[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But most of the time it's the other way. I'm saying, you know, this on the shelf says blah, blah, blah. And here it rang up for more and they come over, they key in, whatever. And I get that price. It's your money. It's my money. We're dealing with the cycle of inflation, especially on groceries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if something doesn't ring up at that week's sale price, or doesn't ring up at the price you saw on the shelf,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's your money that you worked hard for and just be warned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The dollar general problem is not exclusively a dollar general problem. It may be more amplified at dollar general than it is at other retailers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it is a problem and I have, I remember numbers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, if I'm buying 20 items at a retail store.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the alternative is what I love is retailers where I can scan items myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And more and more retailers, if you're a regular shopper there, you can use that app.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To do a price check or to actually ring up your own sale.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you're able, at the time you pull the item from the shelf, you're able to see what the actual price is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Showing that they're going to charge you versus whatever was there on the shelf. Uhm, and just know


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a clear problem in retail and you don't want to throw your own money away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the, uh, auto and homeowners insurance markets are having what's known as an underwriting problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a nice way of saying they've mispriced so much of the insurance they sell and their losses are way exceeding what their guesstimate said they would be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A number of insurers are collecting premiums way below


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What their actual cost of doing business is. Now I know of no reason why the umbrella insurance products.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] would be running up in price other than the insurer that went from 325 to 569 has been reporting underwriting losses lately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they've signaled to Wall Street that they're gonna be pushing up rates. So I don't think there's a specific underwriting reason why an umbrella policy, which is an excess liability policy, would be going up. But overall,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've been collecting far too few dollars. You did the right thing by checking with both major insurers you do business with and the prices are nearly identical for the umbrella policy. But just know the reason for the run up is that a lot of insurers, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their, their calculations were wrong, they haven't been charging enough, and that's why a lot of us are going to see sticker shock on premiums at renewal, especially for auto, not necessarily for things like umbrella policies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, okay, a couple of things, Jeff. You're not going to hurt your credit doing a payment plan with the IRS. The payment plan with the IRS is at a much lower effective interest rate than what you typically pay a credit card company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those rates were exceedingly low for a long period of time. They're a little higher now. They reset regularly. You can find the current interest rate right now just by searching the IRS website. But the interest rate is lower than with a card.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you use that to pay your taxes, you'll have to pay a fee upfront to the IRS for paying your tax bill with a credit card. And that fee usually will be more or less 3%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you have that cost up front. You then have the zero percent for the period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the intro, as long as you could pay it off in that time period, but don't be afraid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To do a payment plan with the IRS. The way it works is you file your tax return on time even if you don't have the money to pay your tax bill. You send them what you can afford to send them from zero dollars to whatever amount for the taxes you owe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You then propose a payment plan to the IRS.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which it will take them a long, long time to respond to. It may take them as long as a year to say yes or no to the payment plan you propose. In the meantime, just pay them every month based on the payment plan that you propose to the IRS. You'll be paying the, uh, really pretty amazingly low interest rate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you'll be fine doing it that way. Uh, the one thing not to do is use a credit card on which you're paying normal credit card interest rates, which depending on whose calculations you believe,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The average credit card now carries a rate of either 19%


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So normally what will happen in that case, Chris, and it's not a universal thing, but most often a store will give you store credit. So you'll have their credit, not the Visa gift card credit, and that's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you'll have to do with the money is you'll have to use it within the walls of that retailer. Very rarely in a situation like that the retailer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, uh, it'll be from that point, their store process or the negotiation you do with them, whether you have a store credit or they in fact give you cash at that point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, that's a first. I've never heard of anybody being able to do that. That's cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, because, uh, that's an unusual thing for a store to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I want to thank you so much for being with us today. I hope you've heard something today that's useful in your life. I want to tell you, we have information for you every single day in our free newsletters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you go to Clark.com slash newsletters, you can see what we've got available to help you stretch every dollar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] YJ in California says on a recent podcast episode, Clark talked about how now is the best time to buy mattresses. One advantage of the old way of purchasing a mattress is that the deliverer would haul away the old mattress for free or for a small fee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the new mattress in a box delivery model, what's the best way to get rid of my old mattresses so I don't have to spend a fortune just to dispose of them?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well they also have a whole, they, this website is dedicated to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The mattress is not ending up in landfills so that you can look by every single state and see at least where you could bring a mattress or dispose of it. So it is a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty good website. Okay, Scott in North Dakota says I'm the treasury secretary, the secretary treasurer for a small non-profit association.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We want to put $25,000 into a high interest savings account as a treasury reserve to use only in case of unexpected expenses. All of the high interest rate online accounts that I have found are only for personal accounts and won't accept an application using a federal EIN tax identification number instead of a social security number.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What is the best high interest rate account for a non-profit association? Our tax status is that we are 501c3 and we are not required to file tax returns because our annual income is always less than $50,000. Actually, much less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Annette in Alabama says, what's the deal with the high cost of all in one desktop computers? When did desktops become popular again?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the easiest way to do it is you can just buy a little device, they used to be called docking stations, but a little device that has a USB that plugs into your laptop and all the other devices just plug into that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I must admit I'm slightly influenced by the idea that a gold or silver coin would be more valuable than fiat currency, another new term I'm hearing about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just even attempting to write out a coherent question here has already been helpful. I can hear your voice ringing out. Stop. Don't fall for the trap. Am I hearing you correctly?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. This is from Mary in South Carolina. What's the best kind of life insurance for my mortgage? If my spouse passes it would pay off my home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From Phil in Georgia, I'm currently on my parents' teacher health insurance which has been great because it's free for them to keep me on even though I'm now 24.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, my father's retiring at the end of the year and I will no longer be able to. So what's the best health insurance for someone who is self-employed and who has not been to the doctor in years?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanna talk about the questions that keep coming at me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About your concerns about the safety of your money in your accounts. And this is true for both wealthier individuals and most business owners.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have times that you bump up against limits. We're going to talk about that. And later, cost of TV keeps going up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And down at the same time, how could both things be true simultaneously? We're going to talk about it because it's key to you stretching every dollar. And we're going to talk about your alternatives. So right now I talk about the banks and couple of weeks ago, there was, there was actual true panic going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And today I'd say there's confusion. Where are we headed with this? Truth? Nobody knows. Nobody knows because there are stressors in the system. Plus there's still real insecurity about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is much healthier than it was fifteen years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No doubt the issues of extreme, uh, criminal activity, not present this time, at least not any we know of. And it's a totally different circumstance this time versus last time. There were specific factors that led to the banks that are having a tough time right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the failure of one of the nation's largest banks, Silicon Valley Bank. And interest rate movements have had a big impact. And this is one of those things that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is something none of us ever care to pay attention to and we shouldn't have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had ultra low, artificially low interest rates in the economy for a long time to deal with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The aftermath of the banking scandals of 15 years ago and the follow on great recession.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then we went through an extended period just as rates were on their path towards more normal than we had COVID.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had the emergency actions by central banks like our federal reserve all around the globe to prevent a worldwide depression when COVID hit us three years ago. So what it means is that if I'm a bank and I have my reserves and I had done what I thought


