01.06.25 Timeshares - Vacation Clubs / Teaching The Value Of Money

Summary

The Clark Howard Podcast Summary Episode: January 6, 2025
Title: Timeshares - Vacation Clubs / Teaching The Value Of Money

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Introduction

In this episode of The Clark Howard Podcast, Clark delves into two primary topics that resonate with many listeners: the pitfalls of timeshares and vacation clubs, and the critical role of allowances in teaching children the value of money. Through insightful discussions and practical advice, Clark empowers listeners to make informed financial decisions.

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1. The Dark Side of Timeshares and Vacation Clubs

Clark begins by addressing the overwhelming number of calls received about timeshares, passionately declaring, “[Timeshares] stink. Timeshares are something that are defective by their very design” (00:54). He explains that irrespective of how much one loves their timeshare, these investments typically lack market value, making them difficult to exit without incurring significant losses.

Vacation Clubs: A Repackaged Trap

Transitioning to vacation clubs, Clark warns of their deceptive allure. He recounts a personal anecdote from the early '90s, where he exposed fraudulent vacation clubs, highlighting that even reputable brands like Hyatt have seen consumers lured into long-term, unrewarding contracts. Clark emphasizes, “Timeshare by any other name is still a rotten, terrible deal” (05:30).

Key Takeaways:

• Lack of Market Value: Timeshares often hold little to no resale value.
• Exit Challenges: Selling a timeshare typically requires paying someone to take it over.
• Misleading Alternatives: Vacation clubs present similar, if not worse, drawbacks under different nomenclature.

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2. Teaching Kids the Value of Money through Allowances

Shifting focus, Clark discusses the declining prevalence of allowances and their importance in instilling financial responsibility in children. He asserts, “[Allowances] create a sense of finiteness,” underscoring the necessity for children to learn budgeting and priority setting from a young age (16:37).

Structured Allowances Encourage Responsibility

Clark advocates for allowances tied to chores or age, helping kids understand that money must be earned and managed wisely. He highlights the challenge of teaching financial values in an increasingly cashless society, suggesting, “If a kid has the ability and that's how they use money, it needs to be from a savings account that has that finite sum of money” (18:45).

Key Takeaways:

• Earned Money: Linking allowances to responsibilities teaches children that money is earned, not given.
• Finiteness Principle: Limited funds encourage prioritization and deferred gratification.
• Modern Challenges: Transitioning from cash to digital payments complicates financial education, necessitating segregated accounts for allowances.

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3. Listener Questions and Clark’s Advice

Clark addresses several listener queries, providing tailored advice on diverse financial matters:

• Amazon Password Security (David from Nevada) (07:14)
  David questions the necessity of frequently changing strong, randomly generated passwords. Clark agrees, stating, “If you have your password manager, you got your 12 random characters. I'm okay with you keeping it like it is” (07:48).

• Using Automotive Schools for Car Repairs (Mary from North Carolina) (09:59)
  Mary inquires about cost-effective car repairs through automotive schools. Clark acknowledges the decline in such services due to liability concerns but recommends checking with local technical colleges as alternatives (10:11).

• Managing Home Insurance Claims with High Deductibles (Joseph from Ohio) (25:18)
  Joseph shares a frustrating experience with high deductibles during a complex insurance claim. Clark advises hiring an independent or public adjuster to navigate complicated claims effectively (26:39).

• Closing Bank Accounts and Interest Balances (Neil from Georgia) (28:31)
  Neil seeks best practices for closing accounts to ensure all interest is received. Clark explains the shift from daily to monthly interest calculations by banks, advising listeners to verify interest credit dates before account closure (28:56).

• Choosing the Best Cash Back Credit Card (Theresa from Ohio) (23:10)
  Theresa looks for a credit card offering the best cash back rate for paying her propane bill. Clark recommends 2% cash back cards as the sweet spot, highlighting Clark.com’s cash back credit card calculator tool for personalized recommendations (24:00).

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4. Updates to The Clark Howard Podcast Schedule

Towards the end of the episode, Clark announces a significant change to the podcast’s scheduling. He reveals that starting in 2025, the podcast will transition from five to three episodes weekly—Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—to allow for a better work-life balance. Additionally, a new weekly segment titled "Ask an Advisor" will launch on Tuesdays, featuring complex investing questions answered by Wes Moss, a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor.

Clark notes the evolving nature of financial inquiries, emphasizing the need for specialized advice in an era of dwindling traditional pensions and more complicated financial products.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Clark Howard Podcast offers a blend of cautionary tales about timeshares and vacation clubs, alongside valuable strategies for financial education for children. Coupled with responsive listener advice and updates to the podcast’s structure, Clark continues his mission to help listeners save more, spend less, and achieve financial freedom.

