or not you believe this is a good investment.


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[Assistant] And with those thermostats, we also often have deals whenever there's a sale on one of those at ClarkDeals.com.


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[Assistant] Well, we have a question from Carrie in Kansas. We are looking to update our kitchen appliances, refrigerator, dishwasher, cooktop, stove, and oven.


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[Assistant] It seems like appliances are really expensive. In your opinion, would you say they're inflated in price due to the current supply chain issues or are they pretty on point? Also, when would be the best time to purchase?


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[Assistant] This is from Jordan in Texas. Hi Clark. You often mentioned that you walk many miles per day, but I don't recall you ever discussing a good brand of walking shoes. This is something I'm currently researching, but there's so many options. Do you have any recommendations? Whatever's cheapest Jordan.


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[Assistant] But you, you have to confess, we were at lunch last week, right near the specialty store. And so what you do is you get fitted, which is great. And then you can buy like last year's color or some, you know, look for their clearance shoes that make sense for the type of shoe they fit you for.


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[Assistant] This is from Rick in Ohio. Clark talked about a company called driveway. I contacted them to sell our Jeep. My question is it common for them to ask that I send them copies of my driver's license, copy of the title and the registration via text or email. They said they have to make sure the vehicle is ours.


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[Assistant] I'd be surprised by that. I don't think that's true. Maybe it is.


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[Assistant] No, you're correct. I shouldn't, you know, you should discuss it.


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[Assistant] I would be upset if my husband got me a dug out of the earth diamond though at this point.


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[Assistant] No, I don't wear a lot of jewelry. So I just, the only thing I'm going to have is my engagement ring. So, and I love it just as it is.


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[Assistant] We are all grateful for her service to our family. However, when we logged into her socialsecurity.gov account, we were surprised to learn that because I assume she hasn't worked in so long.


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[Assistant] And she currently isn't, that she currently isn't eligible to receive social security when she comes of age.


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[Assistant] She may or may not go back to work in the future, but my concern is if I were to pass on before her...


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[Assistant] Would she be able to receive any benefits? Could she receive my social security benefit and or my federal pension? Many thanks.


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[Assistant] This is from Logan in Michigan. I have about $12,000 of debt on an American Airlines Wells Fargo card. I'm looking to take advantage of the introductory 0% intro APR on a balance transfer card. I've just paid off another card and reassessed my budget.


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[Assistant] My budget for the foreseeable future will allow me to take advantage of the intro APR as well as all the cash back options. I make weekly payments on my cards. I can pay off all my normal spending plus $200 each week.


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[Assistant] Within the intro APR window and allow some breathing room.


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[Assistant] I've narrowed down the cards to, and I'm set on, the Navy Federal Platinum Card, Discover It, Cash Back, or the USAA Rewards American Express. I would like to stay with USAA as they're my current bank, but I'm hesitant to switch to Amex. I'm torn between the different rates and perks.


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[Assistant] This is from Mutt in Minnesota. We're looking at getting a third vehicle as our son turns 16 this fall. What horrible timing. The used car market seems so overpriced, but it would be a jump of $8,000 to $12,000 over what we were thinking we'd pay to get a new car.


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[Assistant] Should we just eat the overpriced used car, shell out an extra 10k for a new car, or tell him to ride his bike for another couple of years?


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[Assistant] Alright, the first cork stinks is from Krista, who says that she does not pick her favorites. Okay.


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[Assistant] Here's the first one for real. Costco, Costco, Costco, Costco this, Costco that. I think I finally figured out the Costco acronym. Clark only supports terribly cheap options. And that's from Ralph. Ouch.


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[Assistant] I mean not, it doesn't say raw floren though, so it must be like their, their version of a polo.


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[Assistant] Some people join country clubs. You join warehouse clubs.


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[Assistant] It seems to me that Teslas and probably many others like the new Rivian are able to go 200,000 miles easily on the original battery pack.


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[Assistant] Rivian even warranties their battery pack for 175,000 miles or eight years. We should stop analyzing battery replacement costs as such a negative.


