05.19.23 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / A Vital, Simple Home Safety Reminder

♪♪ 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? It is your time. Clark sinks! Recently, there was a Clark stinks about my enthusiasm for portable carbon monoxide detectors. And I got some new data on that that 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, without wasting another second, it's time for Clark stinks. I should have never encouraged you to speak. You almost think I'm pretty stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're right, pal. ♪♪ Once a recent show you launched into your familiar rant about investing with bank-owned investment firms, never, never, never, not ever, but then doubled down when you excitedly exclaimed that there are no exceptions. Clark, you should know better. There are always exceptions. How do I know? Because I am one. I have my needs met with financial planning, investment advisory, insurance advisory, and tax planning provided at an all-in net fee that is comparable to the fees charged by your favorite stepchildren, Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard. There are now stepchildren, not my children. I guess. The discount brokers do not offer some of these services and where they do, additional charges are incurred. In fact, on an apples-to-apples basis, I would offer that I obtain a better value in my bank-owned RIA than I would via the discounters. Does one have to shop? Yes. Does one have to negotiate? Yes. Most importantly, does one need to have an understanding of their needs and goals? Absolutely, yes. Honestly, Clark, the service that you offer to people is too valuable to be tainted with information that is patently untrue. And that's from Steve. Steve, thank you. Steve, I mean, I am my head in my heart and I believe that investing through an investing arm of a bank is dangerous to your financial security and your ultimate financial net worth. Yes, am I strident about it? Yes, should I make all-encompassing statements like there are no exceptions? That's a character flaw in mind. The reason I say that was such emphasis is over and over and over again. If you stood where I stand and you heard the abuses people have suffered from bank-affiliated brokerage operations, you'd understand that you're hearing poor out of me as frustration about how these bank-affiliated operations, okay, I'll use the word that you'd be happier with generally rip off their customers, betray their trust by not being fiduciaries and charge massive fees and commissions. So that's why you hear this from me because I hear it over and over again. I mean, it was just a few weeks ago that I heard a horrific story from someone who had gone to the investment department of a big bank and had been just totally taken advantage of. Unfortunately, that's not rare and that's why you hear what I've said. Now, if you've 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, then you're doing the right thing in your situation. I've never heard of having to negotiate fees before. Oh, well, what happens is that the full commission broke rich houses and the bank-affiliated investment operations have priceless very, very, very, very high fees. And if you have enough assets, you can negotiate those, particularly if you're playing hard to get, comparing them to another organization. Clark, you don't stink, but you say that the original Costco is located in Issaquah, Washington. Kirkland, Washington. It's a quiz where the headquarters is. Yeah, that's not true. Their headquarters may be across the street from that Costco, but the flagship Costco is located in Seattle on 4th Avenue South. There's even an original section of the wall with a small tribute in history of Costco, sincerely a loyal Costco member. It's not Kirkland? I'm wrong, twice in 30 seconds? Plus, you did interrupt me. I apologize. Okay. I apologize. So, let me double down on this. Okay. The Price Club, which is what Costco was created later, the original Price Club is on Marina Boulevard, I think that's how you say the street, in San Diego, just off the five. And I have pictures of me standing, like doing a pilgrimage at the original Price Club, started by Saul Price. 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. That's what this loyal Costco member is saying. It sounds like you have some pilgrimage-ing to do. I do. Yeah, for sure. In Clark Stinks, you discussed how department store credit cards are terrible. Someone wrote in how the Cole's credit card has a 7.5% discount. I just wanted to clarify that the 7.5% is not a discount, it is a 7.5% rewards program that converts to Cole's cash to spend in a Cole's store. Not a direct discount on your purchase. You also have to be signed up for the Cole's rewards on top of the credit card to get the full 7.5% rewards in Cole's cash. Target is still the best card to get, Craig. Craig, thank you for that. I must plead ignorance on Cole's. I don't shop at Cole's and I can't remember shopping in one. I may be missing something, but have you ever been in a Cole's? I've been in one, near my mom's house, but I don't know. It's not a normal shopping routine for you. You smell like a hog on a hot August day. That sounds bad. It's very, very smelly. First, why can't I post Clark Stinks from anywhere in the world without a US phone number, but when I try to post an ass Clark, I need to provide a US phone number. All you need to do is add a widget on your website that allows for a drop-down of international country codes. I'm in Italy and I know a lot of US expats listen to your podcast. Secondly, why do you never address US expats in the terrible way we're treated by the US government and taxation and especially investing in retirement accounts? Several of my friends have