[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They almost always book the car rental at the same time they booked their flight, which often is way far in advance. Car rental companies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't know exactly what demand's going to be. And so I find that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More than 90% of the time, but not 100% of the time, when I reshopped the car rental,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Re-shopping later. Same thing for hotels as well. So, uh, noted and we'll see if we can figure out a interesting, compelling way to do just what you asked for to show the way I get it done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My experience is that if all I want to do is have a lower fare on the flight I'm already booked on on Southwest, they don't show


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any change in fare, even if I know the fare has gone down on that flight, on all other flights that day to where I'm going, they'll show plus or minus and I'll see how much money I'll save by changing to a different flight that day. But if I want to keep the same flight,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My experience is they won't give me the savings unless I do a new booking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So maybe that's changed. I'm going to go check now that you brought this, uh, to me, to my attention and I'll see if maybe that's old information that they made me do extra work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To get the lower fare on an already existing booking for the same flight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Travel prices move dynamically even within the same day. And that's why I shop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reshop, reshop again, because I want to squeeze every penny out of my travel dollars. I've had a lot of people say to me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Isn't this a waste of time? I mean, isn't your time worth something?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what I always say when it comes to saving money, my time is worth nothing. Coming straight ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something where the cost can be just mind blowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Medical bills and especially anything involving a hospital. We're going to talk about that straight ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surprise medical bills are a continuing problem and hospital costs had been going up far, far more than any other part of medicine. In fact, doctors, their bills as a percent of healthcare, tiny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the cost of prescription drugs is high as they are. A tiny part of medical costs. Overwhelmingly, it's the hospitals. As hospitals have tried to eliminate competition in metro areas, hospitals aren't trying to become


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Big national behemoths. They're trying to own a local area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have enough control of hospital beds, medical practices, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And various ancillary facilities that they operate both as feeders for the hospital and as billing machines for the hospitals. And so medical bills are becoming a massive concern that even people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who have health insurance end up with balance bills from hospitals they can't afford to pay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And hospital bills are legendarily inaccurate. Well, there's a tool you have available to you that almost no one uses and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I talked about the No Surprises Act recently, I neglected to mention it and I was reading a Kiplinger article and I was like, why did I forget this? But if you know


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're going to have medical services at a hospital and you know, more than three days in advance, you have a right to something that hospitals hate, hate, hate, hate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They don't want you to know this and that's my bad for forgetting to tell you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you're having a scheduled hospital stay, not emergency, but scheduled stay, you have the right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To a good faith estimate if you're going in uninsured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So many m- tens of millions of people have no health coverage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of what your hospital stay, your care is going to cost as long as you request it three or more days in advance and you are not required to pay as long as you can test the bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More than $400 above that. So if a hospital tells you, yeah, your stay is going to be 10 grand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you're like, okay, and remember you don't have insurance, so you're preparing for that, uh, however you're going to pay for it. And then you go in the hospital and then they bill you 20 grand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which happens all the time that it'll just grow and grow and grow that bill. The hospital.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is only allowed to collect from you 10,400 if you dispute it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the estimate is really valuable for those among us who need hospital care and go in without insurance. But most of the problems are for people with insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get hit with a massive bill that just makes no sense for a hospital stay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You ask for a full itemized bill. The hospitals are going to stonewall you on it because they don't want you to know that they billed you for this, that or the other, but you want that bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You demand it in writing if they're not cooperating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if it's a monster bill, you can hire...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are people who understand medical billing and coding. You can hire someone to go through the bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And pay him or her to figure out what's accurate, what's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because once you're past insurance, even when insurance pays, you could still have this really big bill you shouldn't have. Now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that I cast aspersions on the hospital systems. Clearly I do. I don't like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then do a lot of things that are behaving badly. At the same time, hospitals save lives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The doctors, the medical professionals there who work so hard night and day, every day of the year to save people's lives. This isn't about that. This is about what's going on on the money side of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The administrators that are making three, five, eight or more million dollars a year while the workers in that hospital


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are struggling, many of them struggling to pay their bills.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The whole psychology of hospitals has changed and that's why it's hand-to-hand combat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's say these big bills are coming and you're not feeling so hot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not able to advocate for yourself. You need that friend or family member who becomes your advocate at that time to fight for the information about your bill to do what you can about it. And grace, there's, there's so many


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this is an onion you kept peeling. There's so many layers to it. You have a question for me about that right away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is big money for an additional night in the hospital. This is not the hospital's bad. This is the insurance company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not respecting the doctor's professional judgment and


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[Assistant] The thing with the, the arbitration arbitration panels are so often stacked decks. I call them kangaroo courts because the arbitrators only work if they find for the establishment that's paying them, which in this case would be the insurance company. If you have a right to go to, if the amount fits within the limits of small claims court in your state and you have a right


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To sue them after the arbitration determination, that's what you do next. If you do not have a right


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To go to small claims court under the insurance contract that you have for health insurance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then what you do is the big bad hospital I was just talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You seek out the hospital patient advocate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or the hospital social worker hospitals have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you see if they can get a reduction of the bill for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because of the cost involved and it being too large for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And maybe the hospital can work for you at reducing that bill, maybe not, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if you have a clear opinion from the doctor,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That an additional night in your situation was necessary, that should be respected


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The insurer in their kangaroo court arbitration is not going to respect that. So that's why you go the additional step unless it's prohibited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you're really excited about it and understand the risk is they get hacked, Brett. Uhm, so that is a legitimate concern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think about how often people on social media where prying eyes can see everything post all kinds of information.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That works perfectly at being able to reach somebody's identity by being able to answer the challenge questions. So I don't worry as much


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this case because the if then you're worried about


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[Assistant] Is somebody being able to hack into the system that story worth has versus what people voluntarily give up all the time on social media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That allows a criminal to answer challenge questions. Uhm, if you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Want to really be cautious. You could use what you're learning there about how to build the story of your life and just do a word document with whatever word processing you use. Does anybody still call it word processing? Anyway, and do the same kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Four family members, not as well, but you could do it. I, I would say just take the chance and do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a great question and, so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you do is whatever city it is you're thinking of buying a vehicle. And by the way, when I've talked about the 500 mile or more search, that's generally geared towards people buying new cars because there's such a difference right now with new car prices, depending on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, shopping only in your local market or going, uh, you know, 500 miles, thousand miles, however far you're willing to drive a new car back with a used car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is more difficult because the vehicle has history. Maybe good, maybe not. And you need a local diagnostic mechanic. Once upon a time, people used to go to eBay motors and on eBay motors, uh, which is a sub site of eBay, you could find local


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Diagnostic mechanics all around the country with searchable by zip code.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you were trying to have a vehicle checked out before purchase, eBay doesn't seem to have that anymore. So now what you have to do is you have to go on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yelp in the zip code where you're thinking of buying or, uh, use a, uh, Google search or equivalent search engine and search for diagnostic automotive mechanics where that vehicle is on Yelp. You'll see ratings. Hopefully they're useful. Um, on Google, you'll be able to find people. I remember when we bought a used, uh, Mercedes convertible years ago out of town,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What we did was we searched for, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A repair shop, independent repair shop that just did Mercedes and BMW.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I called them, told them that we were looking at this out of market.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Took it to the shop. They checked it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it checked out fine. We've now had that convertible for 13 years. We bought it used and have had it another 13 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it checked out fine. We were lucky. Everything was great and I paid him whatever it was. And so it worked out just fine. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not always is an independent diagnostic mechanic or an independent repair facility going to find an underlying problem that could be serious for your wallet. But many times they will and you would avoid a problem


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why you use the independent mechanic. And if anybody in the automotive industry


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has a better suggestion for that. I'd love for you to post it and let us know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I want to thank you so much for being with us today. Remember what we're about, giving you ways to save more and spend less and avoid getting ripped off. And if you want more information for your wallet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Check out our newsletters. Go to Clark.com slash newsletter or newsletters. Either one will get you there to see the free newsletters we have available for your wallet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think you did a great job, but you did get a song in my head when you were saying, it's me, I'm the problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a Taylor Swift song that goes, it's me, I, uhm, the problem, it's me, and now I can't stop hearing that in my head. Okay, we'll go to questions.