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[Assistant] Plenty of gas powered vehicles require high dollar items like a new transmission well before 200,000 miles. My mom's 2015 Ford


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[Assistant] Has had two transmission replacements and I doubt it would be much longer before it needs a third. The car has less than a hundred thousand miles.


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[Assistant] Come on Mr. Howard, you can do better. On a recent show you touted the low price of tuition and other fees at a state sponsored commuter college. As an informal advisor to several nieces and nephews about how to pay for college, I paused your podcast midstream and rushed to search for more information.


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[Assistant] The internet searches on the term state sponsored community college failed to return any useful information. Nothing helpful was listed in your show notes for that episode and a search on Clark.com also produced zero information. If there is a webpage that lists these colleges by state or degree,


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[Assistant] Please one, tell us what it is or at least tell us what terms to search to find it. And two, include a link in the podcast show notes for that episode.


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[Assistant] This information is at least as important as a channel guide for how to watch TV the most cost efficient way. Your biggest fan, Aunt Mel in Maryland.


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[Assistant] Your advice about Zelle is well intended, but not as easy or effective as you indicated. After the 100th time of hearing how I need to rid my life of Zelle, I paused the recent podcast and called my regional bank.


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[Assistant] They said I could delete my Zelle profile, but at any time I or a hacker could create a new profile on my account and start using it again. I asked how I prevent a profile from being created and there just isn't a way. It is a service, in quotes, they offer.


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[Assistant] Just like wire transfers, which you can opt in and out of at will.


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[Assistant] Maybe dig a bit deeper and offer some advice on how to completely purge the Zell infestation, Tammy.


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[Assistant] This might be a better option than moving him to a different facility that will accept Medicare or Medicaid.


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[Assistant] Sold her house when she went to assisted living and then used the proceeds from that sale to pay for very good care. When she passed, there were some funds remaining which was divided.


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[Assistant] To me, having a good quality care for her was much more important than saving her house or saving the money for her heirs. She worked hard all her life and deserved the best care she could afford. Becky.


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[Assistant] You lamented about being scatterbrained and forgetting things such as bringing your meds on a trip, and you talked about your son learning to fly. You should ask your son how pilots remember important steps in the cockpit. The answer? Checklist.


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[Assistant] Clark, you should make yourself a trip pre-departure checklist and refer to it before heading out the door. Rick, a retired airline pilot and checklist believer.


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[Assistant] I know you think that S stands for Superman, but for us mere mortals, pain management is a part of the healing process. I recently had an open hernia repair and needed every bit of the pain management. So that lends me to think that you had the bandaid hernia repair, a minor procedure, save the pain medication advice for the professionals.


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[Assistant] Some people I know like they'll just have the doctor prescribe them like three pills, you know, so that's an option too for people if they're worried about that.


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[Assistant] I just flew them and I love Southwest with my 11 year old daughter. Family boarding is only for families with kids 6 and under. We were the last ones to board during group A and just barely able to sit together. As always, thank you. You're an amazing inspiration. Sincerely, Dave from Ohio.


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[Assistant] Clark stinks for being so self-deprecating on virtually every podcast episode. Stop it. As a man who started listening in his early twenties, I can say with confidence that Clark's advice has contributed to my financial success. I spent most of my career earning what would be considered a middle-class income, yet my wife and I have already achieved most of our retirement goals in our mid-forties. Do you ever think about the lives you have changed with your advice?


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[Assistant] You would discover that the Clarkies enjoy financial freedom that most of the general public would envy. As a mid-level manager, I start off every employee orientation with about 15 minutes of Clark Talk.


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[Assistant] I'm trying to pass along a little of the wisdom you've given me so my employees enjoy financial freedom in their later years. This is my attempt at paying it forward just a little bit.


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[Assistant] You're not boring, not stinky, but also not perfect. However, as a whole, you change lives and the people who listen to you are better off for doing so. Mike.


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[Assistant] Clark, not that kind of decorator. I pay a lady an hourly fee to help me choose colors and stuff cause I'm terrible with that when I'm redoing something. And I buy used furniture. I know cause you're just, you know, but other people don't know. They think you're serious.