been sent drop-dead letters from their retirement accounts because of the onerous reporting rules that the US government has. There needs to be a fix. Millions of Americans live abroad and pay their taxes but are treated like third-class citizens. We need your help. Ken. Andrew, say enough. We had a post last week about this, not on Clark Stinks, but a question on our podcast. And there are many millions of Americans, I forget how many millions are living overseas for long-term or permanent, but they remain US citizens. They can vote in US elections, they pay taxes, and there's nobody in Congress on a tax-writing committee who's paying any attention to this at all. I would say that what expats need to do is form their own interest group and maybe even higher a part-time lobbyist because in Washington, 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, so it requires organizing and having a lobbyist who's there to represent you. But it is like the most common place I think Americans live outside the United States is Canada, and I've addressed before that the tax problems for an American living in Canada or Canadian living in the United States, hideously awful. And this is an area with millions of our voters, taxpayers living overseas, you're right, Ken, it should be fixed. On the thing with our form, how hard is that to fit? Well, the reason is on the Ask Clark form, we sometimes will send the questions we can't get to our Consumer Action Center and they will call the person if they need more information. And so currently, I don't think they're set up to call foreign numbers, but we're going to look into that and see if our phone system that we use can do that and we'll change the form if that's the case. But Clark Stinks never call anyone. Yeah, because now, I mean, it's funny with calling somebody international, it can be as cheap as a couple of pennies a minute to several dollars a minute depending on how you call them, what service you call them on. Right, so, and we don't take any information that we wouldn't need, and so that's why we don't put the phone number field on the Clark Stinks form. When providing guidance regarding thermostat temperature, please include a caveat about medications and other life vital things people may have in their homes. While 78 degrees during the summer might be good, economically speaking, people need to be aware that not everything in their home can and should be stored at this temperature. They should check their life vital things such as life critical medications for recommended temperature ranges, so that if they choose to set their thermostat to 78 degrees, they're doing so with the knowledge of the potential impact on these things in their home. Beth, okay, 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 thought about medical need affecting the temperature you would have to have your thermostat on in your home. This is why we do this because there's always other perspectives that one regular guy just isn't necessarily going to see. Clark, I love your podcast and have been listening for about 20 years, but I think you stink worse than your beloved Atlanta Falcons on this one. Stop telling people to use their Roth IRA as a pay bank for emergency savings. Roth accounts are supposed to be for long-term investing of your future, not a place designed to dip into when you need cash. Come on, Clark, I thought you were all about the long term. By the way, I'll end by congratulating your Falcons on a wonderful first round draft pick. You are going to love Be John Robinson, Rob. Rob, thank you very much, and Hope Springs Eternal has been a rough ride since 1966 with Atlanta Falcons. Super poll rings zero. Anyway, you're completely right. It's a behavioral economics kind of thing that it's hard to get people to contribute to a Roth IRA at all. The long-term advantages of a Roth IRA are huge. Why would I talk about being able to pull out contributions, not earnings on a Roth tax and penalty free? 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, 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 are afraid to do it because they're afraid the money is locked down forever. What if, what if, what if? Is it a good idea for people to use this piggy bank? No. And so that mixed message from me is for that reason. I'm trying to get people in the habit of 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. You're no Clark Kent and you just might be Clark Vent. Please stop whining about the decision made by Scott Kist to change the name of his newsletter. Scott's Cheap Flights was perfectly fine. It was brief and descriptive. Obviously, by using a more generic name, the new going, he may be able to sell his company whenever he wishes. If you keep going on about the name, I'm going to scream my head off at the podcast, Cheryl. Cheryl, thank you. And you're right. You should be able to name it whatever he wants and the fact that I don't like the new name. Who cares? Clark, Clark, Clark, whatever happened to the tagline, spend less, save more and avoid getting ripped off. Some of us longtime listeners really miss it. Amy. Amy, you got to get it right. It was save more. Spend less and avoid getting ripped off. Why did we stop using it? Because I always loved it. It is still what we have it on a lot of different things on our website and another. We just don't use it at the beginning of the podcast. But that is what we want people to do. I have an idea. Make it the end. Take it. How do you do that? Mine meld. I read minds. I can't believe you're like some kind of clairvoyant. So what that's called? You know what I did though? I interrupted you when I just complained about it earlier when you interrupted me. So, Chris, Chris Stinks. Okay. I wouldn't say Clark Stinks, but he's being a