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was good cash management, which is put the money that I have in reserve.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In longer-term financial instruments, suddenly, as the Federal Reserve started the process of fighting inflation and other central banks around the world, same thing, fighting inflation by pushing interest rates up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What happens is when the interest rates are pushed up, the value of any kind of holdings that are longer term drop in value. So we ended up with this gap in reserves at these financial institutions. And once people got worried,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It created a cycle of a run on the bank. And as has been pointed out, uh, by us and many other people, social media played a role in this as well, which did not exist in any meaningful scope 15 years ago. But within minutes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Word spread, Hey, I'm worried about our money at Silicon Valley bank or I'm worried about our money. I don't even name other banks and be part of that problem. This bank, that bank, the other bank bank in Switzerland, other banks in the United States. And so it created an accelerated run on certain banks. Now the banking sector is not unhealthy in the United States.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I discussed when we did our special show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the midst of the banking problems emerging two weeks ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the regional banks or the midsize banks, nobody seems to be able to settle on, do we say regional, super regional, midsize, whatever. Let's just go with midsize. They're the banks that are the tier below the four giant monster mega banks. They principally do business with local and regional businesses and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're in business and you have really any size at all, it can be a local service business, you're repeatedly going to have deposits in excess of the quarter million FDIC insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the problem is if I've worked hard to build up my business and suddenly I freak out and I get worried about the safety of my money in a bank, what am I going to do? I'm going to move money. I'm going to move it somewhere else and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what creates the runs on the bank. And that's why a number of these mid-sized banks have seen deposits flee. Then you add on top of it, going back to interest rates,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What is a natural thing for a business to do? It depends on the size of the business. If they're big enough that they have somebody managing, you know, an accountant on hand, a bookkeeper, the bigger they have a chief financial officer, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the interest rates available on idle cash rise, what do they do? They go to where they can get the most money on that. Reducing the amount of money


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is just sitting there idle in a particular financial institution that was using that money to operate on, suddenly they have less deposits because the deposits are going to where they can earn more money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's not a run on the bank. It's just smart business on the part of those customers. So all these things have been baking in a cake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ever since the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. So, that's a long way around of saying, technically, deposits only insure to a quarter million. But it's pretty clear that deposits are going to be protected


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At any financial institution that runs into cash flow issues, for now, to prevent a cycle of fear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would feed on itself and lead to one run on a bank after another after another. Now the long knives have come out since two weeks ago and there's one story after another after another talking about moral hazard. Okay, so what's the idea of moral hazard? It's that you have these banks


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That make money and give it to their stockholders, but if they get into trouble,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then they know Uncle Sam is there for them. That is true moral hazard because that socializes the risk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But privatizes the profit to the stockholders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it is true that Silicon Valley Bank, the stockholders got wiped out. And that's as it should be. But let's look at the other side of this. For business to function, it is not reasonable


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For you and me as business owners to be able to look under the hood of any bank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And know whether they are safe and secure or not. And that's why we need to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The short attention spans of the politicians and the lack of real deep understanding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of how the banking sector works I don't know that there will be the sense of urgency to eliminate the moral hazard and create


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any situation where a meaningful number of depositors would come in and say, hey I want my money now. And,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are various ways you can do it with, uhm, capital or with borrowed funds that would be deposited with the bank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By people who would be, uh, essentially they're lenders to a bank that if the bank needed the money, they then become stockholders of the bank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that gets pretty esoteric and complicated, but the point is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have two different things that are going on simultaneously. One, how do we deal with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's a core unfairness of modern banking and that is the stockholders in a normal time get the profits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in an abnormal time, potentially the taxpayers of each country and our own is what we're talking about right now, end up on the hook like we did 15 years ago to bail out the banks. That fundamental problem


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] needs to be solved and there are several ways to do it. We need solid conversations about that. Second, it is not right


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a business owner or a wealthy individual to be expected to know


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The underlying health of a bank, impossible. Even the auditors of the just now failed banks said weeks before that they were fine when they weren't. So what does it mean you should do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the key. What is it you should do as an individual?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want you to be careful, regardless of when this blows over with the banks and all that, having more than a quarter million in a bank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless Congress adopts a new totality kind of regime where any money you have deposited in a financial institution automatically covered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want to think this through. I mean, there's Yanis, the basketball player from Greece who lived through the Greek bank failures of the financial crisis of 15 years ago, um, was much in the news several years ago because he has,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he has, uh, 50 or 60 different bank accounts at different financial institutions where he doesn't keep more than a quarter million in any one of them plays for, if I remember right, the Milwaukee bucks. And he does this because he wants to make sure he's got full.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] FDIC insurance. And I'm not telling you to go open 50 or so accounts. That's why recently I talked about CDARS. The CDARS program is a way for you to make sure all your money is in fact insured. But I, as a business owner, I want you also to be aware


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of your ability to take funds and put it into


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Money market funds that are US Treasury or government securities based. I shared that two weeks ago. You may not have heard about that. I want you to be aware of it. The easiest two places to do that are Schwab and Fidelity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is a way for you to have your working funds at the bank of your choosing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the same time, any excess capital


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be earning market rate interest on it, but have it be better than FDIC insurance, a direct obligation of the US Treasury, the US government. And Krista


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could talk about this for like another 45 minutes, but I don't want people to fall asleep. It's just like, you know, if we talk about life insurance that anytime we do life insurance on the podcast, it should be, um, what you do if you're having insomnia, you listen to it and then you fall right to sleep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hope that banking goes back to being something that instead of costing people sleep, where they worry that it becomes something that is a snooze-arama and people just fall straight to sleep. Did you, did you not often go to sleep when I was talking about this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so first of all, what is a neuropsychological study?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so this has come up, uh, over the years, or the surveys that people do. Are these things taxable income? And technically, yes. So this is a perfect


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because with two, uh, preteen kids, yeah, they, they work for this money. They did these surveys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you don't even have to file a tax return because it's a small amount of money. You could just keep documentation of what they earned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yes, you can open a custodial Roth IRA for each of them. Make sure it's a custodial Roth and not traditional IRA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you want that money to grow tax free for, think about an 8 and 11 year old, how much money 200 bucks becomes, just that by itself, over the next 55, 60 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The idea of doing the Apple program for the iPhone is you're always able to get the next year's new phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as long as you haven't completely trashed your existing phone, they seem to be pretty generous allowing, uh, a decent amount of wear and tear on the phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The downside? You're paying forever. Forever. You're always paying. Why did Apple do this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Apple's a pretty private company, so they publicly trade, but they're pretty private. They hold their cards close. But as an outside observer...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People tend to hold their iPhone and use the same one for years and years and years. In fact, uh, there was a woman who stopped wanting a picture with me, uh, this morning. And I, I said to her, Hey, I'm so impressed because her iPhone,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That people with iPhones tend to keep them longer and longer and longer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Needs people to get the newest stuff. So this is all about the upgrade program is all about getting you to cycle through the iPhones and they take your old one and they sell it to somebody else here in the United States or overseas. They may refer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then put it back into the market for someone else. So this is really about you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you need to have the latest, greatest iPhone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you always want to have that latest, greatest iPhone. Fine. Go for it. On the other hand, if you find that your iPhone is, is perfectly fine and you're happy with it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't do the upgrade program. And I know that Apple says, don't worry, you can just pay it off to us and then you own it. But I'd rather you keep it simple if your druthers are to keep a phone for any of a number of years. So, and I love having the feedback from