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[Assistant] Okay, Craig in North Carolina says, thanks for all you and your team do. I left my last employer over two years ago and they still have my outgoing message on my former office phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, with AI generated voice cloning in the news, should I be concerned about someone capturing my voice and doing something nefarious with it? Can I make my former employer remove my old outgoing message?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alireza in Georgia says during your podcast about life insurance, you mentioned do not get life insurance through your employer, but you did not mention why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is there a uni- is this a universal rule that applies to all employer offered life insurance policies? I have insurance through my employer and would like to know if there are areas I need to look at before dropping it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] ML says, I know you're a fan of Schwab and I want to know what you think of the Schwab starter kit. They are currently running a promotion of $101 invested in the top 5 S&P stocks upon opening an account. Is this worth pursuing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we have the whole Google Nest system in our house, but not, we don't have the internal cameras.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually, yeaah, we do have a ring. I guess it is a ring. I think it's a ring. It might be a Google doorbell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well speaking of Amazon, Bobby in Washington says, I buy a lot from Amazon. I'm thinking about getting their reward card, which offers 5% back on purchases from amazon.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know most items sold on Amazon are sold through the marketplace. What I've been unable to find out is do purchases made from the marketplace qualify for the 5%?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] TB in New York says, I was flying Delta back home to Buffalo from JFK and I had a first class seat. The overhead bins were locked in my vicinity, so I asked the flight attendant if she could store it somewhere on the aircraft for me. She initially said she could, but then told me I needed to gate check it. Upon landing, only one of my two carry ons made it home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thankfully I have my wallet on the back of my phone so I was able to get a hotel for the night. The next day I find through the app chat that my lost bag is in another city, Toronto, and they told me I had to drive there to retrieve it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've submitted a claim, but they do not want to reimburse me for the hotel, rental car, meals and gas. They have offered me a $300 voucher and 10,000 sky miles. I don't feel this is adequate for the inconvenience caused.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm surprised because we have not heard a lot of complaints lately. They've been getting really great reviews and rankings as an airline.


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[Assistant] Greg in California says I don't have a question, just a fun story. We just had our estate documents updated since it's been a long time and our kids are no longer kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To make it as easy as possible, I created a one page cheat sheet for them to instruct them on exactly how to get started, where financial files are, login info,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But way to go Greg, creating that document for your kids and doing all that, that's a great lesson for us all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Happy July 4th week and I want to tell you.


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[Assistant] That tomorrow is my favorite day of the year. I love the 4th of July. I feel so privileged being from a family of immigrants that I get to live in this incredible, amazing, wonderful country. Perfect. No way. Do we have our issues? Yes. But this country has afforded me so much opportunity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My family is well and I am grateful to live in these United States of America. Well, today on the eve of the 4th of July,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're doing a special edition of the Clark Howard show. You know, our mission is to serve you and empower you so you make better financial decisions.


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[Assistant] And that's true, but we're going to talk fun today. Uh, our, I should tell you and honor the holiday week, the consumer action center is closed this week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't try to call. You'll feel like you got customer no service from me. So it's not there. But what we're doing today is a new thing you may have seen on Clark.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, we asked you for your travel stories, good and bad. And man, did you deliver. And I first want to apologize. There was no way we could, uh, share with you everybody's travel story because we'd be here for, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Till the 4th of July, just hearing them. And I want to thank you so much for sharing your stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In order to not pay the baggage fee, and did I hear a lot about that. And there was a Wall Street Journal story recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did people call in with fun stuff or just a lot of stuff?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you know about these? They're, they're like, uh, ovals and they're public toilets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It actually compresses your stuff and, uh, your bag gets kind of heavy, but it'll all fit in an amazingly small space.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if we had not been able to run across the security and you know what I learned from that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You always get your passports out the night before and what I do is I put the passports


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my wallet, you know, my wallet's kind of not in it, but like opening my wallet up and just stick them in there so we don't forget them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're getting ready to fly, you can't get it open and you got no way to leave the country.


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[Assistant] So we got more of our special edition, July 4th, holiday week.


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[Assistant] Travel Misadventure Stories coming for you straight ahead. I hope you're enjoying our special. This is an experiment where we're hearing your voices and in this case, you know, holiday week, your travel misadventures. And so Christo, what do you got? Start this segment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love that. I mean, I was on a cruise that diverted twice.


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[Assistant] There were people who had medical emergencies and there were people griping.


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[Assistant] About losing ports of call. And I'm like, come on!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that's the right thing for a cruise line to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My wife Elaine and I were in Budapest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we were walking, there's this pedestrian street. We're walking down the street and, uh, my wife's tall and very strong and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Start screaming at the guy in English, which was useless, but the guy's eyes got big as saucers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow, that was like a real welcome to the Frankfurt airport experience, but, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boy, I thought she was going to tell another story. Oh, which one? When I took the three kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We went to London for the 2012 Olympics. We went to Paris and London and Lane was working so she couldn't come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The three of them were in a continuous bicarama.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One day we were walking along the Thames River and I just had enough and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I lost my temper and I sat him down. You threw him in the temps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I sat him down and I said, if the three of you don't learn to get along,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they still all remember it because they never experienced me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I think in their lives, they never really experienced me losing my temper. I just don't do that. Right, you don't. And uh, wow, it was very effective at that moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so we'll have to see. You know, this is.


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[Assistant] This is a show driven by our listeners and viewers. We'll have to see if they enjoy it or not.


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[Assistant] And again, we're sorry we could not play all the voicemails. It's just, we got such a strong response and such a very,


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[Assistant] Number of stories and again, I want to say to you as a bookend that I hope that, uh, that tomorrow you will really think about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In spite of all our issues in America, what a privilege we have to live in this wonderful country. And I, I feel so unbelievably lucky that my four grandparents went through the hardships they did to come to this country and create penniless, create this opportunity for us to have an opportunity


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To succeed or to fail, to thrive or to not.


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[Assistant] And I hope that you and your family have an absolutely wonderful 4th of July tomorrow. Have a great rest of your day today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they swung back around and took us back home, uh, delayed them an entire day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should at least give her a few outfits, I would think. She has bought you a few things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This outfit is known as the Clarka form. I named it that a long time ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dean in Alabama says, my wife and I both work. I make $170,000 and she makes just over $200,000. If we were divorced, would we be better off tax-wise? Now into retirement, if we both withdraw $75,000 a year in retirement, would we pay substantially less income tax?


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[Assistant] We'll go to Lorraine in Georgia's question. She says, I've noticed at a pharmacy I purchase from regularly that they round up the tax by a penny at times. For example, here's an instance, $3.74 subtotal with 3% tax is 0.1122. They charge 12 cents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another example they get, she gives a few more examples. I contacted them via email and the response was that sales tax is calculated in a range. $2.84 to $3.16 is taxed at a rate of 9 cents. Depending on the exact cost in this range, it could be rounded up or down, and in your case, it was rounded up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was a summary of the response. I don't know what the other ranges are. I may only have specifically asked about this one charge. This happens at different locations and on different days. My question is are they allowed to do this? I realize it's only one penny, but it adds up if they have a lot of consumers in a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, and AJ in Minnesota has a question that affects a lot of people. He says, you talk a lot about life insurance, but you don't mention what one should do if denied coverage. I was recently diagnosed with bipolar depression. I'm sorry. I'm in my late thirties, no kids are spouse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I currently have a $250,000 net worth and plan to leave my money to select family members. Most insurance companies deny people with bipolar depression.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two questions. Do I need life insurance? I have no kids and no spouse. And what do you recommend for people who get denied? I don't have an option to get it from work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After some quick research, I decided against these investments, but I would love to hear your take on these products. And PS, we bought a new larger home and a great elementary school zone for our son instead of buying these structured notes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds like Charles' financial advisor is not a fiduciary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, Matt in Illinois says, my children's grandparents have graciously funded a 529 in the state of Illinois in their name for the benefit of our grandchildren. I think they're grandchildren.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Versus the self-managed plan. I have searched the paperwork and the fee structure is not listed. Our 529 plans are self-managed, but the grandparents insist on having it in their name and would not allow me to help them open a self-managed plan in their name. It is a possible point of contention and I do not want to overstep my bounds.