little too carefree in his analysis. There was a question about whether electrical vehicle charging would pose a threat to the electrical grid. Clark advised the listener not to worry as 80% of electrical vehicles are charged at night. That is true. However, that means that 20% of electric vehicles are not charged at night. So the remaining 20% could be charged during peak times. The definition of a peak time is when usage is at its highest and any extra charge could be enough to put the demand above system capacity. So although it might not be a problem, it very well could be a problem to add to any additional electrical demand onto the system at peak times. So I don't think it's safe to assume electric vehicles won't be in some circumstances posing problems to the grid. And that's from Kevin. Kevin, thank you. The example I look at is Norway where is 80% of all vehicles now are electric. Some giant number in Norway. The big problem people have is finding an available charger when they're on a road trip because that's the problem. This country is other than Tesla, we don't have a reliable charging network in the United States. Same issue in Norway, even though almost every vehicle on the road there now is electrical. 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 about protecting yourself from carbon monoxide poisoning. Got some strong reactions. I have an update to that for you coming straight ahead. Did you know that Discover is more than a credit card? With Discover's online savings account, you earn five times more interest than the national savings average. Five times. There are no monthly fees, no minimum deposit, and no monthly balance requirements. It's FDIC insured up to the maximum amount allowed by law. Learn more at discover.com and start saving with confidence today. Discover Bank, Member FDIC. I'm really worried about a silent killer in that carbon monoxide poisoning. When I talked about it, last year I guess, it generated some strong reaction There's two problems. One, with the haphazard staffing of hotels, there's been a hotel having a real problem with labor turnover and getting enough people and all the rest. It's been a problem with proper maintenance in hotels, particularly for hotel pools. It's led to tragic deaths of people from carbon monoxide poisoning, not just in the United States, the carbon monoxide poisoning at hotels has been in other countries. There's a new report from the federal government that the number of people dying in their own homes from carbon monoxide poisoning. Last reported year, all-time record high, the number steadily going up. One thing you need to know is this is a problem that is so easy to avoid. It's crazy. We take as a given about smoke detectors. Every time there's a fire and people die in a fire in a home or an apartment, you then hear the report. There were no working smoke detectors in the dwelling. This is easy stuff to have a smoke detector when you sleep at night. I want to add to that and have a carbon monoxide detector. Smoke detector goes high, carbon monoxide detector usually goes low. I know this is nuts, but recently at Aldi, they had had a cycle where they were selling smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. They do every spring and fall is one of their Aldi fines. I was in Aldi where they did not sell well and I was able to buy smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors for $4. I bought everything they had left and I've been giving them out to people. I asked people, I know, do you have a working smoke detector? They'll say, no. Here you go. 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 it's so simple and it's something that means so much to me because life is precious. I don't want somebody to lose their life because of not having a working smoke detector or carbon monoxide detector. Why are carbon monoxide deaths rising in residential settings in the United States? The power grid is not as reliable as it used to be. It's not because of the power source necessarily. It's because of above ground power lines. It's the main reason for the lack of reliability of the electrical grid today. They happened in Texas years ago was just horrific and not because of that. There were several causes of that but generally it's because the increasing frequency and its various storms knocking down power lines, people are doing what you've heard me talk about 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, but most people buy a diesel generator and they will have it 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 because the power company won't be providing power to your home for whatever storm reason, typically. People turn on that portable generator and the carbon monoxide silently kills you. Now, I want you to have 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. And yes, I do travel with my little micro carbon monoxide detector that I take with me to hotel rooms because of the problem of carbon monoxide poisoning and deaths that are, yes, they are infrequent, but if you're the one who died, it doesn't feel so infrequent to you. Okay, Denise in Oklahoma says, what is the best way to get out of debt faster? I have $18,000 in debt. Is it better to use balanced transfer for lower interest rates for the payments or use the snowball method and just suck it up for the dumb mistakes that got me into debt? Okay, first of all, please Denise, do not pick on yourself because you got into debt. Pretty much everybody's been there at some point in their lives. The great thing is you're determined to get out of debt. So 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 and you pay minimums on everything except the one with the smallest balance. 