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] iPhone customers, so if you have other perspectives on why you feel that the upgrade program from Apple is a much better tool than I just painted, please go to Clark.com slash Clark Stinks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coming up straight ahead, uh, streaming TV is being pretty stinky right now for people with very aggressive price increases. Let me tell you what's behind that and what you can do about it straight ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So a lot of big increases coming with streaming services because of the enormous success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of Disney reporting to financial analysts that when they push through the huge increases for Disney plus pricing that almost no one switched to a lower priced version


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] or discontinued the Disney Plus that it was such a sticky service that everybody else is like, wow, Disney ran the price way up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they had no market consequences. I guess we're good too. And that's why you've seen one significant and actually much bigger


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then we've experienced in the past price increase for streaming services of all different kinds. Those that are the ones that mimic traditional cable have all pushed up their prices a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then for things that are, uh, more monoline like Netflix or the Disney Plus or anything like that where you're watching their own programming that's not based on what was known as broadcast bundles, uhm, they've all been moving the prices up and YouTube TV


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is, I guess, the biggest player.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And traditional broadcast kind of fair streaming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pushed through a big increase again and now we're talking about quite a bit of money, 73 bucks a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, that's a lot. We're getting up to the kind of price point that the cable monsters used to charge. They were not quite, because they were over, I think, $105 a month average. But we're really moving that direction, especially when you think about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When YouTube TV launched, it was 35 a month. And now it's more than double that. And uh, Hulu


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Live has gotten in that same territory and we got one after another that's up there. Sling is kind of the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Best compromise, if you want a wide variety of broadcast and you want sports, Sling remains potentially the best deal out there, relatively speaking, at $55 a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's if you particularly gravitate towards sport.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If sports are not important to you, you need to know about the skinnies that remain really, really great deals where you get traditional, uhm, the traditional broadcast kind of channels or cable kind of channels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without sports at a much lower price, uh, Philo remains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The biggest player with the best deal in that at 25 a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean think about the difference if you're not into sports. The 73 a month with YouTube TV, the roughly 70 a month for Hoon Loong Live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you do filo, or even, I mean, you think about the sling at 55. We're talking about 25 a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Big, big, big difference. You just gotta see are you comfortable with the channels available and friendly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is spelled F R N D L Y and you see all this on our, uh, streaming guide at Clark.com starts at $7 a month for an ultra skinny bundle. And so there's these alternatives plus gosh, if you're into sports, an antenna is really great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause with an antenna, you'll get a better picture of the sports programming that's available on local channels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As long as you live within a range that you can pick up the local signals and as I've shared with you in the past, you'll get all kinds of channels you didn't even know existed and your monthly bill is zero. And speaking of zero, there's so much ad supported streaming content.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's now available at zero dollars per month and you can see our guide to all the streaming services are available for nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is an area, it's not like in the era where your only choice was the cable monster. And you went to the cable monster, if you wanted programming, and they told you what you were going to pay. And that was it. You paid what they told you. That was all your choice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But now it's not a monopoly. And there's all these different ways to get video content. And if you just let inertia rule your wallet,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll just pay more money. On the other hand, when the market changes and there are new opportunities, if you are willing to adapt and experiment


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can save so much money. And dare I say, have more content than you could ever watch. Ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, never sleep and you still couldn't watch all the content and have a zero dollar monthly bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, you might miss this or that or the other thing, but you're going to have more video than anybody can absorb. Have you ever, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had that thing, Krista, where you've looked through and seen how much in total you're paying for various streams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I've been having a discussion, we're negotiating right now with all my family members because I'm cutting back on all this because I don't like what we're spending right now and they all don't get it because they're not paying the bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they're not going to get the programming anymore if we don't reach some kind of accommodation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Lynn, uhm, the way it works is on long-haul Southwest flights, I find that a very high percent of passengers pay for early bird check-in. And if you pay for early bird check-in, for people who are not familiar, Southwest boards in the A group


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The B group and the C group. There's no assigned seats. And it's A 1 through 60, B 1 through 60, and C 1 through 60. Which the math doesn't really work out because


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[Assistant] The largest plane Southwest flies has 175 seats. But anyway, so.


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[Assistant] Uhm, on the long hauls, like flying coast to coast or whatever, I find that huge numbers of people pay for early bird. Uhm, on flights of let's say a length of two hours or less,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I find relatively few people pay for early bird. So if you're really worried and you're going on a long haul flight,


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[Assistant] I have never ever done it and uh, because I always set an alarm and check in exactly 24 hours in advance, we've never ended up in a center seat.


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[Assistant] And as far as being able to sit together, that has not been a problem checking in exactly 24 hours in advance. So the peace of mind gets you, does it get you A group or early B group or what does it tend to get you?


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[Assistant] Absolutely, Tom, you're a devoted frontier flyer and this is what I always say about these airline cards. If you, uhm, fly them regularly, you have significant charge volume, not that important with frontier because the way their card is set up


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[Assistant] You don't have to worry that much about how much charge volume you have on it. You'll get the decent benefits. In your case, this works out ideally for you. The math works and you're the first person


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[Assistant] Ever to ask me about getting a Frontier Airlines credit card never happened before this moment. Now I'm waiting for somebody to ask me about a Spirit credit card because we haven't had that either.


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[Assistant] Be happy. This isn't going to show on your credit because it's not a 30 day late. It was one day late according to this bank. Now, you should call their credit card operation and tell them you've never had a late pay. You've mailed it two weeks in advance.


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[Assistant] And it could be their processing problem. I don't know if you know this story, Frank, but years ago,


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[Assistant] There were problems with banks that were sitting on processing payments. And we did a thing where we were sending payments to, uh, credit, there's something I did in TV.


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[Assistant] Where we were sending payments by overnight delivery and we knew when they were received and the average time that a payment was posted was four days after receipt by the bank.


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[Assistant] And I remember when we caught him red-handed and we talked to media relations at the credit card company and they gave us a bunch of gobbledygook about why they were posting payments days after they were received.


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[Assistant] The, the credit card company will blame it on the postal service. Everybody loves to blame everything on the postal service. I would say that in this case, your track record's clear. You call and you ask them to remove the late fee and remove the interest charge and


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[Assistant] If they don't do it, I would file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.


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[Assistant] And you mailed it by your telling two weeks out. The mailing thing.


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[Assistant] Never again do not pay bills by mailing in a payment. Electronic bill pay is free.


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[Assistant] Set it up with your bank or credit union. The payment will post electronically. There will be no issue of statement of fact or anything like that. This will never happen again. So right now all you have is you have a late fee and interest. You will though in this case have no mark on your credit. Don't worry about the five to seven year thing. And it was an eye opener when we did that thing with the overnight delivery.


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[Assistant] And the payments were consistently posted late over and over and over again. Tells you everything you need to know and I don't believe that it's a conspiracy on the part of the banks. I believe that it's a processing problem at the banks that things are not posted when received.


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[Assistant] And I want to thank you so much for being with us today. I hope the rest of your day is absolutely fantastic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The transitory, in quotes, inflation has been stinking for a while now. Unemployment is inversely proportional to inflation. So while I understand that there were many inflation apologists out there, I didn't think you would have been one of them.


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[Assistant] Would you agree that inflation isn't going to move much until we see unemployment start to tick up? Love the show, Joseph.


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[Assistant] Clark failed to consider the potential state tax deduction in his response to a listener question about a 529 plan. If their state allows a deduction it would be beneficial to open and contribute to a 529 plan even if they plan to use the funds right away for college expenses. Rick.