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[Assistant] Jim in California says, I heard your commentary on the question, does money make you happy?


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[Assistant] Would you give us some advice on your idea of the best way to handle major lottery winnings? I'm talking $100,000 and up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you give three, four, or five top things to do with lottery winnings that are of that magnitude? Here's what I would do. One, I would structure my winnings to pay out annually over the next 20 or 30 years if possible. Two, I would figure out how much I really needed to live on each month for the rest of my life and invest enough of my winnings to create an immediate annuity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three, pay off all my bills and obligations, including my mortgage. Four, make sure my mom is taken care of. And five, go to Disneyland! What would you do, Clark?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say, you, you've, cause you've, you know you have your retirement and everything else taken care of. Somebody gives you a hundred thousand dollars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the only thing you can do with it is something fun that you like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean? Like you can't, you've already got charities covered. Cause I know you would say, you would give it away. What would you do to blow it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's supposed to be. That's the idea. I asked you to be self-indulgent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now we're going to get emails, including from my cousin who lives in North Dakota.


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


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a poster on Clark Stinks pointed out, I like to talk about credit scores on this show. I have a warning for you today about how to get your credit score. More important, how not to get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some new research has shocking stats.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About the content of supplements many of us take. So


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[Assistant] Google's competitors, people don't use a lot like DuckDuckGo, which doesn't track you like Google does and, uh, other smaller ones like, uh, Microsoft has, things like that. They're great up to a point. Criminals, con artists, scamsters have learned how to manipulate search results.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one of the areas that has been rife with cons and frauds.


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[Assistant] And just playing out people taking advantage of you as well is when you search


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[Assistant] For credit reports or scores. Because people will be in a situation in their lives


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[Assistant] Where they got denied for something, or they're looking to do something.


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[Assistant] And they don't know how to keep track of their score report. And so they'll Google it. And what ends up happening is two possible trees of problems. By far the most common is when you just get ripped off. You end up at some site


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[Assistant] That signs you up for a subscription you don't want.


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[Assistant] Or a high fee that you don't wanna have to pay. To find out something simple, the temperature of your credit. How are you doing?


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[Assistant] Where are you ranked compared to other people? And is there something out there?


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[Assistant] That you forgot about or didn't know about that is really harming your credit reputation.


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[Assistant] Uh, search online when we're trying to find something. But this is an area for


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[Assistant] As long as I can remember, has been a real source of problems for people. So again, number one is the ripoff. Number two will be the frauds. Where somebody is using


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[Assistant] Getting your personal information that you have to give.


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[Assistant] When you're trying to get a credit report or score,


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[Assistant] And they pretend to be a legitimate outlet, and what they've gotten is they've gotten what they needed from you, including your social security number, to then engage in identity theft. So you gotta be really, really careful.


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[Assistant] Where'd you go get this information? If you're a long time listener,


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[Assistant] You know I've advocated setting up a credit karma dashboard.


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[Assistant] What you trade off with Credit Karma where all the information is free.


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[Assistant] Is they know about you and they target offers to you that they then get commissions from if you sign up for them.


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[Assistant] A new credit card, a personal loan, a car loan, whatever it is. That's how credit karma makes its money. So it's a trade-off of your privacy versus what you get from them.


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[Assistant] Which is free credit monitoring, free credit scores, and free credit reports. In addition to other things. It's a pretty wide marketplace they offer. But you don't even have to do that. If you have existing credit cards, remember virtually every credit card out there


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[Assistant] Now, if you sign into your account or you have the app, we'll instantly show you your credit score.


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[Assistant] Either on the FICO scale or the alternative which has vanished. 90% plus of lending decisions are made on FICO. FICO itself


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[Assistant] Is now offering, for the first time, a process where you can see your FICO score for free.


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[Assistant] And I'm not recommending that yet because I don't know how it's going to play out. I can tell you that if you go to the websites of Equifax, TransUnion, or Experian, they're going to try to sell you incredibly, uh, overpriced


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[Assistant] Credit scoring things, where you have a subscription.


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[Assistant] And you don't want to do any of those. Do not waste your money.


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[Assistant] And allow Equifax TransUnion or Experian to take advantage of you.


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[Assistant] So much of this information is now available for free legitimately.


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[Assistant] That you don't want to pay any of these terrible fees. And credit monitoring? I don't want you ever paying for credit monitoring. Remember, the most valuable tool is free if you're worried about identity theft. And that is credit freeze. Easy to set up. Doesn't affect any of the credit you already have.


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[Assistant] And easy to thaw when you do need to do an application for credit or sign up for a new cell phone plan or something like that. But Google searches in so many areas.


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[Assistant] Have become dangerous. I just recently I talked about why you never


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[Assistant] Google a customer service number for a company. Because if you do so,


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[Assistant] Well, really ugly things can happen because what you're calling is not Google. And Krista?


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[Assistant] So this has been controversial for the last 15 years doing a Rob's account, um, because it's not in the spirit of what a retirement account savings was designed for. Your CPA has recommended this to you and your CPA probably also mentioned to you that because the IRS is skeptical to hostile,


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[Assistant] That it is recommended generally that you seek a private letter ruling from the IRS, which is something your CPA would do for you to make sure that you're complying with the rules involved for a 401k. So this is possible.


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[Assistant] But you need that private letter ruling because the tax bomb you set off if the IRS later invalidates your ROBS setup is really, really bad. And that's why this has to be done the right way up front. Uh, the reason people do these, Krista, is they don't have


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[Assistant] Ready access to funds to fund their business, but they've got money in the 401k and they're like, okay.


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[Assistant] That's what I can use for it. They don't want to trigger early withdrawal penalty. They don't want to trigger ordinary income tax. So they do this complicated arrangement.


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[Assistant] But if it's not done exactly right, you're gonna cause all those problems you were trying to avoid in the first place.


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[Assistant] 150 bucks, and now you'd run, outrun that in less than three months.


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[Assistant] So we use QuickBooks and, uh, I don't like the fees involved.


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[Assistant] It's what's integrated with the CPA firm that we use for the companies. And so it's for us.


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[Assistant] It's an expense that causes indigestion, but we absorb. And I'm not aware


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[Assistant] Uh, viable alternatives. I think QuickBooks so owns this marketplace that, uh, this is probably the ground floor on what fees they're going to charge.


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[Assistant] Until somebody else comes along and says, Hey, this is a big, plump, profitable business opportunity. And I'd love it. Could we get suggestions from business owners? How would we do that?


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[Assistant] Give us some suggestions, we'll check them out and then we'll do an update on this because obviously


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[Assistant] This is the culture at Intuit is to figure out how to get people, the subscriptions I was just talking about with the credit bureaus is get you into subscriptions, get you hooked on their software and then run those fees up.


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[Assistant] To have your software that you bought in good faith and expected to be able to use for years to come go dead on you. That's a problem.


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[Assistant] Okay, so what a great question. So you want to find out what key is offering is cash back or the 2.9.