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Notable Quotes

• “Timeshares are something that are defective by their very design. Because no matter how much you love your timeshare when you buy it, ... It has basically no market value.” – Clark Howard 00:54

• “Allowances may require chores to earn those allowances... But the reason I like allowances is that it creates a sense of finiteness.” – Clark Howard 16:37

• “If you have your password manager, you got your 12 random characters. I'm okay with you keeping it like it is.” – Clark Howard 07:48

• “Timeshare by any other name is still a rotten, terrible deal.” – Clark Howard 05:30

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Resources Mentioned

• Clark.com: www.clark.com
• ClarkDeals.com: www.clarkdeals.com
• Cash Back Credit Card Calculator: Available on Clark.com

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This summary is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the episode’s content for those who have not listened to it. For detailed advice and personal financial strategies, tuning into the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

[Ryan Reynolds]

This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states. If you love iPhone, you'll love Apple Card. It comes with the privacy and security you expect from Apple. Plus, you earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, which can automatically earn interest when you open a High Yield Savings account through Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app, subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Apple Card and Savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch Member FDIC terms and [e-mail].

[Clark Howard]

I'm so glad you're with us here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. And in today's episode, I'm going to talk about something we received so many calls about in our Team Clark Consumer Action Center Timeshares Also teaching your kids about money is tough. I want to tell you the role that allowance plays in teaching the finiteness of money to your kid. So timeshares stink. And I've said this for 40 years in broadcast and now here on podcast and our YouTube show. Timeshares are something that are defective by their very design. Because no matter how much you love your timeshare when you buy it, or for years to come when you don't want it anymore, it sticks to you like glue. And no matter what you paid for it, it has basically no market value. And that's why to exit a timeshare, you have to pay somebody to take it over almost always. And it's almost impossible, even in the most perfect situation, to not lose tons of money when you sell a timeshare. So enough people have heard that, that the word timeshare has become a damaged word, a damaged term. And so the industry wants to come up with new ways and they'll use different terms like interval ownership or whatever, but the latest is the opposite of improvement. The latest is actually, believe it or not, worse than timeshares. Yep, the industry managed to come up with a way to make it worse. What do they call the new stuff? And actually it's not new because I I'll tell you a story in a second. But they're calling them vacation clubs. And so the idea of a vacation club is you don't own anything. You're just paying for the right to be able to take vacations whenever you wish. So many days a year for free or the rest of the year. It greatly reduced prices. And I remember I was new as a TV reporter in the early 90s. There were all these people getting ripped off by a very early attempt at this whole vacation club thing. And people were paying $20,000 approximately to buy the right to have these free vacations. And then they were never available. You could never take one. And so I go there and I do one of those typical TV confrontation things. I show up with my photographer and my microphone and the lights blazing at the sales center for this. And it was really funny because the waiting room was full of people that were buying this. And seeing me there generated a lot of buzz in the waiting room. And I asked to speak to. I knew who the principal was from online, not online research, then forgot how we did it, the library or whatever we found. Principal asked for the person and I'm waiting. And so I start interviewing people in the lobby and next thing I know there's two police officers there to arrest me for trespassing. Ultimately ended up not being arrested and that company ended up vanishing in the night. And one of the principals did spend some time in jail, but that was early. Now you got big players doing these vacation clubs. And the New York Times recently did a story about person after person who had bought vacation club by Hyatt and spent $50,000. Inflation, right? Because in the 90s it was 20. Now with that organization, 50,000. And person after person ended up in 40 year contracts. 40 year contracts. And were unable allegedly to be able to use any of the benefits. Because remember, at least with the timeshare you have your designated week and you can use your week year after year. It may not be a good deal, but you have your week with these vacation clubs. It's just an empty promise that you'll be able to take a vacation that, as people allege with the Hyatt one, you can't ever do. So know that this is something that sounds exciting, especially in winter when is peak selling season for these things. Don't fall for it. Timeshare by any other name is still a rotten, terrible deal. What should you do? Find the best deal on a vacation when you want to take one. By the way, we are going to have a lot of great deals and I need to do a segment sometime in the next couple of weeks if I could, with your permission.

[Krista]

You don't need my permission.

[Clark Howard]

Well, you're the boss.

[Krista]

No, you're the boss.

[Clark Howard]

You're COO of the company.

[Krista]

You're the. You could squash me like a bug.

[Clark Howard]

Right. Anyway, I want to do something soon about why we're going to have so many deals this year and what are the deals you should be looking for in 25. And January is one of the very best months to buy deals. So we'll talk about that later.

[Krista]

Love that. Okay. This came in from David in Nevada. In your article on Amazon scams, it is suggested to change your password frequently. Your Amazon password. If I have a 12 character randomly generated password for my password manager and the site has not been hacked so that my password has been accessed, why would I want to change my password? I see this advice periodically. I have 512 passwords and only change them when there has been a known breach or for some reason they're not working.