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[Assistant] Words matter. Please use the terms credit inquiry, hard pull, or soft pull, etc.


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[Assistant] To me, a credit hit is a negative impact to one's credit. A soft pull has zero impact to one's credit and credit score.


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[Assistant] When you say a soft hit, I believe that infers a small negative impact to one's credit, which is misleading. Keep the soft hits and hard hits re- and get ready for the next NFL season. Go Lions, Jim in Michigan.


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[Assistant] You definitely don't stink, but could use, I could use a little more information when it comes to cruises. Whenever you discuss them, you always tell us that a first time cruiser should contact a live travel agent when making reservations. But you're extremely vague and giving reasons why we need to do this. Why shouldn't first time cruisers take advantage of online deals for cruises?


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[Assistant] What exactly should first timers pay more for a travel agent's advice? Is it not possible to effectively research ships and activities on our own, Dennis?


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[Assistant] I'd say the opposite is normally true. Like if you want quiet, you really need to be careful.


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[Assistant] You talk about trying to get the best out of a razor and electric shaver, et cetera, but I believe the better option is to buy an electric hair trimmer set. It comes with multiple options and I use it to cut my hair and shave. The best part is I bought mine for under $15 and it has lasted almost nine years and is still going strong.


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[Assistant] I'm not the best barber, but my better three quarters doesn't mind. It's a little savings like this that allows me to max out a Roth IRA and 401k. Thanks again for all you do, Perry.


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[Assistant] I wanted to comment about your discussion on pharmacists. I've been a pharmacist in the St. Louis area for 22 years. There are two pharmacy colleges here and another in Kansas City.


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[Assistant] That said, the job market here is very bad and difficult to even find a job. So I'm guessing the shortage you've referred to probably depends on the region and probably specific to the retail sector.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The working conditions in retail are indeed bad and most likely contribute to the shortages. Anyway, just wanted to give some context based on what I've experienced, Tom.


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[Assistant] I have not been getting 4% cash back buying gas at Walmart.


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[Assistant] While you may carry the Costco Anywhere Visa card in your wallet, mine will stay in the kitchen drawer for purchases only at Costco. My Sam's Carb MasterCard is now in my wallet and I will keep getting 10 cents off per gallon plus 5% on top of that. If you don't believe me, I have the statements to prove it. John.


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[Assistant] Clark, you missed the mark by just a bit on your listener answer about Monte Carlo forecasting for retirement. You did mention financial engines as a tool that uses Monte Carlo forecasting, but you forgot to mention your girlfriend, Vanguard, offers a limited version of that tool for free.


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[Assistant] I believe it's for accounts of a certain balance that's available, but you were


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[Assistant] I listen every day while eating lunch since 2021, but I think Clark and Krista are stinky times too here. You guys mentioned it was very popular having a double Clark stinks day, but how can you be sure? Personally, I prefer the normal Clark stinks day once a week, but I like


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[Assistant] Most people until this time will not write a question or a stinks message. So maybe mention a survey every now and then where you might get a better representation of what listeners like and don't like as much. You all do a great job with the show and have taught me a lot. Thanks, Chris.


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[Assistant] Yeah, there was this one time, I mean you do have like,


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[Assistant] And you, uhm, but you always say I have Christa colored glasses, but you are just as guilty. And you called me from your room and you were like, wow, did you, they give you a room? This room is so elegant. I mean, the drapes and the, like this, that you're describing your room, like it was so incredible. And I was like, oh my gosh, they must have like given him like the presidential suite, you know? So I go up to see this, you know, palace.


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[Assistant] And it's the same exact room I was in. Like same...


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[Assistant] The more money you save, the nicer it becomes in your eyes. You have savings goggles that you put on. Like if you've saved a bunch of money, you're like, this place is amazing. Like you, isn't it true?


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[Assistant] Steve in Illinois says, why don't you ever talk about the benefits of making bi-weekly or bi-monthly mortgage payments? Typically a mortgage is a consumer's largest expense each month.


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[Assistant] And most people are paid bi-weekly or two times a month. A person can dramatically cut down the interest they pay over time and cut years off their mortgage terms by simply paying their mortgage two times a month or better bi-weekly, which has you making 13 payments a year versus 12.


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[Assistant] Once you get used to making the bi-weekly payments, depending on your income, you may notice a small change in your cash flow.


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[Assistant] Of the bi-monthly or bi-weekly mortgage payments regardless of what interest rate a customer has.


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[Assistant] And this is from Sue in Wisconsin. Regarding eyeglasses and contact prescriptions, why do they expire one year after the eye exam date?


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[Assistant] To me, it's an unnecessary expense and hassle, especially for someone without vision insurance, to reorder contacts or purchase new glasses. In addition to an eye exam, I must pay a contacts fitting fee each time, even though my prescription hasn't changed in 10 years. I live in a rural area.


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[Assistant] So I would like to reorder contacts online. There is no retail optical center that might offer a free exam within 40 miles of my home.


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[Assistant] There are seven of us and we'll be renting a large vehicle to drive around the island. You say not to pay for extra car insurance from the rental company.


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[Assistant] I asked the agent what does he do when he goes on vacation and he said half the time he buys the extra insurance and the other half he doesn't. What should I do?


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[Assistant] Yes, so the FDA does classify contact lenses as medical devices, so you have to have a doctor's prescription.


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[Assistant] And according to 1-800-Contacts, they say, uh, it's common to hear that contact lens prescriptions expire in a year. The truth is it depends. Most contact lens prescriptions expire between one and two years after your eye exam or contact lens fitting. Multiple factors, including state laws, determine how long your prescription lasts.


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[Assistant] I mean, I want to just say, I do think it's important to get an exam every year, especially if you're wearing, as a former contact lens wearer. I've had, I had problems and your eyes don't necessarily get the oxygen they need. There can be,


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[Assistant] I'm so glad to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show, our mission is to serve you and empower you so you can make better financial decisions in your life.


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[Assistant] One way we try to do that is through our newsletters. You can sign up at Clark.com slash newsletters. You know what our subscription price is? Free. That's right.


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[Assistant] Today I want to tell you about a trend in investing.


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[Assistant] That has ups and downs. We got to talk about it and fake online stores have spread like the plague and it's not always easy to tell the difference. I want to share with you some steps you should take before you click to purchase what could turn out to be


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[Assistant] A crooked sight or just flat out crooks. So.


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[Assistant] For when I travel. It's funny with WhatsApp because of all the spying.


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[Assistant] I remove it and then when I'm going on a trip again, I add it back on because it's so important when you're traveling outside the United States to have it. But I digress. But people on WhatsApp, every single day when I'm active on WhatsApp, I'm getting things that show up from


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[Assistant] Investing in this, investing in that, investing in the other, and they're trying to get me to join their chat and all that. Well, you know where I'm going with this. So many people got into this speculative fever in investing in stocks. Uh, remember when, uh,


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[Assistant] The movie theater chain was going way up in value even though it was on the verge of bankruptcy and, uh,


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[Assistant] GameStop was doing, there were all these stocks that became what they called meme stocks. They were just being fed as stories.


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[Assistant] On message boards and people were driving the values up and they were fighting the shorts and all that. And people suddenly on paper were worth a lot of money and people were doing margin where they were borrowing money and timing in and out of stocks and trading like mad. And there were all these instant millionaires. And now what's happened to those people? So many of them ended up below broke.