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[Assistant] So if the cash back is meaningful, then you, and you have cash to buy the Kia, just pay cash for the Kia and take the cash back against the deal. Uhm, or the,


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[Assistant] Uh, cause of the huge casino industry, there are a lot of credit unions in Nevada, uh, both in the Reno area and of course in Las Vegas area. And see what a credit union will write you a loan for on the Kia.


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[Assistant] Compare those two and the cash back that might be offered. And that's how I'd make the decision.


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[Assistant] But it's not the worst thing in the world if you're offered a 2.9.


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[Assistant] There's not a good equivalent cash back to take the 2.9 and take that cheaper financing because obviously key is subsidizing that because their cost of funds


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[Assistant] You're gambling all night. You might be taking some kind of supplement in order to stay awake.


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[Assistant] Is what's on the bottle really what you're getting from that supplement?


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[Assistant] More often not than yes. I want to talk about a new study looking at one of the most popular


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[Assistant] Items that we take as herbal remedies or dietary supplements.


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[Assistant] There was a wonderful industry growing up in the United States for alternative medicines and


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[Assistant] Things that are not traditional pharmaceuticals can be sold in the marketplace.


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[Assistant] Without a long expensive federal review by the FDA and


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[Assistant] At lower cost because they don't have to go through the gauntlet.


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[Assistant] When you buy an herbal remedy, dietary supplement, whatever, aren't at all what they say on the label. The, uh, American, uh, medical association has the journal JAMA, the journal of the American medical association. And recently they tested 25 of the most popular melatonin.


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[Assistant] They were being sold in the marketplace from different manufacturers, 25. And they were checking them to see, did they have what it said on the label? Did it have stray ingredients? Did it have


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[Assistant] Were different than what it said on the label. And the crazy thing, 4% of them didn't even have melatonin at all. Even though it said it on the label. Uh, but the ingredients were not what they said.


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[Assistant] Over and over and over again, 90% of the time, one of the melatonin, uh, products being sold,


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[Assistant] Had almost four times the amount of melatonin that it said on the label. Others had less than it said on the label. And this has been the problem. And it's been an ongoing problem in the dietary supplement or herbal remedy industry.


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[Assistant] Because it's left for people to do the right thing. So this has really caused a reputational concern for the


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[Assistant] Uh, manufacturers of herbal remedies and dietary supplements who are doing the right thing.


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[Assistant] That are responsible in the products they make, market and sell. And so it's led to the creation


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[Assistant] If you shop at places for herbal remedies, there's really no explanation of this for you. So I'm going to give you one.


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[Assistant] The most common to look for is USP.


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[Assistant] If it's got USP on there on the side with the ingredients.


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[Assistant] That tests to make sure that what's being told to you and sold to you is what you're actually getting. Another NSF and the third consumer lab.


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[Assistant] Although USP is the most known and recognized, there are three of these.


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[Assistant] Now most sellers, manufacturers of herbal remedies and dietary supplements will not have their products submitted for independent verification. Why?


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[Assistant] Because they know they're not doing what they're supposed to do.


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[Assistant] And so you're doing these things to improve your health or protect your health.


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[Assistant] Improve your quality of life. You don't want to end up with a big problem. Listen to this data from the Journal of the American Medical Association. Melatonin in particular,


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[Assistant] Has led among children because a lot of parents of the kids wired at night, they'll give them a child's dose of melatonin. You go to any, uh, store that sells herbal, herbal remedies, dietary supplements, a pharmacy, whatever discount store warehouse club, they'll sell children's dose melatonin. Well, again, if you don't buy one that's properly checked out by an independent lab, who knows what you're getting. So,


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[Assistant] What's amazing is that calls to poison control.


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[Assistant] You want to make sure these bottles are away from where a kid can reach them because they're so often sold as gummies for the kids and kids like eating gummies and to them it's just like a gummy bear candy. So make sure those are away from where a kid can reach them because sometimes it's an OD kind of situation, but others, it's the problem with impurities or dosage. And so, uh, the recommendation, uh,


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[Assistant] The Journal of the American Medical Association writers is that you really


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[Assistant] Be careful before you give melatonin to a child.


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[Assistant] And that you talk to the pediatrician first before you do. Why do they test melatonin in this journal story?


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[Assistant] Journal of the American Medical Association because it's one of the most popular of all herbal remedies or dietary supplements. But as I've shared over the years, the problem with impurities and mislabeled ingredients has been a long-term plague.


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[Assistant] For herbal remedies and dietary supplements. And that's why I want you to look.


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[Assistant] For the laboratory labels on these things.


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[Assistant] That they've been independently verified before you buy and before you take any of these. Now I take two


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[Assistant] Do you remember when kids were ending up in the emergency room, in the worst case, dying from eating those laundry?


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[Assistant] Okay, so the Costco credit cards issued by Citibank.


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[Assistant] And as you do anytime you're an authorized user,


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[Assistant] And you don't want to be an authorized user anymore and the person who added you as an authorized user doesn't want to cooperate. Virtually every card issuer


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[Assistant] Requested by an authorized user to remove them as an authorized user will do that. So you want to contact Citibank and you don't have to get into the whole relationship saga.


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[Assistant] You just say, I'd like to be removed as an authorized user on this account. You've got the account number. It should be pretty easy. If they ask you again, don't give them the full soap opera version of what happened with your relationship. Just say, uh, we broke up and I've been unable to reach her.


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[Assistant] To talk about this, I just would like to be removed as an authorized user.


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[Assistant] The credit card companies are generally very cooperative on this because they don't want someone to say, all right, they're leaving me there. I'm going to do some revenge spending here because you don't get stuck with the bill as an authorized user person who added you does. And so the credit card companies want to prevent that. And that's why they're generally cooperative.


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[Assistant] Depends on who the recurring bill or the payment would be to. If you're paying a utility company.


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[Assistant] You're paying a credit card bill. Uh, you're paying different...


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[Assistant] Routine bills fine. Recurring bills is where the problems can occur and I'll tell you there are certain


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[Assistant] Uh, fitness centers seem to get amnesia when you cancel and continue to debit your checking account after you're no longer a member. So if the fitness center


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[Assistant] Allows for those monthly payments to be automatically charged to a credit card.


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[Assistant] Do that because you have far more protections than you do otherwise. You think of some other examples? Oh, internet service.


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[Assistant] You want to default to using a credit card with any of them, but some of them now charge a discriminatory monthly price.


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[Assistant] Cause they're paying those huge credit card fees to the Visa MasterCard Cartel. So they don't want to take those credit cards.


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[Assistant] And give you the choice. Hey, you want to pay with a credit card? Pay us more.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you gotta make that judgement based on...


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[Assistant] How you feel the cultural environment is, who you're doing a business with. And I can tell you.


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[Assistant] Uh, the biggest risk all through the years has been the fitness centers.


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[Assistant] Normally yes, because you get what's called tying. You know, companies want to tie you to them.


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[Assistant] And they give you a lower rate for a combined business?


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[Assistant] And it means that it becomes more complicated when you want to fire them for one thing or another.


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[Assistant] So you find you have to move both to whoever you move to?


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[Assistant] The double discount if you have both lines of business with the same company. So I want to thank you so much for being with us today. Remember.


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[Assistant] We serve you around the clock. The sun never sets on Clark.com and I want you to know our Team Clark Consumer Action Center, I'm looking right now because we broadcast right from the Team Clark Consumer Action Center and the phones


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[Assistant] Are active right now. People are hard at work right now as we speak.


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[Assistant] Answering your questions for free, one-on-one, just as we've done for now approaching 31 years.


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[Assistant] Free one-on-one advice, guidance, and information.


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[Assistant] Available to you 10 in the morning eastern to 4 in the afternoon eastern time.


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[Assistant] You can call in for that one-on-one advice.