[Clark Howard]

512. How about that? How many sign ins do you think you have?

[Krista]

I have no idea. I was just thinking about that.

[Clark Howard]

I've never thought about how many of these usernames and passwords I have. So 12 character randomly generated. The longer a phrase is, the better it is. You hear from security personnel. But I would say even though it's a great idea with Amazon being such a place, that's like. It's like keys to the kingdom for a crook. If you have your password manager, you got your 12 random characters. I'm okay with you keeping it like it is.

[Krista]

Janie in West Virginia says, my husband and I are taking responsibility for our investments. We have met with a fiduciary fee only financial advisor and will be opening an account with Schwab and moving our investments from a local insurance company with assets under management. Fee based plan.

[Clark Howard]

Plan from a fee base.

[Krista]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Clark Howard]

So they were with another one of these dreaded insurance companies.

[Krista]

I've heard so many horror stories about scammers and fraudsters stealing money from investors and want to know what I can do to protect our money. I use a Chrome laptop for banking purposes only. Should I use the same laptop for the purpose of managing my investments? Should I get an additional laptop just for my investments? Do you have any other advice before we get started?

[Clark Howard]

So I think using the Chromebook, you're fine. The protections in a Chromebook because Chromebooks are resistant to viruses as a general rule, I think you're okay. Plus, Schwab has one of the clearest policies on stating that your account is protected by them. Now on the Other hand, the problem not so much today is somebody cracking in to your account through hacking in and that kind of thing through your computer. Today, the way it's done most often is pretexting with somebody pretending to be from Schwab or pretending to be from your financial planner's office. So that's the thing. You need to be very, very cautious of somebody representing themselves as being what they're not.

[Krista]

Mary, North Carolina says if you want to save money getting work done on your personal car, is it a good idea to use automotive schools? They get practice and you save money. How would you find such a school that will help you?

[Clark Howard]

This is something that I used to recommend. But Krista, you found in more recent research that because of the dreaded liability word that this is much less frequently available.

[Krista]

Yes. I actually called a few automotive schools and they all said they used to do it, but they no longer do it. One school was they never had the students do really complex stuff on the people's cars that came from the outside, but they all said they do. Just FYI, this doesn't help Mary out, but if they have like a beautician school, like a hair, you know, hair cutting school or like other, there are other services that you can actually get, you can be a student and save money on.

[Clark Howard]

And we've had several people talk about if they live near a veterinary medicine school and they can't afford the veterinary care that their pet needs, that there may be a veterinary medicine school that they can get much cheaper services than they would get otherwise. But yeah, I mean, for years going back, I think it was even in my first book more than 30 years ago about having automotive repairs you couldn't afford done in an automotive school.

[Krista]

And, but I mean, it's worth a shot. Call a technical college in your area and see if they still do it. It's possible, but that's what I would do. I look up automotive schools in your area, Mary, and give them a call. Everybody was very friendly that I spoke with.

[Clark Howard]

Well, isn't that nice? When do you start your classes?

[Krista]

I mean, it's amazing. I was actually on the website, some of the schools and I was like, wow, this is so cool, the stuff you can learn in for free. A lot of times, like for if they're, you know, just local community colleges and stuff, I really, it's pretty awesome.

[Clark Howard]

So I don't know if you know this about me, Krista.

[Krista]

What, after this many years, are you going to throw something new at me?

[Clark Howard]

I don't know. You'll Tell me.

[Krista]

I do call you the human onion because you have so many layers.

[Clark Howard]

So after I finished graduate school, I was working, you know, postgraduate job. I was really like, I don't know anything about cars and I don't know if I would take my car in if I'd have any idea if they were ripping me off or whatever. And I went to auto mechanics school.

[Krista]

I did know that one.

[Clark Howard]

Oh, so you did know that.

[Krista]

You probably told me that 20 years ago.

[Clark Howard]

So I went to auto mechanics school and I took a nine month course. What I discovered after nine months is I have no mechanical aptitude whatsoever. I failed the final exam, you know, where you're actually doing, they give you a vehicle and you have to diagnose it and you have to fix the things that you've diagnosed and all that. And oh man, wow. Nine months. I discovered, I mean, a woman could have had a baby in that period of time. And I had trouble getting past just doing oil and filter changes on a car. So that would not have been my first, best destiny to have done my own repairs. So now I guess I'm doing what is my first best destiny.

[Krista]

There you go.

[Clark Howard]

All right. So coming ahead, I want to talk allowances. It's so confusing today about the role of allowances in teaching the value of money to your kids. I want to discuss that with you.