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[Assistant] Because of the money they borrowed to buy more shares on speculation of various things.


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[Assistant] And things collapse and then the crypto thing, it's been ugly. I mean, I think about how many people used to post with


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[Assistant] Fierce anger on Clark Stinks.


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[Assistant] If Krista would read them on Clark sync, she had to clean up the language because we're a family oriented podcast. We couldn't use language like that on our podcast. People were so mad at me and said, I just didn't get it and blah, blah, blah. Um,


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[Assistant] And now what's happened, a lot of those people having been burned have now sworn off investing. Wrong message to take from what happened.


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[Assistant] Because what people were doing in 20 and 21 was not investing. It was speculation and gambling. And so people who were buying and selling rapid fire,


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[Assistant] People who were, uh, buying and spec all these different cryptos.


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[Assistant] And people that were borrowing on margin, I'm telling you, margin is something. Let me tell you what margin is.


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[Assistant] Okay, so you own investments and you're like, Hey, this thing's got momentum is going up. I want to make more money. So they would borrow against their existing shares to then be able to buy more shares.


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[Assistant] And leverage their way up. But what happens if instead of leveraging up, that holding starts to fall? You get hit with a margin call, which gives you depending on the broker,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Minutes, at most maybe an hour or two.


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[Assistant] To cover that margin call or they start selling out your positions and people who were trying to make more money ended up losing in many cases all the money they had invested plus.


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[Assistant] Terribly dangerous, it's playing with fire. So now people are like, it was burned. Never gonna do this again. And overwhelmingly, these are people


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[Assistant] They were involved in all this speculative fever in 20 and 21. Wrong lesson to take that it means you do not invest long-term wealth flows to owners.


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[Assistant] And so use a traditional investing strategy to get back in the game. Be dull. I'm the dullest man alive. Be dull like me. What you do is you buy really dull things through work. I'm going to go on here, put your money in the 401k at work. Falling asleep already, right?


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[Assistant] Put the money into the target retirement fund choice for the year that's realistic for you to retire.


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[Assistant] In that 401k or that Roth IRA and while you're at it, if you're really young.


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[Assistant] And your employer offers, I think three quarters do now, a Roth version of the 401k, do the Roth version of the 401k, do the Roth IRA, and just contribute every pay period into the target retirement fund where it's automatically diversified for you.


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[Assistant] And you don't have to worry about it. You got nothing exciting to talk about on a message board.


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[Assistant] But down the road, your life becomes exciting.


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[Assistant] Because you're going to have money and you're going to have options.


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[Assistant] You know, so much of what happened in 2021 was people looking for the shortcut. Why would I be a chump?


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[Assistant] And work for decades. I mean, I keep doing this trading. I'm going to be able to retire in three or four months and live the rest of my life on the millions I've made. Yeah. Who did that work out for? Wealth is built over time.


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[Assistant] Simply by living on less than what you make and investing the difference and the more conservative you are.


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[Assistant] With that investing, but it's investing because you're putting it into stock type choices. The more conservative you are,


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[Assistant] The more you're steady as you go, the more you're the turtle. What happens ultimately, the turtle wins the race. Promise.


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[Assistant] If they will, uh, lower credit limit for you at your request or not raise your limit, uhm,


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[Assistant] Okay, so we're talking about tactics here versus what might happen in your life. There are people, Steven, who, given a higher credit limit, treat it as permission to spend more. If that's you know thyself, and if that is true, then what you want to do overrides


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[Assistant] The strategy of wanting higher and higher credit limits.


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[Assistant] Because higher credit limits raise your credit score because they lower


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[Assistant] Unless you, you know your behavior that you would charge up more given a higher limit.


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[Assistant] What normally happens is people get the higher limit but their charge volume doesn't go up.


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[Assistant] Which is roughly a third of what makes up your credit score. People who have turbo high credit scores above 800.


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[Assistant] Have credit utilization ratios below 10%. On the other hand if your credit utilization


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[Assistant] The amount of your available credit you're using goes above 30%. Your score goes down. If you use above 50%, your score nose dives.


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[Assistant] And so we're talking about two entirely different things here. One, personal behavior.


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[Assistant] Higher credit limit, if it leads to more spending in your life, that higher credit limit is a curse, not a blessing. But in most situations, if it's just about having the best credit profile possible, you want those higher credit limits.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I mean, let's face facts. Alright, the Chinese dictatorship, uhm, wants nothing but harm to us. And TikTok is a Chinese company.


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[Assistant] TikTok's most successful market in the world is the United States. And TikTok faces a credibility issue. That's why so many


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[Assistant] State governments and local governments around the country have banned their employees from being TikTok on TikTok on any


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[Assistant] Uh, government issued device or computer or phone.


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[Assistant] What did we do? TikTok is an important place for us to meet our audience.


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[Assistant] So what we do is we use a segregated device for TikTok that we use only for that. And that's how we protect ourselves as an enterprise is by having TikTok completely segregated from everything else we do.


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[Assistant] And to any business owner, I would recommend the same thing. Uhm, you know, communist China is a complicated entity, complicated country. And the dictators, Xi has, uh, really hurt Chinese capitalism.


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[Assistant] To the point that it's hurting Chinese employment and Chinese economic activity. And now it's like, oops, and is rethinking that and will probably permit in, I would bet the not too distant future allow TikTok to segregate


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[Assistant] American activity from the rest of TikTok activity and hopefully we'll create safe, secure boundaries that will eliminate TikTok spying by the communists on American people. And we'll see if I'm right about that. Uh, but China is clearly going from being an adversary to being a hostile enemy of the United States.


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[Assistant] And TikTok will certainly be.


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[Assistant] Part of the Chinese effort to undermine Americans, no doubt at all.


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[Assistant] Well, eh, your thinking's not incorrect, uhm, but I did get a real deal on my black shirts. This is a member's mark.


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[Assistant] And for a broadcast, the podcast, cause you never know when something's going to be edited with something else, whatever. So I always wear the same, not the same one, the same exact shirt, same color. And I saved a ton on these shirts and they're still looking okay, aren't they?


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[Assistant] Yeah. So warehouse club, if you shop regularly, you will save money. No, nothing you're getting wrong about this. You're completely right. It is a great way for you to save and coming up straight ahead. It's talking about shopping when you're shopping online more and more.


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[Assistant] Online shopping is infested with fake retail sites. You gotta be careful because before you know it,


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[Assistant] They'll steal your money or sell you junk. Social media is so much a part of people's lives and I'll watch my wife sometimes who's a big Instagram user who's scrolling through sitting next to her and she's, uh, she'll see ad after ad after ad for women's clothing brands and what's become such a problem for her and for so many other people


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[Assistant] Who see something promoted on social media is you'll click to purchase.


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[Assistant] And you don't even realize you're not at the real website of the real seller who supposedly has the deal. And this is a growing, booming scam area that you need to be aware of that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The crooks will pull the architecture identically of the real site.


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[Assistant] So when you see something, when you're scrolling on social media and an ad pops up and you click on it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you'll be at something that looks exactly like...


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[Assistant] The actual real site that you like to shop at, that you like to buy from.


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[Assistant] And so, this has become such a problem.


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[Assistant] We have a guide at Clark.com how to spot the phonies and most of them you'll know immediately. Now,


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[Assistant] Interestingly enough, I do this anytime.