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[Assistant] Alright, well here we go. Let's do it. Well, not really. When you were talking about adult kids using YNAB or Mint, you forgot to mention that if they still have a .edu email address, they can get a year of You Need a Budget, which is YNAB, for free.


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[Assistant] Eric from Jersey City here. I love the show, but one thing I think you miss often is focusing exclusively on air and cruise travel and never talking about trains. I've taken Amtrak all over the country and it has the advantages of being a smoother ride, easier to get on board with no TSA and having stations in much better locations than airports.


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[Assistant] For example, most people visiting New York during the holidays would be better off arriving at Penn Station, a block from the famous 34th Street Macy's, than at airports an hour long $60 cab ride from what they came to see.


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[Assistant] Baltimore. Well, also the airport, we were flying out of LaGuardia and the airport was shut down because a plane went off the runway also that day. So it was crazy. But yea, it was.


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[Assistant] Thanks Clark for all your valuable information about brokered CDs. I've been buying them from Schwab for years and I'm very happy with our performance through the good times and bad. There are a couple of things you should point out that I haven't heard mentioned. If you're not careful, you could buy a callable CD which can be terminated at any time by the issuer.


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[Assistant] A five year callable CD could be called at one year and you'd only get the interest for the first year.


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[Assistant] Okay, a couple about the subscription. We heard from, I think his name was Tom, about his subscription, then he also wrote in again this week saying that he was able to lower his subscription price, but here are a couple of stinks about this.


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[Assistant] A listener asked about saving money at subscriptions, specifically asking about the Wall Street Journal. You should have told him if they are okay with an electronic subscription that Apple News Plus has the Wall Street Journal for $10 a month. Also, it's $90 a year through Costco.


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[Assistant] Erin, Apple News Plus is, and I did confirm that, it's $90 a year through the Costco, so you get Wall Street Journal and then other publications as well. That's from Erin.


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[Assistant] You suggested letting the subscription lapse in order to take advantage of a new deal, but that leaves you without the publication for a time.


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[Assistant] Here's a tip. If you have another person in your household, you don't need to go without the pub at all. Just let your subscription lapse. Start a new one with the, under the second person's email. Once the year's gone by, let that one lapse and start again on your email using the then current promo. Problem solved, Rick.


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[Assistant] While they may have the cheapest tires, big box warehouse tire centers constantly have the worst ratings of all tire shops due to customer no service.


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[Assistant] I believe a lot of your listeners place a high value on their time and every single warehouse tire center in my area has a long list of complaints about people that are stuck waiting all day to get their car serviced.


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[Assistant] Please address the customer no service issues at these tire centers, David.


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[Assistant] Well I have to agree also, like I've gotten tires at Costco and every single time for me it's that when I go there


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[Assistant] Just even talk to someone or just say I'm there for an appointment I made. They've got one person working.


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[Assistant] They've got a big line. They're trying to handle so much and answer the phone. It just seems like they're kind of understaffed to me.


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[Assistant] When Clark was giving advice on managing our digital lives after our deaths, he said not to forget our frequent flyer miles. He said he wanted to make sure his family inherited all the points he has saved up when he goes to the great Costco in the sky. Yet he had-


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[Assistant] Yeti also advises that travel points can be devalued or cancelled over time by the airlines and it's best to use them soon after we earn them. So which is it? Save or spend?


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[Assistant] I take issue with your newsletter article on bundling insurance coverage of home and car.


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[Assistant] I differ with your analysis. Bundling both coverages with the same insurer saves you money only if you will be buying that insurance from that company in the first place. If you shop your insurance on the general market, you usually will find a separate company with equal substance that beats the discounted price by a significant amount.


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[Assistant] Of course, if you're too lazy to shop for the bargain, you get what you deserve. It is easier to say just sell it to me. I noticed you mentioned no, made no mention of personal or corporate issues that would cause the single company to drop you personally or discontinue writing coverage in your state. I've seen both of these happen. They are real Robert.


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[Assistant] I'm not sure if this is a stink or not. I always hear you speak about moving companies, but not about self-moving companies. These companies are much cheaper. Yes, you have to load them yourself. Some even offer moving help. This way, no one can hold your items hostage since you have full control over all aspects of the move. Thanks to you and your team for all you do, JL.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was thinking jail might mean the pod companies too.


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[Assistant] In the Clark Stinks podcast, you mentioned to a lady remodeling her in-laws suite that there's no harm in waiting to buy the appliances. I agree and I have another tip. I think that if she buys them early, that's when the manufacturer's warranty starts, not when they go into use. So it's likely better that she waits to buy them, Carol.


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[Assistant] The problem is I love to listen to Clark when I go for my daily run and I just can't run as fast as I used to. I need the podcast to be at least 35 minutes to get me to the end of my run. Lately it's been shorter than 30 minutes and I need more Clark to get me to my fitness goals as well as my financial goals. Mary.


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[Assistant] Over the course of a month with our debit card in order to qualify for high interest rates in my checking account, what are the best and safest charges you recommend in order to accrue these 15 transactions totaling $500 every month?


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[Assistant] I'm surprised at your answer to that one. You always surprise me.


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[Assistant] I'm thinking I would want to put my money in a savings account, a high interest savings account and just keep enough of my checking to use because my credit card rewards are good.


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[Assistant] Brian in Pennsylvania says I'm currently looking for engagement rings and my girlfriend has given me some guidance on what she likes. She told me she's fine with a lab grown diamond and because of that I can get her a much larger and better quality diamond than she mentioned within my budget.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I've seen stories of people ordering a diamond only to be told later the diamond was already sold. I was wondering if you have any tips or recommendations to give or should I avoid these sites altogether?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Eric in Florida says, my son who recently turned 18 is scheduled to start college this fall semester. We anticipate that he'll live in a dorm at least during the first year. What preparations should we make for his transition, transition, power of attorney,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Access to medical records, etc. Also should he carry renter's insurance if he lives in a dorm?


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[Assistant] First question is about credits from Cynthia in Wisconsin. She says, my credit score recently dropped from 820 to 730.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How can I find out why, when my finances have not changed, I don't have debt and have not missed any payments?


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[Assistant] And then I use, I actually don't use, I use my credit cards that offer me free scores and I usually get notifications about that and check it regularly too because those will give you some insight depending on the...


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[Assistant] Alright, this is from Kenan, Texas. I've had a Kohl's department store charge card for about the past five years, only because it gives a seven and a half percent discount on Kohl's merchandise, which is better. That's better than Target! That's what they said, which is better than five percent discount with a Target card, which I also have.


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[Assistant] But I don't shop at Kohl's often, maybe one to two times per year.


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[Assistant] Recently they messaged me that I was approved for an upgrade to Ecole's co-branded Capital One Rewards Visa card. I don't want another major credit card.


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[Assistant] Although I never carry a balance on my coal's card or my target red card, I was appalled by the sky high interest rate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Contacted Kohl's and canceled the card altogether. My question now is, did I hurt my credit score by canceling this still nuisance store credit card before it converts to a major credit card? And if so, how long will it take for my credit score to recover?


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[Assistant] Here's a fact cited in a recent CNN article. In 2004, only 1% of auto loans lasted six to seven years. Now those long-term loans are 30% of the market. Only 5% of loans are paid off in two and a half to three years. Can Clark update or offer more up-to-date advice on this subject?


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[Assistant] I actually have something about that from Kevin in Pennsylvania.


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[Assistant] Maybe non-returnable would have popped up after I entered my personal info, but I did not go any farther. So whenever I'm thinking about ordering from a new website, I take a screenshot of the refund policy from my records in case I have trouble with a return.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Harry in North Carolina says, I want to thank Clark for bringing up the point that there is no such thing as free shipping. Could he address the point that there is also no free labor?