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[Assistant] She told me that it was office policy. I told her it was my policy to provide, to not provide this information.


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[Assistant] This provoked an ugly argument that ended me finding another therapist that did not require the info. Would you provide this information to a doctor?


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[Assistant] This is from Ellen in California. I recently accepted a job where I won't need a car anymore. Conveniently at the same time my car lease is up in a month.


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[Assistant] I'm thinking of purchasing the car by paying the dealer payoff amount, then reselling it through Carvana to make money. Any advice on this process?


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[Assistant] And from Amy in Florida, I just wanted to drop a thank you. I just saved $518.26 annually on my car insurance by dropping comprehensive collision and roadside assistance for my 17 year old car. Clark, you're the best.


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[Assistant] Okay, we'll go to these questions. This is from Scott in Connecticut. Hi Clark, last year I bought a few lots on eBay that contain multiple Lego sets.


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[Assistant] And or any of my expenses associated with selling them. For example, eBay fees associated with the sale of the items, boxes for shipping, USPS charges to mail, etc.


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[Assistant] They're usually exhausted when you step on one of these things, like holding a cup of coffee. At least in my case. Alright.


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[Assistant] This is from Eric in Washington. I'm a military guy stationed in Kuwait. There are MAS dealers here on base. My question is, are there any advantages to using them for car purchases? The sales rep didn't seem to have a solid answer. I would still be taxed at the rate of where it's registered, in my case, Washington state.


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[Assistant] And I dispute, and with my dispute, and I say that they, I dispute it, and I say that they say they're going to send it back.


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[Assistant] Did you get an extra burn on the side if you touched the metal in the summer?


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[Assistant] Alright, we'll go to this question from Jillian in Florida speaking of cars. We are purchasing, uh, we are in Florida and have a lease VW that ends in June. We were planning on purchasing this vehicle at the end of our lease and we are running into fees from the dealerships up to $3,000.


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[Assistant] I never heard you mention this when you talk about buying your lease vehicle. What gives? And she attached, uhm, a sample from one of the dealerships down there.


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[Assistant] Uhm, with the buyout price. Uhm, the buyout price was 11k.


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[Assistant] I'd also call every dealer of that brand in the state and tell them I'm pitting them against each other and whoever gives the very lowest fees wins and see what they came back with.


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[Assistant] It seems as if index investing is good for individual investors, but perhaps bad for the economy as a whole. I would love to hear your thoughts.


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[Assistant] And this is from Greg in California. This isn't a question but a sneaky trick I did with my daughter. Her mom had purchased her a small outrageously expensive bottle of shampoo.


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[Assistant] So I'm a little, I'm, I have mixed feelings about this with Greg, especially that the shampoo, well, both of them, honestly, like the shampoo, it might be shampoo is important, like for me to get the kind that doesn't have the harsh chemicals and stuff. And there's certain brands people like. And then the peanut butter, it might've been like a no sugar healthier version than Skippy, which has a lot of that junk in it. So I don't know. I have to say that I'm not super.


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[Assistant] I'm enthusiastic about this, about people doing this.


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[Assistant] Really, I'm sorry, I did the serial thing like you did too though, cause to me it's the same thing, it's the same product, it doesn't matter. So.


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[Assistant] I mean, don't replace Layne's shampoo with some... Would you do that to her?


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


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[Assistant] Today we start out with Clark Stinks, a part of our show that I actually love.


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[Assistant] Because I get your feedback on where I'm missing the boat or I'm missing part of the picture. It's so helpful to me when you take the time to write your comments on Clark.com slash Clark Stinks.


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[Assistant] And later, I'm going to talk about something I don't love. The credit bureaus and a trick of the trade that the credit bureaus play dirty on that you gotta know. But without further ado, it's time for Clark Stinks. I should have never encouraged you to speak. You must think I'm pretty stupid.