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[Assistant] I am clicking on any link that's not


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[Assistant] The actual website itself and I'm really focused on this right now because our number one tip kept me from getting ripped off just in the last week. I don't know if I told you this Krista.


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[Assistant] Online, on a news site. And there was an ad. And it was a great deal. And I click on it.


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[Assistant] And it takes me to what looks like the website, but I followed rule number one, which is I moved my mouse up to the URL, the web address, and it was phony. Of course I closed the window right away.


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[Assistant] And that's one of, we've got deeper steps you can go through. In fact, we have half a dozen where you can make sure that if


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[Assistant] See, it's different. If I go type in blah blah blah dot com on my computer or the browser on my phone, I'm okay.


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[Assistant] If I do a Google search for a business, I'm way not okay anymore. Not even close to okay or any other search engine because so many phonies


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[Assistant] Yeah, so you go up there and you move it in there, it's going to show you if you're actually at the real site.


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[Assistant] And so I just simply doing, knowing that thing to start with is the first step. Bam. I was out of there. So the deal was fake. And what happens when you're at a fake site is either they just steal money from you.


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[Assistant] And they also have your credit card number. Think about what you give on an online site. You give your credit card number, you give your expiration date, you give your billing zip code, you give your actual address, and you give the three digit code on the back of a Visa or MasterCard to discover the four digit code on the front of American Express.


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[Assistant] Which is wonderful. If you're not familiar with that, become familiar with it for online shopping. More and more credit card issuers to deal with the online fraud.


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[Assistant] Give you the ability to generate one time use numbers when you're paying and then even if you got hoodwinked,


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[Assistant] Cause that number, that cordons off the harm, but best to prevent the harm in the first place and know these rules. One, when you search online for a business,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Know that many of the search results will be bogus. Two.


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[Assistant] When you are on social media and an ad pops up, know that the link in that


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[Assistant] Very often will be bogus and it will be a fake promotion, a fake ad. Now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In addition to the URL, we've got five more steps just when you're shopping online and you go to a store from a search or you go to a store from an ad. Please, before you buy,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make sure you're at the real thing.


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[Assistant] Okay, now let me stop now. These are good problems to have. Yes. Cause it means your combined income puts you into rarefied air. Good situation. Not bad.


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[Assistant] So Dustin, Congress has these phase-outs on doing Roth IRAs or various phase-outs based on income.


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[Assistant] Because they're trying to keep all the wealth in the country


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[Assistant] And you could do what you said where you, uh, do part pretext.


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[Assistant] Uh, traditional 401k and raw 401k and then remain eligible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the, uhm, Roth IRA. You could do that.


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[Assistant] And as long as that works for you, keeps you below the threshold.


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[Assistant] Uh, it's not the worst thing in the world having as a higher income earner as a couple, you're in a higher tax bracket.


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[Assistant] Having some of your money go traditional 401k to maintain eligibility for the Roth IRA. And that is a perfectly viable idea you've considered. Second thing you could do, Dustin, is you could just do all Roth 401k up to the max for each of you and then put money in a traditional investment account.


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[Assistant] Uhm, go into straight broad market index funds in it. You'll have very favorable tax treatment and then you have money that's available to you with more flexibility that's not based on having to wait


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Till the government establishes statutory retirement age is eligible to withdraw money from a retirement account.


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[Assistant] You'd have the flexibility with those monies and a traditional investment account to have it working for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, if you don't have an account with Fidelity, you could open a Fidelity one and do the Fidelity zero, no cost, uh, in commissions or in ongoing fees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their broad market index fund and their international index fund would be an alternative


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you wouldn't have to worry about the fact that you've then come out of doing a Roth IRA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so there's a lot of, uh, disagreement among, uh, technology writers about T-Mobile home internet. That if you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are not somebody who's doing really data heavy stuff like, uh, gaming or you're producing video or audio content. You're just consuming content and you're not gaming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People seem to be very happy with the T-Mobile home internet and it is a whole lot cheaper. Uh, you may be able to avoid all the, uh, security


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Freeze thaws and providing your social security number. If you go to a, um, uh, Metro by T-Mobile store, which they own as their prepaid provider and you could get the T-Mobile home internet from them at, I think the same exact monthly price. And then there's no credit check that's involved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With them wanting your social security number and you having to go through the thaw and all that. And you could try the T-Mobile home internet if it works for you. You're good. You save so much money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Versus being with one of the cable monsters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being with T-Mobile Home Internet. I should mention that AT&T is planning N23


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To launch their own wireless home internet as well. And Verizon has one also.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is a Verizon, Verizon wireless home internet. So this is an alternative to the cable monsters is an increasingly possible possibility. Just you can't be somebody who is gaming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you're gonna lose every game you play. What'd you find about, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it says try it for 60 days. Or you get your device payment refunded. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I know about this. This is American Airlines. It's the only airline I know doing this. And so what American's doing is trying to psych its customers out who are carry on only and say, Hey, you know what? Uh, wow, there's just not going to be any place for your bag. So, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, if you pay them, they let you board earlier is what they're doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they're assuring you then there's going to be overhead bin space. Don't let Americans psych you out. They're just trying to be money grubbing with your wallet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, only if people bite on this and let American rip them off, will American continue to use this as just an experiment at this point. It is really underhanded and I think despicable of American airlines to do this and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't pay him the fee. Uhm, as for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The issues with baggage. Alright, this is classic economics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Airlines used to allow you to check bags for free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was never a problem with overhead bend space. And then the full fair airlines decided, and then several of the discounters decided there was real money to be made in this. They all started charging these ripoff fees for checking a bag except for Southwest two bags fly free per person. Um, so now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, when you fly, cause I fly everybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I fly Southwest a lot, I fly other airlines. Southwest virtually never do they have to gate check a bag.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause people just, uhm, will check their bags for the most part. There's plenty of overhead bin space almost always. I was on a Southwest flight recently that they took two people, the last two people to board. They were out of overhead bin space and they checked their bags underneath. But again, there was no cost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The airlines are doing by charging these ultra high baggage checking fees is people are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Modifying how they travel, they're taking a carry-on only, and now there's not enough room in the end. There's not enough room for all the bags.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then particularly if you're a lower level boarder, you're later in the boarding process.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're making you get gate check. But again, that is free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And don't let American cheat you and rip you off and run off with additional money for your trip. And I want to thank you so much for listening today. I hope the rest of your day is absolutely great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They gave you the premium view. They did, they did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Michelle in Iowa says I'm a single 50 year old woman with 450,000 and 403b through fidelity. I put 15% of my paycheck into my 403b plus work puts in 6%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, she says my credit karma score is 830 because of Clark. I also have $30,000 in emergency funds. My only debt is my home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm going to back to school to finish my masters in nursing. It will cost me $20,000 to finish my program. Should I use my emergency funds or get a loan?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Curtis in Alabama, I purchased tickets to a comedy show through a website which we may want to name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What does he use to keep the costs down? I have three big trips out of the country later this year, and two of those are out of an airport that isn't local, so hoping Clark can shed light on this topic again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lori in Florida says I purchased many items on Amazon. Since October, there are unauthorized charges on my account listed as Amazon Prime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amazon customer no service insists it is someone in my family buying items. After many conversations, I finally persuaded them to credit my account. I contacted my credit card company to dispute the charges. Please inform consumers to check all charges from Amazon with each item purchased.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is, and I have to say have not been doing that, so I'll need to get better about that. And the thing I was thinking from what she said too, since it was listing as Prime, it could be somebody, maybe you left your, they have the login for their account