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[Assistant] I'm in the flooring business and our technicians are skillful and well paid. We urge customers to check the bottom line price. We are consistently lower than the big boxes that advertise this. Unfortunately, we do not get to see some customers because they fall for this and often pay more for this embedded charge. While I'm a business owner, I'm a consumer as well.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the go-ability of consumers really gets to me. There is one story out there that a person that had a whole house carpet installed with free labor felt so sorry for the installer that she gave him a $300 tip.


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[Assistant] This free labor ruse is also rampant in the bath remodel business and others. Thanks for letting me, letting my fellow consumers know about this.


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[Assistant] It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show, our mission to serve you and empower you. So you make better financial decisions in your life. It's my time. It's time for my favorite time of the week. Can I spit that out?


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[Assistant] For portable carbon monoxide detectors and I got some new data on that that


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[Assistant] Indicates I'm not as smelly as maybe you thought in that Clark Stinks post. I'm going to talk about that, but right now,


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[Assistant] Without wasting another second, it's time for Clark Stinks.


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[Assistant] Investing through an investing arm of a bank is dangerous to your financial security and your ultimate financial net worth. The, the bank operations and yes, am I striding about it? Yes, should I, should I make


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[Assistant] All encompassing statements like, uhm, there are no exceptions, that's a character flaw of mine.


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[Assistant] The reason I say that with such emphasis is over and over and over again. If you stood where I stand,


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[Assistant] And you heard the abuses people have suffered from bank affiliated, uh, brokerage operations.


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[Assistant] You'd understand, you're hearing, poor out of me is frustration about how these bank affiliated operations


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[Assistant] Okay, I'll use a word that you'd be happier with. Generally, rip off


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[Assistant] Their customers betray their trust by not being fiduciaries and charge massive


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[Assistant] So that's why you hear this from me because I hear it over and over again.


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[Assistant] A few weeks ago that I heard a horrific story from someone who


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[Assistant] Had gone to the investment department of a big bank and had been just totally taken advantage of. And unfortunately, that's not rare. And that's why you hear what I've said. Now, if you found one that you're happy with the fees, they're treating you in a fiduciary relationship, you're happy with the package of services, and you've done the research clearly from what you've said,


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[Assistant] Then you're doing the right thing in your situation.


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[Assistant] Oh, well, what happens is that the big, the full commission brokerage houses and the bank affiliated, uh, investment operations have priceless, uh, very, very, very, very high fees. And if you have enough assets,


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[Assistant] You can negotiate those, particularly if you're playing hard to get, uh, comparing them to another organization.


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[Assistant] I apologize. So uhm, so let me double down on this. Okay.


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[Assistant] The, uh, Price Club, which is what Costco was created later. The original, uh, Price Club is on Morena Boulevard. I think that's how you say the street.


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[Assistant] In San Diego, just off the five. And, uh, I have been there. I have pictures of me.


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[Assistant] Standing, like doing a pilgrimage at the original Price Club started by Saul Price.


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[Assistant] Later they merged with Costco, which is why old time members may remember your card for a while said price Costco and then ultimately became just Costco. But I'm flat out wrong on the first Costco.


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[Assistant] Craig, thank you for that. I, I must plead ignorance on, uh, Kohl's.


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[Assistant] I don't shop at Kohl's and I can't remember shopping in one. I may be missing something, but have you ever been in a


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[Assistant] Ken, interestingly enough, we had a post last week about this, not on Clark Stinks, but a question on our podcast.


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[Assistant] And there are many millions of Americans, I forget how many million are living overseas for long term or permanent, but they remain U.S. citizens. They can vote in U.S. elections. They pay taxes. And there's nobody in Congress on a tax writing committee who's paying any attention to this at all. And I would say that


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[Assistant] What expats need to do is form their own, uh, interest group and maybe even hire a part-time lobbyist because in Washington,


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[Assistant] Let's face it, the politicians don't listen to anybody who's an ordinary citizen anymore. They don't care. They don't relate to us. And so it requires organizing and having a lobbyist who's there to represent you. But it is, uh, like,


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[Assistant] The most common place I think Americans live outside the United States is Canada and I've addressed before that the tax problems


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[Assistant] It should be fixed, uhm, on the thing with our form. So how hard is that to fit?


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[Assistant] Yeah, cause now, I mean, it's funny with calling somebody international, it can be as cheap as a couple of pennies a minute.


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[Assistant] To several dollars a minute, depending on how you call them, what service you call them on.


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[Assistant] So Beth, what you wrote in is exactly why we do Clark Stinks. Because like any other individual, I have a certain amount of tunnel vision, and I see what I see, and I would have never, ever,


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[Assistant] Thought about a medical need affecting the temperature you would have to have your thermostat on in your home.


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[Assistant] And this is why we do this because there's always other perspectives that


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[Assistant] Rob, thank you very much and, uh, hope springs eternal. It's been a rough ride since 1966 with my Atlanta Falcons. Super pole rings, zero.


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[Assistant] You're, you're completely right. So it's a behavioral economics kind of thing that


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[Assistant] It's hard to get people to contribute to a Roth IRA at all. And the long-term advantages of a Roth IRA are huge. So why would I talk about being able to pull out contributions, not earnings on a Roth tax and penalty free?


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[Assistant] Because it's one of those things that I'm trying to get momentum going in people's lives to put money aside and save money for the future and the Roth grows tax free, you spend the money tax free, and you're completely right that long term


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[Assistant] The advantage of setting and forgetting, putting that money in and letting it grow is life changing. I'm trying to overcome the people who


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[Assistant] That mixed message from me is for that reason I'm trying to get people in the habit putting 500 or so dollars every month into that Roth IRA so that they build financial independence and financial security way down the road just like you said.


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[Assistant] Cheryl, thank you. And, uh, you're right.


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[Assistant] He should be able to name it whatever he wants and the fact that I don't like the new name, who cares?


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[Assistant] Amy, you gotta get it right. It was save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. Why did we stop using it? Cause I always loved it.


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[Assistant] I can't believe you're like some kind of clairvoyant. Is that what that's called?


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[Assistant] Kevin, thank you. Uhm, the example I look at is Norway where


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[Assistant] Is it 80% of all vehicles now are electric? Some, some giant number in Norway and


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[Assistant] The big problem people have is finding an available charger when they're on a road trip, because that's the problem in this country.


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[Assistant] Same issue in Norway, even though almost every vehicle on the road there now is electrical.


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[Assistant] Nobody's saying they're having problems with the grid. And I guess it's possible that we would have problems with the grid, but so far that has not happened here. Coming up ahead, I made a suggestion about half a year ago,


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[Assistant] About protecting yourself from carbon monoxide poisoning. Got some strong reactions.


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[Assistant] There's been, uh, hotels are having a real problem with labor turnover and getting enough people and all the rest.


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[Assistant] It's been a problem with proper maintenance in hotels, particularly for hotel pools.


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[Assistant] Sled to tragic deaths of people from carbon monoxide poisoning. Uh, not just in the United States, the carbon monoxide poisoning at hotels has been in other countries as well.


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[Assistant] And there's a new report from the federal government that the number of people dying in their own homes from carbon monoxide poisoning


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[Assistant] Uh, last reported year, all time record high. The number is steadily going up. And, so one thing you need to know is this is a problem


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[Assistant] That is so easy to avoid, it's crazy. I mean, we take as a given about smoke detectors.


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[Assistant] And every time there's a fire and people die.


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[Assistant] In a fire, in a home, or an apartment.


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[Assistant] You then hear the report there were no working smoke detectors in the dwelling. I mean this is easy stuff to have a smoke detector when you sleep at night. Well I want to add to that and have a carbon monoxide detector.


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[Assistant] So smoke detector goes high, carbon monoxide detector usually goes low, uhm, and I know this is nuts, but


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[Assistant] Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, they do every spring and fall, is one of their ALDI finds. And I was in an ALDI,


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[Assistant] Where they did not, uhm, sell well.