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[Assistant] Ohio professor, thank you. I'm sorry that I wasted half of your money that you paid at Zeni Optical. And obviously online ordering, uh, prescription eyeglasses, it's not for everybody, but it is a steadily growing part of the marketplace. I think about how Warby Parker,


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[Assistant] has become a hybrid because of the issue the professor brought up where they offer both


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[Assistant] In major cities they have physical stores and otherwise they have online ordering of glasses because they found there are people who need


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[Assistant] The more high touch experience of going to a store, uh, somebody like Zenny.


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[Assistant] And the other online onlys, I don't see them making that transition. So obviously the online onlys aren't for everybody.


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[Assistant] Did you growing up as a kid or you too young ever go to the automats in New York City?


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[Assistant] I used to love Corrine going to the automats in New York. So what they were, where they were these shiny stainless.


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[Assistant] You know, it took me a while to learn to read. We've not talked about that lately, but anyway.


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[Assistant] Uhm, to be able to go and, and see the food and go and open the door and grab it. I mean, it was great, but Corrine, this is a different kind of thing because this is a robot actually preparing the food. I mean, at the automats, you bought, you got your food that way from the little stainless steel glass doors, but


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[Assistant] This is where the food was all cooked by humans. This is where a robot, unstaffed, is making your made to order pizza, making your made to order hamburger, making your made to order, uhm, milkshake or sundae or something like that. So this is


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[Assistant] Tremendous labor saving coming, and so it's, uh, a little different than what I just adored as a kid, the automats.


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[Assistant] So anonymous thank you because you pointed out one of the annuities that I've always said are an exception to the annuity rule. An immediate payout annuity or life annuity in your case you did 15 year.


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[Assistant] The idea is that you created your own made to order pension, which is now also allowed, but not offered by most 401k plans.


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[Assistant] Many employers have had the sophistication to offer this version of annuity


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[Assistant] That is one with very low fees and gives a good stream of income.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, there are employers who are getting hoodwinked by high cost insurers who don't know they're selling their employees down the river with really bad, ugly annuity options as part of their 401k. What we need is we need the big players in the 401k business to offer


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[Assistant] These, uh, basically self-made pensions is part of their 401k administration. We need Fidelity and Vanguard, the two largest players in 401ks.


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[Assistant] To offer very, very ultra low cost annuitization of


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[Assistant] Your retirement money so you know you will not outlive your money, which is a big problem for so many retirees.


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[Assistant] Ultra ultra ineffi- efficiently ultra, uh,


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[Assistant] Inexpensively, I should say. And I live in more than one city, so a lot of the travel that I do is commuting and there are


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[Assistant] Personal reasons why we live in more than one city.


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[Assistant] There's that, there's a lot I do for my charitable work, for fundraising, for the causes I believe in, for participating with charities that are important to me. And then there's the travel we do just for fun. And so I was looking at my calendar and I have traveled at least one place


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[Assistant] 11 of the last 12 weeks. So that's a lot of travel, isn't it?


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[Assistant] Uhm, but it's all on the cheapest fares I can possibly find. And I will do all kinds of


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[Assistant] In order to save money is you have been the brunt of sometimes with some of the stuff that I've done. We've been traveling for work where we've traveled very inconveniently, but because it's cheaper.


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[Assistant] I remember, uh, one of our book tours was seven months long. I was beat.


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[Assistant] I was using a razor, one razor, 12 months straight. And then I was convinced by a listener to try an electric razor.


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[Assistant] And now I shave almost exclusively with an electric razor.


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[Assistant] I can't, I mean, those used to have such a bad reputation. I love...


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[Assistant] Shaving with an electric razor. It's so much quicker and easier.


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[Assistant] Ruth, thank you, and as you, as you pointed out, Chris, to many people.


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[Assistant] Pointed that out. I didn't want to interrupt the flow with the interview with Mark and start getting into the virtues of buying prescriptions at Sam's and Costco, but I will right now because the way


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[Assistant] Costco in particular prices its prescriptions is unique in the business with their maximum markup model and that's why a prescription can be $7 at Costco


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[Assistant] I left my, I've got one of those old people prescription things where I put it on my, I left it at home when I was going away on a four day trip. So I was thinking of getting, uh, getting the prescriptions filled while I was out of town.