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. Snowball works two ways. You can do that if that would really speak to you emotionally, psychologically. A little bit more effective financially is to do the snowball where you pay the minimums towards everything, except the one with the highest interest rate. And your dollars have the greatest impact when you're paying extra against the one with the highest interest rate. But both as long as you are determined and you're all about paying down that debt, you get there. I don't look at balance transfers as mutually exclusive from doing a snowball, because whatever debt you have, this high interest rate, if you can balance transfer it into one with a low interest rate, you've got a target period typically 18 months at that low rate. To get that balance wiped out, that is part of the strategy of paying off your debt is great. If you can take like a 25% rate down to 6.9 or 8.9 or 4.9 or whatever 0.9, there's real advantage to you because every dollar you're paying towards it, you have much more going towards principal than interest. The main thing is obviously you're heading your heart about getting out of this debt, 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. Definitely. Okay, Lewis and Florida says, Clark, is it worth it to buy a new robot lawn mower for around $1,000? Robot lawn mowers. Okay, first of all, Florida, right? Mm-hmm. So it's going to be a flat lawn. If it's rectangular and there's not a lot of objects in the way, the robotic lawn mowers have proven to be very effective, and they take a lot longer to cut your grass than you're doing it yourself. They're very, very slow, but they're very efficient with a flat rectangular yard. If the choice is spending a thousand or paying someone routinely to cut your lawn, then you got a nice return on investment. You should be able to find one, though, a lot cheaper than $1,000. Why are you looking at me? Well, I was looking at them, but it depends. What did you say? I mean, it depends on the size of your yard, for sure, because they don't have as much battery life, and it looked complicated to set up, too. When I watched some YouTube videos people did about theirs, I was like, and my lawn isn't that expensive to get molds of the payback period. You're also not a flat rectangular yard. Yeah. And depending on where you live in Florida, you may not have big yard space, so you could as an alternative if you're willing to do so. The electric automatic mowers that you are behind them, but the motors run themselves, and you can cut a small lawn pretty quickly at a much lower price. But if you just want it to be easy, Roomba was kind of like Kleenex for those, but now there are so many brands. So, gosh, they do work, but I would read reviews. I wonder if Consumer Reports has done a review. Not for a long time, I looked. Okay, you could 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. And then if you're considering one or a couple specifically, I would look and see if there's a YouTube video of people using them, because I think that's probably pretty helpful to see what it really does. Okay, Margaret in Iowa says, let's talk nutrition. You mentioned broccoli as a side comment relating to prostate cancer. As a dietitian, I really believe nutrition is medicine. I know you eat sad, the standard American diet. You have a far-reaching audience, and I was hoping you could discuss some good nutrition information, and Krista let me prepare you some Brussels sprouts. So, Margaret, thank you, and my eating habits are better than they used to be. There's still, I'd give myself, what did I give myself last time, a D plus C minus? I don't remember. It's probably where I am. 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 generally people around the world eat a lot of processed foods, eat a lot of high calorie foods. I mean, people don't eat around the world as well as they used to. Well, because I think we've spread the processed foods. You're blaming us? And you do eat at McDonald's a lot when you're in foreign countries. I have witnessed that. Am I wrong? The food's good. Yeah, yeah. And it's affordable. I'm not exactly helping my case here. I know. Margaret, I'm sorry. It does cost a lot of money in healthcare though. It's too bad, and it's a very complicated issue. I think, you know, if everybody, you just say to people, eat less and exercise more. Like, that sounds really simple, but it's much more complex than that for so many people. There are some great health podcasts out there. I recommend actually, if you're really into science, Andrew Huberman from Stanford. He has a podcast called the Huberman Lab Podcast, and it's like, I mean deep science on specific issues he'll dig into and go and really look at it. And he's not trying to sell anything, and I recommend that. Because I am no expert. So what should we do now? Should we go get some raw sushi? Is that what we should do now? I mean, you know, vegetables are definitely universally considered to be good, you know? Especially raw, right? I mean, I think just vegetables, let's not get too specific on people. Eat more vegetables and eat more plants and try to keep your sugar low and just try not to eat a lot of inflammatory foods. That's the big problem, I think. We're so inflamed. What's an inflammatory food? Foods that inflame your body, like processed foods and things like that. Like things that spike your sugar all the time. White stuff, like breads and pastas and all that stuff. Like stuff that's not complex carbs. Oh, God. I just totally fell into your trap. Why did I do that? See? I mean, did I just not show that this is something you should be doing to... Well, I'm a work in progress and I am always trying to improve my health. So we're going to go do that now and I hope the rest of your day is great as well. ♪♪♪