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[Assistant] And I was able to buy smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors for four dollars. So I bought everything they had left and I've been giving them out to people.


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[Assistant] Cause I'll ask people I know, uh, do you have a working smoke detector? And they'll say, no. Here you go.


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[Assistant] Uh, do you have a carbon monoxide detector? No, never had one of those. Here you go. I've given them all out now except for one that I bought because


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[Assistant] It's so simple and it's something that means so much to me cause I don't want, life is precious. I don't want somebody to lose their life because of


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[Assistant] Not having a working smoke detector or carbon monoxide detector. Why are carbon monoxide deaths


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[Assistant] For the lack of reliability of the electrical grid today. The thing that happened


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[Assistant] In Texas years ago was, was just horrific and not because of that. There were several causes of that, but generally it's because


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[Assistant] The increasing frequency and severity of storms, knocking down power lines. People are doing what you've heard me talk about.


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[Assistant] And that is having at least a portable generator to power up your refrigerator, be able to charge your phones, have some LED lights on, and don't lose all that stuff in your refrigerator and all that. Well, the portable generators can either be battery powered, which is what I've got,


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[Assistant] But most people buy a diesel generator and they will have it


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[Assistant] In the house or in the garage or whatever carbon monoxide poisoning will come in and kill people. That's why we're at a record number of people dying in the United States from carbon monoxide poisoning.


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[Assistant] Because the power company won't be providing power to your home for whatever storm reason typically.


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[Assistant] People, turn on that, that portable generator.


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[Assistant] And the carbon monoxide silently kills you. Now, I want you to have


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[Assistant] Carbon monoxide detectors anyway, but if you're running a little portable diesel generator at your house, then you gotta, gotta, this isn't even optional, you need to have those carbon monoxide detectors to make sure you stay safe.


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[Assistant] And yes, I do travel with my little micro carbon monoxide detector.


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[Assistant] That I take with me to hotel rooms because of the problem.


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[Assistant] Of carbon monoxide poisonings and deaths that are, yes, they are infrequent.


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[Assistant] But if you're the one who died, it doesn't feel so infrequent to you.


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[Assistant] Okay, first of all, please Denise, do not pick on yourself because you got into debt.


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[Assistant] The great thing is you're determined to get out of debt.


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[Assistant] So, uh, snowball is a term that is used frequently. It's the idea that you, and it goes back to behavioral economics, that you take all your debts,


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[Assistant] And you pay minimums on everything except the one with the smallest balance.


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[Assistant] The idea being that if people feel overwhelmed by debts, that if they go from owing seven people money to six, and then you go to the next smallest balance and then you put everything you can towards that minimums towards others, then you go to five, you really feel the progress. Now, snowball works two ways.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you can do that if that would really speak to you emotionally, psychologically.


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[Assistant] A little bit more effective financially is to do the snowball where you pay.


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[Assistant] And your dollars have the greatest impact when you're paying extra against the one with highest interest rate. But both, as long as you are determined and you're all about paying down that debt, you get there.


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[Assistant] So, uh, I don't look at balance transfer as mutually exclusive.


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[Assistant] From doing a snowball. Because whatever debt you have that's high interest rate,


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[Assistant] If you can balance transfer it into one with a low interest rate.


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[Assistant] You've got a target period typically 18 months at that low rate to get that balance wiped out.


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[Assistant] That as part of the strategy of paying off your debt is great if you can take like a 25% rate down to, uh, 6.9 or 8.9 or 4.9 or whatever .9.


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[Assistant] There's real advantage to you because every dollar you're paying towards it.


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[Assistant] You have much more going towards principal than interest. The main thing is obviously your head and your heart are about getting out of this debt.


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[Assistant] And I'm sure you're going to get it done and I want to hear from you, Denise, when you paid off the last penny of this $18,000.


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[Assistant] If, uh, okay, so first of all, Florida, right? So it's going to be a flat lawn. If it's rectangular, and there's not a lot of objects in the way,


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[Assistant] And they take a lot longer to cut your grass than you doing it yourself. They're very, very slow, but they're very efficient with a flat rectangular yard.


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[Assistant] And, uh, so if the choice is spending a thousand.


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[Assistant] Or paying someone routinely to cut your lawn, then you got a nice return on investment. Uh, you should be able to find one though.


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[Assistant] A lot cheaper than a thousand dollars. For, why are you looking at me?


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[Assistant] And, uh, depending on where you live in Florida, you may not have big yard space.


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[Assistant] Uh, so you could, as an alternative, if you're willing to do so, the electric


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[Assistant] Automatic mowers that you are, you're behind them, but the motors run themselves and you can cut a small lawn pretty quickly.


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[Assistant] The original Roomba was, Roomba was kind of like Kleenex for those, but now there are so many brands. So, um, gosh, they do work.


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[Assistant] But I would read reviews. I wonder if Consumer Reports has done a review.


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[Assistant] Talk to people at a store that sells these and ask them which ones get returned a lot and which ones seem to go out and stay out and that might help you figure out which one to buy.


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[Assistant] So Margaret, thank you and, uh, my eating habits, uhm, are better than they used to be. They're still, I'd give myself, what did I give myself last time, a D plus, C minus?


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[Assistant] Okay, well anyway, I appreciate that very much that you're there spreading the word. It's not just the American diet, I travel around the globe and


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[Assistant] Generally people around the world eat a lot of processed foods, eat a lot of high calorie foods. I mean people don't eat


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[Assistant] Around the world as well as they used to. So what should we do now? Should we go get some, uh, raw sushi? Is that what we should do now?


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[Assistant] So Krista told me earlier that she's just been craving a double cheeseburger from McDonald's. So we're gonna go do that now and I hope the rest of your day is great as well.


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[Assistant] I complied, the IRS owes me 5.5k. It turned out that the selfie was actually a biometric facial scan. I'm really worried that ID.me or the IRS could use my facial scan in nefarious ways. Also ID.me or the IRS could be hacked and my identity stolen.


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[Assistant] I filed my taxes for the first week in February. The letter said that an additional nine weeks is required before I receive my refund. I'm sorry, but this is a bridge too far.


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[Assistant] Do you think the IRS has overstepped its authority? I do. Are there other ways to identify someone other than a biometric scan? I quickly adjusted my W-4. I will never receive a refund again.


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[Assistant] Sharon in Missouri says, on a recent episode of Clark Stinks, you talked about the dangers of writing checks. I own a small business and my supplier charges 4% for the use of a credit card to pay invoices. How do you suggest I pay this supplier since the 4% these days really eats into profits?


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[Assistant] And Kyle in Georgia says my retired mother is thinking about buying an EV eligible for the credit. Would it be a good idea for her to take money out of her 401k to create a tax liability so that she can claim the full tax credit and then reinvest the money?


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[Assistant] Alright, and this is from Ginger in Missouri. She says, I met with my retirement plan advisor yesterday and he has never heard of Clark Howard.


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[Assistant] I couldn't believe it. I encouraged him to check you out and I sent him a link to your podcast. My question is how can I let this person be in charge of my money when he has never heard of you?


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[Assistant] You know, I think we need to come up with a name though for people who listen to the podcast or watch the podcast regularly. Don't you think? The Clarky.


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[Assistant] Fast forward 20 plus years, in recent months I discovered you were still doing your thing for the public and I have been obsessed with your YouTube channel ever since. My question is, is healthy wage legitimate and worth the $75 for a three month entrance fee?


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[Assistant] We don't have a full review, uhm, we have a list of different apps that you can use to make money. Uhm, but I did look at MyMoneyBlog.com and they did a thorough review of this and there's another app, these are weight loss, uhm, bet it, you sort of make bets that you hope will pay off for losing weight.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so there's another one they reviewed also called, uhm, diet bet. So my, uhm, so that was MyMoneyBlog.com again, just to give them credit, uhm, for this. But the healthy wage one, yeah, you agree to, you have to want to lose at least 10% of your body weight. You have to verify your weight.