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[Assistant] And I looked online at what it was going to cost and I decided that I would go four days without my meds.


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[Assistant] I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I could not spend the money because I had a med I just filled renewed at Costco that was $10.11.


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[Assistant] And it was over $200 for a 30 day supply. I'd filled a 90 day for $10 and 11 cents. It was over $200 at both CVS and Walgreens to do a 30 day of each of the med. I was like,


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[Assistant] I'm not advising you to do that, I'm just saying that I made a choice and the Sam's Club angle that I did not get to with Ruth, because I just upset you so much about not filling the drugs, is


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[Assistant] Sam's club, if you are a plus member.


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[Assistant] There are a bunch of prescriptions that come with plus membership for free. They fill them for you for nothing. That's a good price, right? Nothing?


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[Assistant] Duely noted, we will make sure that that is added as information that is at our streaming guide, that for your local channels, and you got a lot more local channels than you knew were available where you live, if you live in an area where a simple antenna will get you


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[Assistant] Digital feed of channels, then your bill is absolutely nothing, including sports. You get a much better picture.


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[Assistant] Using that antenna than you do with cable, satellite, or streaming because the signal is not compressed. It comes at you just full bore and you've got a great 4K TV. Wow.


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[Assistant] You're going to be blown away, but at the very least the HD with that free antenna, free programming will be extraordinary. And David.


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[Assistant] My Falcons are going to have a very tough season.


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[Assistant] For a while, maybe seasons because they salary capped out and they can't afford to sign


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[Assistant] A lot of players right now and so it's going to be a long, long 17 game season.


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[Assistant] Rich, thank you, and the MacBook with the M1 chip, both the pros and the errors, have repeatedly been on promotional pricing.


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[Assistant] But from Apple or from a third party.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you're right. If a refurb is sold by the manufacturer itself.


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[Assistant] And comes with a real buyer's assurance warranty like the one year.


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[Assistant] Then that is a very viable alternative.


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[Assistant] Kevin, actually we have mentioned that before, probably not enough, and that is by statute now, and so you have the ability to remove private mortgage insurance


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[Assistant] Once you appraise out or you build enough equity simply by pay down, but today,


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[Assistant] The most common way people are doing so is appraising out before they would have paid down.


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[Assistant] sufficient balance because home values have risen so much lately.


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[Assistant] You can hire an appraiser that on your lender's approved appraisal list and as long as your payments have been on time the last 24 months.


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[Assistant] You were able to get rid of PMI.


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[Assistant] Simply because of the increase in the value of your home. So,


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[Assistant] I really appreciate you Kevin posting that because you pointed out that people can't possibly hear every episode and there are things I'll talk about one day and then not talk about for month two, three or four that are really valuable for others to hear and that's exactly what you did


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[Assistant] With your posts, and the best part is all the money you're saving going forward.


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[Assistant] And yes, one of the four giant monster megabanks held your loan and treated you right when you asked about it. Good for you and good for them. Straight ahead.


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[Assistant] Talk about big bad organizations that I have picked on forever, for decades.


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[Assistant] The credit bureaus. I want to tell you some dirty pool going on with the credit bureaus that you need to be aware of to protect your wallet.


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[Assistant] Do you know that federal law requires that you be able to get a free copy


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[Assistant] of your credit report from each major credit bureau once each year. Free coffee.


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[Assistant] The credit bureaus more or less aren't excited.


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[Assistant] That congress made this available to you years ago and five years ago.


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[Assistant] One of the three credit bureaus got caught really playing dirty with people and got sued


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[Assistant] And agreed they weren't going to play dirty pool anymore. That was trans union. Now, five years later,


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[Assistant] Trans unions getting sued by the feds for the same exact thing, still lying to you, still making it look like you have to pay for what is required by law to be free.


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[Assistant] And what happened through the sausage factory of the Congress?


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[Assistant] Is when they require that a credit report be available to you free each year from each bureau.