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On a TV or on a other device and they know the pin so you could purchase or you don't need the, you don't have the pin to purchase movies and things like that and then they couldn't trace like where something was shipped to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that kind of stuff. So that's a danger too. You have to make sure you sign out of your accounts like Netflix and all this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trisha in Louisiana says, I recently received a 1099 in the mail from a company that I've never worked for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of my personal information on it is accurate. My credit is frozen with the three bureaus from a previous bout with Identity Theft. I have registered with the FTC through IdentityTheft.gov and I am following their suggested plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am assuming the person using my personal info to obtain employment has a bank account open in my name to receive payroll money from this company. Can you recommend a safe way for me to find bank accounts that may have been opened in my name?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And should she file another police report about this and contact the company that sent the 1099?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ugh, that's terrible. Scott in Florida says you were talking on the show about hot water heaters. Mine was on the Fritz and I was faced with a $1,000 or more bill for a new one with installation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A friend said I should check the elements. It turns out one had burst. I ended up replacing both elements with the help of YouTube at a cost of $40. That's just something your listeners might want to check before spending money on a new water heater. It should be noted that I am not an expert handyman. That was five years ago and it is still working fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I would probably want to call Plumber too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, of course. I bought, uhm, not this cycle, but the one before. So I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Within the account, we've purchased several jumbo CDs. The CDs are from different banks, but all through the same Schwab account. How much FDIC insurance do we have? Is it 250,000 because that is the account limit? Or because these CDs are through different banks, are we covered in full? Lunch and bragging rights are riding on this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thinking about how we fill that time, I decided to try and learn more about something I've wanted to do before jumping into any new investments, which is to understand what everything means.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure, I get that you advise investing in a Roth IRA, but when it comes down to it, there's a lot of intimidating decisions regarding what types of target this or index fund that, which I don't fully understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So while I'm for going social media, I wanted to occupy that time with some books and wanted to see if you might have suggestions on something I can read so that when I step up to the plate and start investing in our Roth IRA, I'll know what all the options are that I have, how to interpret them and what's best for our situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It turns out their new accounts are called 360 Performance Savings and those are the ones that paid the 3.4%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To get the higher rate, I have to open a new savings account and transfer the money into the new account.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't ever remember being notified and after research online this change was made several years ago. Am I wrong to want to move my money to a bank that is more honest than this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like during, it started I think during the pandemic because you felt like, well people were working, they were out there working, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, give them more money and, and then, but then now we've had inflation, so you're already paying more for your food and then you're expected


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when you're, you go down a line and build a salad or build something and then at the end you're expected to tip for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard because there's one place I go to that I love. I love them. It's sort of ready made food and they're wonderful, but like I tipped them a lot before and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're not, I mean they might be heating it up for me, but usually it's just giving me the packaged food.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and they've made comments, they're so sweet and they're like, oh, you're so nice to tip us, you're so sweet and generous, and now I feel like I have to do it every time. You know, and the food's gotten a lot more expensive, so it's a real dilemma. And there's this backlash, because I think so many of us, like, increased our tipping during COVID.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, but alright, well we have a tipping question for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they cannot make money from you. I received my points from them and that cost them money. My credit rating is 787 and all payments have been made in full and on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, the bank has closed both of my accounts, one with the warehouse club and one with the cell phone company that I had with them. I've tried to find out why and they say because of invalid payments or credit score, but won't specifically give me a solid answer. What's really going on here?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by the way, it costs $21 per month if I purchase it for a year and $31 on a month to month plan. Thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we'll move out of LA at that time. To be a part of the program, there's no cost to me and the only thing I have to agree to is to stay in it for one year and then I can have the panels removed from my house if I want to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While I don't get direct benefit from these panels, the extra $240 per year would help offset my higher power bills in the summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plus, I would help in creating green power for the city. Is there any downside to this program I'm not thinking of?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show where our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions in your life. In this episode, you may have gotten fed up with table service at restaurants. Gotta tell you, things are getting better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The labor shortage thing, it's getting better. We're going to talk about it. And we haven't talked for a while about robots and drones doing package delivery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's actually happening now. I'm going to fill you in on some of what's going on. And does it save you money or cost you money? We're going to talk that through. So, restaurant thing. In surveys in the industry,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Labor shortage has gone from the absolute top item that restaurant owners and managers complain about to way down the list.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And don't roll your eyes if you're a restaurant owner or manager and you're still dealing with severe labor shortages. Maybe you are in your restaurant, but the overall picture has improved significantly that the availability of workers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is much better. I was talking with a restaurant manager about this after I had read about it and he said that they started to notice that things started getting better for them when kids went back to school for the fall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I don't know why in their case that was the point at which the supply of restaurant workers is a sit down restaurant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why the supply of workers for him got significantly better, but he said they are not in shortage now. And so it, it will vary by establishment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the restaurant experience is better and at the same time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of restaurants have become more versatile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, for example, stopping wasting the waiter, waitress' time, server's time,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By going back to run a customer's credit card when they're done eating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean now being able to process the payment at the table like they've done in the rest of the world for 30 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they did it in the rest of the world for 30 years because of the labor savings. And by the way, it's safer for you as a consumer that the server comes to you with a device, gives you your bill right there and runs your payment right there. Unless you pay in cash. A lot of restaurants don't take cash anymore actually. And then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is the kind of stuff that's going on. I've talked about the barcodes on the table where you can order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your meal, wait for a server or order it right from the barcode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He loves that? He loves it. I love it. There are people who feel like, wait a minute, why am I paying?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For going to this, uh, sit down restaurant and I'm placing my own order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, he's 100% right. That thing with waiting, you know, a server may have, uh, you know, they may be in the weeds at that point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and have too many tables, they're having to run right then. And so, you are keeping them, when all you're trying to do is pay your bill, you're keeping them from


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Running out of a food item for somebody or taking an order of somebody else or running out the beverages for somebody else. So if you can pay your bill right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the table electronically, I'm all for it. I mean, one of the things that's coming out of COVID and the extreme labor shortages we have is more and more efficiencies that are not going to go away. I think about the robots. My, uh, middle child lives in Los Angeles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all the robots have names and personalities that go down the sidewalks that deliver food and stuff to people. And so my daughter


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is like, oh, there goes Jeremy going down the sidewalk. And look, there's Suzanne going that way on the sidewalk. And they all, the robots so that people don't vandalize them, they all have personifications so that people won't hurt them. But think of the efficiency.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, being able to do deliveries that way and when my son and I were in, uh, Tempe, visiting Arizona State,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We saw robots delivering, doing deliveries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of stuff and of food and groceries down the sidewalks and it's just great and this kind of thing is not going away because of the efficiency.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now Walmart, this is moving from being talked about to actually happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is now offering drone deliveries in all or part of some states. The states they're doing it in of the biggest states. They're doing Florida and Texas. In addition, Arizona, North Carolina.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Utah, Virginia, and Arkansas. Arkansas where Walmart's based.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the drone deliveries are done 12 hours a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the idea is you can order an item from a Walmart that's doing drone delivery, and if you're in their retail trading zone for that store, the delivery is done in less than 30 minutes. It's like the old Domino's delivery guarantee, 30 minutes or less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you do at this point pay four extra dollars for the drone delivery. If I didn't say the drones carry items up to ten pounds or total purchases of up to ten pounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Amazon is doing it now in parts of California and Texas, but it's very small at Amazon right now doing the drone deliveries. But the ideas of labor efficiencies that have come out