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[Assistant] Uhm, at the beginning and the end and you may be asked to do check ins and that would be a video plus taking pictures that you have to upload and you have to get it verified by either like a pharmacy or a gym or a weight watchers meeting.


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[Assistant] And you decide how much money you're willing to bet and depends on how much, how much what you want to lose. You have to spend at least, ooh, I forgot what it was, uhm, we were looking at it, was it?


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[Assistant] $300 or some $500 over the bet period. Like you say, I want to lose 20 pounds over the next nine months.


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[Assistant] And so you're gonna be paying every month on your credit card, you're gonna see the charge. And then at the end, if you don't do your way in, they don't remind you and upload everything and you haven't met it, they keep all your money. But if you've met it, then you make some money.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and you do get a 10.99 for the difference between everything you paid in and then what you end up with at the end. And then the other one, uhm, diet bet, and there's so many others too, but diet bet you join like pools of people and you, there's like, if you want to lose less weight than 10% of your body weight, you can join like a 4% pool.


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[Assistant] And it, it lasts over four weeks to lose 4% of your body weight and the pool.


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[Assistant] Is like, it works out that you get $35 back, but some people, like a couple random people get it doubled. So, it's sort of like these gimmicky things to incentivize people.


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[Assistant] That's why we're a team here. Gotta beat the system. Okay, Mike in Florida says, Clark, there's a lot of talk about the FedNow service set to start in July. Should we be concerned that this will give the federal government too much control of how much, how we move money or control over our finances? And we did have a couple people ask about this one.


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[Assistant] On a recent podcast, Clark advised how to buy checks on the cheap. I want to know who still writes checks since they are the best way for identity theft and even Clark advises against writing checks to pay bills and putting them in a mailbox. Checks are as outdated as bustles. David.


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[Assistant] I greatly enjoy your podcast but as a finance professor, your tireless pushing of Roth accounts only gets a C plus in my class.


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[Assistant] A 2017 study published in the Journal of Financial Economics illustrates the problem with this advice. I'll briefly summarize the takeaway. Your listeners are well aware of the volatility in investment returns, which is minimized by investing in a diversified index or target date fund.


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[Assistant] However, tax policies have also been highly volatile over the last century, which makes it difficult to assess which type of account is optimal for someone decades away from knowing their post-retirement tax schedule. In addition to tax policy uncertainty, retirement savers also face uncertainty in future portfolio returns and income potential


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[Assistant] Just as we would diversify our investment choices. Thanks for all you and your colleagues do to educate your listeners and torture your listeners' children, Matt.


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[Assistant] I agree with you on summer jobs and I too had one from the time I was 15. I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and in college I had to really apply myself to my studies. I don't know if I would have graduated if I worked part time.


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[Assistant] By the way, I got all my tuition covered for it in college as a result of my baseball ability. Jim.


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[Assistant] It is not uncommon for pedestrians who are struck by motorists to suffer serious injuries later in life that result from crashes where they feel fine at first.


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[Assistant] It's extremely difficult to hold these drivers accountable for their behavior later in life if proper procedures aren't taken. Also, when a pedestrian is run over by a driver, there is usually no one looking out for the victim but instead are looking out for the driver. The police often cannot be bothered to investigate these and will look for any reason or excuse for drivers for their dangerous behavior.


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[Assistant] This listener would have not been hurt by hiring legal representation. Please be better Clark. Pat.


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[Assistant] If they were nearing retirement but could not retire if they had to pay the mortgage payment. Rather than answering the question, you told them how crazy they were to pay an extra- to pay extra on a mortgage at 1.875%. The listener was telling you that if they retired, the amount coming in was greater than the amount going out.


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[Assistant] Or our question. I would appreciate an answer, Greg.


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[Assistant] I don't know how ripe you are, I defer to Krista on that matter. Anyway, my dog was walking me today, as often happens, and you were in my ear. You were doing a piece on shopping auto insurance.


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[Assistant] As usual, you are providing excellent advice while educating your listeners, but periodically you talk about which insurance companies have their customers' backs when a claim must be filed and which do not.


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[Assistant] My thought was that while shopping for price, shopping for quality should be given equal consideration, and that should have been part of that discussion. As you said, while all insurance companies are very good at taking premium money, some of them aren't nearly as good at paying justifiable claims. Kirk.


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[Assistant] Clark, you stink worse than a high school locker room mixed with Axe body spray.


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[Assistant] When helping a listener deal with concert ticket fraud, you failed to mention how burner debit cards like on privacy.com can be set with purchase limits. If the ticket seller charges over your limit, the card declines. Thank you for this segment. It makes your show the actual best in the business, Cole.


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[Assistant] Since packing space is always at a premium, I'm just curious how many people have actually died in hotels of carbon monoxide poisoning.


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[Assistant] Especially in the United States or other developed countries. It seems like that's something we would hear about if it was more than a bizarre freak occurrence. Does Clark plan to bring a water tester, an electrical tester to be sure that those hotel rooms are safe as well? Just curious. I still love you, Clark.


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[Assistant] Not surprisingly, I've paid significantly more in maintenance with this car, and I'm not, and I'm feeling guilty about this. The car is paid off and has 117,000 miles.


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[Assistant] I think I could get another 80,000 miles out of it if I maintain it.


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[Assistant] I'm trying to decide if I should trade it in for something with a lower maintenance cost. Based on used car prices now, I think I'd probably end up spending about the same over the next three to five years to purchase a car like less compared to the cost of maintaining the German car. What should I do? You can probably tell which way I'm leaning.


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[Assistant] I recently unfroze my credit at the three bureaus for two days.


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[Assistant] At only one of the bureaus did I need my PIN that had been created when I froze my credit. And that was because I unfroze that account by phone. Apparently the three PIN codes I've guarded with my life for eight years are almost unnecessary. One can unfreeze their credit online with no PIN.


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[Assistant] So if I have someone's social security number, phone and email password, I can unfreeze their credit online. What a clear case for strong passwords.


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


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[Assistant] It's officially spring that has many of us planning our summer travel. I've got some warnings, some info for you to share with you if you're planning on taking a trip in the near future. And also I want to talk about how the way we handle money.


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[Assistant] Can end up really painting us into a tough financial corner.


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[Assistant] And right now the stakes are higher and I want to talk about that. So,


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[Assistant] We're saying to the Wall Street crowd about what their bookings look like.


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[Assistant] Is that revenge travel thing people talked about that people couldn't travel for a while. And some of it are credits that people have.


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[Assistant] That may be sunsetting that they're trying to get used. Same issues come up with the cruise lines, what are called FCCs, future cruise credits, where it's given a boost to bookings, as people have money from during COVID, that if they don't use those credits by a certain date, it goes poof.


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[Assistant] So there's an unusual spike in demand for air travel for different reasons.


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[Assistant] And air travel that you can shift.


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[Assistant] To the second half of August or later,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Will be significantly cheaper than it's going to be from Memorial Day till mid-August. And that is a pattern that's really clear. And because of the way travel patterns work in the summer in any year, that's how it works. But the differences in what you'll pay could be even larger this year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That then has spillover effect into accommodations. Because even though most travel is done by automobile, not by air,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is a good proxy for travel patterns. So bookings for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're all at their peak summer Memorial Day to mid-August. So anybody who can shift a little later in that travel, uhm, those of you have kids and the school calendars,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why people who don't have to worry about the school calendars benefit from doing the back end of summer rather than the first part of summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's just number one. When you go matters. I talked recently and you may not have heard this episode of the podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About how there are newer discounters that are offering potentially real savings opportunities for you flying off the beaten track routes. Now you know the three oldies of this.