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[Assistant] They also in their wisdom allowed at the federally sanctioned clearance, uh, clearance site to get your free report.


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[Assistant] or common site called annualcreditreport.com


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[Assistant] Your free report. What TransUnion did before and what they're alleged to still be doing.


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[Assistant] Is they are still tricking people into thinking, oh no, you don't qualify for the free report. You need to pay us all this money or subscribe to this stupid plan or that other stupid plan or the third stupid plan. And I wanted to know, I want you to know this.


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[Assistant] A lot of people, because the Equifax horrific data breach of years ago are now rewarding the incompetence of the credit bureaus.


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[Assistant] By paying these subscription fees to Equifax TransUnion and Experian. And do not do it. Do not sign up for any of their worthless garbage from Equifax TransUnion or Experian.


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[Assistant] It is absolutely ridiculous that the credit bureaus


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[Assistant] After all the scandals, still cynically try to get in your and my wallet. They make plenty of money.


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[Assistant] Building these dossiers on us that they didn't ask our permission for.


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[Assistant] The marketplace has solved a lot of what Equifax, TransUnion, and Xperian try to con us into paying for.


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[Assistant] As a huge player in the market, they kinda have a monopoly on it, but Credit Karma offers an enormous amount of information to you for free.


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[Assistant] In return for they, like the credit bureaus, capture


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[Assistant] Don't pay Equifax TransUnion or Experian for any of their stuff.


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[Assistant] With Credit Karma, they offer free credit monitoring.


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[Assistant] So what you do is you set up with them, then you freeze your credit files.


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[Assistant] With Aquafax, TransUnion and Experian, each you have to do individually. And then what it does,


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[Assistant] Is it protects you from one of the ugliest forms of identity theft when people apply for credit as if they're you.


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[Assistant] How much does a credit freeze cost? Nothing. It's free. How much does it cost when you need to thaw your credit file temporarily because you're applying for credit somewhere? Nothing.


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[Assistant] And what does it do to your existing credit when you set up a credit freeze? Nothing.


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[Assistant] What does it do to Equifax TransUnion and Experian when you do a credit freeze? It costs them an enormous amount of money from those dossiers they built on you.


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[Assistant] That they sell off over and over again, they lose all the revenue from selling you. So be careful when you get to Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. They will try to convince you to go into something that is really not nearly as effective as credit freeze called credit lock.


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[Assistant] And they'll try to pretend to you that it's better because what it does is it still allows them to sell your dossier information.


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[Assistant] Over and over and over again for all other...


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[Assistant] Purposes except for an individual credit application, which you then would have to go in and unlock your lock.


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[Assistant] And so they did something that makes it sound very similar but very, very different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's a lot of people spying on us building these dossiers out in the marketplace. At least you can stop these three invasions of your privacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By setting up credit frees and protect yourself from identity thieves as best as possible. And trans union, just do right by people. Krista?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Sharon, you know, I'm sorry, and this happens a lot where you're filling out a form somewhere, a new doctor's office, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And right after your name and date of birth, they ask for your social security number and that plus your address, that information, they got everything they need. If an identity thief grabs that information to pretend to be you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cat's already out of the bag, or sorry, out of the barn. How did I do with both those analogies?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I got him right. So what you do in your case is you do the credit freezes I was just talking about. The credit freezes will protect you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty well from anybody using information stolen from doctor's office, lab, hospital, um, diagnostic center, uh, outpatient surgery center from your information being stolen from any of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll be as protected as you can be by putting in place the free credit freeze. And we've got a credit freeze guide at Clark.com slash credit freeze that walks you through how to do it. It'll take you about 12 minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To freeze your credit with all three bureaus when you need to thaw, that takes about four minutes with all three credit bureaus total.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cigar, what's happened is in certain states, the enforcement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of age restrictions on the purchase of beer, wine and alcohol.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are being enforced the letter and in some states they send in decoy shoppers and like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can ask my 16 year old son, well he actually told me. He said, dad, that's one of the places that we can go buy beer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, most of them have like a special, do you call this a barcode, Krista?