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of COVID, married to the changes in technology.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That makes supposedly good pizza. And this is so cool. So let's say you've got, uh, a place that it could even be in a place of work where they can't afford to have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A staff cafeteria. You can have the robot pizza vending machine. You go up to it. You pick out what you want on your pizza.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you decide you want extra cheese or not, you want extra crisp, you know, the crust extra crispy, whatever, you pick it, you pay for it, it prepares the pizza, the robot makes the pizza, puts on the ingredients, you always get the same amount of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, pepperoni or veggies or whatever it is on the pizza.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's the kind that are the thin ones that it cooks them in three minutes. And you have your meal. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No workers necessary to make that pizza. Now it's not going to be made with the love of your neighborhood pizzeria that you love going to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it serves an efficiency needed in the marketplace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by the way, if I just infuriated you with any of that about drones, robots, pizza making robots, any of that stuff, please go to Clark.com slash Clark stinks. I'd love your perspective on all the new tech.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, invading our lives or aiding our lives, depending on your perspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so what, uh, this was a suggestion originally from a listener to the podcast.


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[Assistant] And that is that for all your automatic payments, like continuing donations to charities or anything like that, you have a single designated card for automatic payments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now most issuers will do a one time use number for those ongoing electronic payments. Even if a criminal intercepted that, they still don't have your actual number. And that will be potentially a great protection


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the automatic payments, if you have that designated card, and particularly look at issuers that do the one-time use numbers when they are making ongoing electronic payments like that. And then you don't have to worry about those. On the thing the bank has told you about them migrating


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The automatic payments from the old number to the new one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It works pretty well now because everybody in the system benefits from that working well. Uh, you don't necessarily need to manually update


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With each of the organizations. I'd say with charities, definitely not. You'll know if they're not getting your automatic donation anymore. With any bills that are key that could hurt your credit or hurt your standing or lead to late payment fees or anything like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wouldn't necessarily trust the bank on that. I would manually update the form of payment on those to the new number.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as inflation does get squeezed out of the economy, not if inflation gets squeezed out of the economy, rates will decline.


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[Assistant] However, if you can find a no closing cost or extremely low closing cost,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Refi on a 15 year loan, it would take you below your current 5.375%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go ahead and refi now, you can refi later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I'm right that rates are gonna drop as inflation, uh, declines the expectations of a decline. Cause rates have spiked so much it's a tough time to refi. If you can't find a no or low closing cost refi, I didn't say particularly with credit unions, they offer the best deals usually on mortgages.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you can't find a deal that makes it worth refining, then just prepay on this


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] mortgage that you have 26 years left on. You can do an amortization schedule based on your $123,000 balance. There are lots of apps you can put on your phone, websites you can go to where you can am that loan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] $123,000, 5.375, 15 year, and it'll tell you what you need to pay per month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To make your existing loan work like a 15 year loan until the time comes that it makes sense to refi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Love what you're thinking of doing at a 5.375% rate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a great idea for you to prepay on that loan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And reduce that balance and reduce the years remaining.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So here's what happened. The Coverdell, named after the late U.S. Senator Paul Coverdell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Never caught on in the marketplace and really was supplanted by 529 plans. And over the years, all the effort has been with the 529 plans. Very few institutions offer the Coverdells and nobody promotes them. So they've been ignored. They're kind of like a college planning orphan. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nobody's done anything to enhance them or improve them than I'm aware of in forever. So that's why nobody made any changes to it that I can find. And the Coverdell is as a result now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically an inferior choice to 529 is one of the things with the Coverdell's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was they had an advantage over 529s that you could use the money for eligible school expenses pre-college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they did that with the 529s. So the last advantage really was taken away. You can move the money


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From a Coverdell into a 529 plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And do that transfer tax free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you just gotta make sure you do it exactly right and the 529 plan you wanna go to should help you with that procedure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I had the privilege of knowing the great late Senator Coverdell, a wonderful man, and he really got it about encouraging people to save


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For their future, including saving for a kid's education so they wouldn't have to borrow a lot of money. And coming up, sticking with the employment theme,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going from a five day a week job to a four day a week job, something I've always loved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's in it for you though is a worker, and what's in it for you as an employer? We're going to cover that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's an experiment that I talked about when it was first launched months ago. Well, actually last year, early last year where people were offered the opportunity to work for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 8 hour days instead of 5 8 hour days and get the same pay for 32 hours a week they were making for 40 and companies had to opt into this and the surprising thing is supposedly the researchers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking to the employers, they've assessed, they say, hey, you know what? People are just much more efficient now. And so, we might stick with this. Okay, I think that's a bunch of hooey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that a word I'm allowed to use? That's not a bad word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I love the four day, 10 hour a day work week. You think about how much is involved in particularly if you have to commute to work or just what happens with your brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With that fifth day and then two off versus four days with three off, we benefit so much. We recharge, we refresh. And for people who commute to work, cutting a day of commuting out and being able to spread your work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, four, 10 hour days versus five, eight hour days, the irregular. I love that. But going from five, eight hour days to four, eight hour days and the employers say, Oh, we're not going to cut your pay. Come on. There's no free lunch and it's not going to work. And a company will not be able to remain competitive going to 32 hours a week for 40 hours of pay. I mean, come on. It's just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeah, the, the people who designed it, the researchers, they think they're really onto something. I think they're on something. Sorry. Did I cross the line now, Chris?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing we learned over the last couple of years,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is we learned how adaptable capitalism is and how flexible it is and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People's lives need some amount of flexibility.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So having the ability for people to flex to a certain extent that you as an employer can live with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] May actually reduce your turnover. I believe so much that hearing your employees and not telling them, but hearing what their needs are, what their situations are and all the rest, you're not running a charity. You're running a business and what you need is you need


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More efficiency, more productivity from your employees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And less turnover, turnover is so expensive. Cost of training new people all the time. So expensive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is the ultimate in capitalism, what I call enlightened self-interest. So try it, see if allowing employees doesn't have to be the whole company, but offer people the option. If they'd like to work for 10 hour days, if it works in the environment of your workflow, why not?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it makes that person a much happier employee, you're still getting the same clock hours out of them, but they're getting something so precious a third day back in their lives. There used to be something called the Baylor plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And don't know if it still exists, but it was an idea that came out of Baylor University Medical Center where nurses could work, uh, certain shifts


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would get them bonus hours of work, shifts where, uh, the quality of care in hospitals declines, offer experienced nurses those shifts, and they would have to work fewer days. There was a version of that where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On Saturday and Sunday the fatality rate in hospitals is much, much higher because the staffing is hit or miss. So if you have very experienced personnel on hand,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For 36 instead of 24 hours because it would produce so much better patient outcomes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's kind of like talking out of both sides of my mouth when I just talked about you don't pay people 40 for 32 hours work, but it's all about flexing in your business. What is the most efficient way to get it done? Nurses who work three 12 hour days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then have three days off and then three more 12 hour days. I mean this kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That gives people more flex in their lives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is so key, so important, particularly uh, single parents raising children, dual income couples raising children, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being able to deal with this kid's got this school activity, this one's got this doctor's appointment, whatever. Being able to, to make your employment work for you and work for your employees life. You both went.