[Don McDonald]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Tom]

The term financial advisor is utterly meaningless? Anyone can pretend to be one, including commissioned stockbrokers and insurance agents. Are you aware that even professionals trying to beat the market by picking stocks or timing have been shown on average to return less over time than index funds. Are you looking for a podcast that will give you sane, simple, consumer centric advice about managing your Money? I'm Don McDonald and my co host Tom and I invite you to listen to Talking Real Money on this and every podcast service. We promise to tell you the hard truths about money and investing because the truth will set you free to build a better future. We advocate for investors, not the financial industry, plus we think you'll be entertained in the process. Make Talking Real Money your source of fiscal truth. When you're finished with this podcast, just search for Talking Real Money. You have almost nothing to lose and a secure financial future to possibly gain. Visit talkingrealmoney.com or search for Talking Real Money.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Unknown]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Clark Howard]

Above 40 gigabytes of details allowances used to be so prominent as a way to give young children all the way through into high school spending money so that they're not always coming to you and asking for this, that or the other. And for reasons I can't quite figure figure out, allowances are not as common as they used to be. Depending on a family culture and parental philosophies, there are people who still do. Allowances may require chores to earn those allowances, or just by breathing and being a year older, you get an allowance that may step up each year. I'm at the school that it's really great to have kids have responsibilities, chores or whatever you want to Call them in order to receive an allowance, that it creates this sense that that money was in some way earned, if you will. But the reason I like allowances is that it creates a sense of finiteness. But in order to make an allowance effective, you as a parent have to. When the kid says, oh, mom, dad, can I have money for this, that or the other, it's hard. But if you're really going to teach the value of money, you have to say no, you have to use your allowance. And you use allowance to its best extent. If you do use it as a way of a kid having to learn like an adult does, that they have to set priorities. If I really want to have fill in the blank, can I afford to buy this other item? Or does it put me further back? Let's say a kid loves playing video games and there's a video game they're just, they just really want to have. But then there's other things they might, you know, go with their friend shopping or whatever, or they may go to a restaurant and they buy a meal when they're out with friends if it doesn't take away from the pile of money to get to that game. Again, there's no teaching of deferred gratification. Deferred gratification is one of the most important things to be successful with managing money over an entire lifetime. So if there's no enforced shortages, then there's no learning to set priorities and to make temporary sacrifices for the longer term goal. That in a kid's mind, a longer term goal is next week. Right? But if you don't do this, then your kid does not learn to set priorities and learn to say, you know what, I really would like to have this, that or the other, but I can't have it right now because what I really want is that game or whatever it is. It's also become harder for a big reason with money. Because money is not cash to kids. Money is tapping with a phone or using some kind of card. And it's really much more difficult as a parent to teach good values with money when it is tap to pay, tap to pay or watch, tap to pay. Those are really, really rough to teach the finiteness of money. So if a kid has the ability and that's how they use money, it needs to be from a savings account that has that finite sum of money. And then they go tap to pay and it's declined when they've blown through the money. That's the only way is if you segregate out how a Kid accesses money. If it's not actual paper money and coins. If it's not that, then it's got to be a separate account. That there's a logical consequence that there's no money there anymore. If they've been spending too much, well, it's too much when they've blown through the money they had from allowance. Okay. I got a crazy thing about money. You know, I placed a bet with a friend over a football game.

[Krista]

How much?

[Clark Howard]

Usual amount, 25 cents.

[Krista]

Okay.

[Clark Howard]

Wow. I kind of gamble a dollar.

[Krista]

You've bet me a dollar before.

[Clark Howard]

Well, because you're a big time gambler. You even had me lose $20 for you when I was in Las Vegas once.

[Krista]

How many years ago was that?

[Clark Howard]

I'm never gonna get over that. Lost $20. Anyway, I won the bet. Finding a quarter is, like, impossible when people never use paper money and aren't getting change. He had to borrow the quarter from somebody else so Jay could pay off the 25 cent bet.

[Krista]

Oh, my gosh. That's hilarious. Yeah, you're gonna have to go to a dollar.

[Clark Howard]

Yeah, but then I still have to have the paper.

[Krista]

Yeah, I guess because you don't use any of the apps. I would. Venmo.

[Clark Howard]

So you go to all these Tony places when you. When you go to valet, you go to valet?

[Krista]

I rarely valet. Hate valeting.

[Clark Howard]

Me too.

[Krista]

I hate it.

[Clark Howard]

I wonder if they have converted routinely to taking, like, cash app and Venmo.

[Krista]

Yes, I've definitely seen them. Because even if you walk by, you can see they put their QR codes up for sure. And like, if you're at a cash bar, you'll see that too. Like the QR codes. I think it's brilliant. That's what people should do.

[Clark Howard]

What's a cash bar?

[Krista]

Like a bar at an event when you were recently inducted into a press club hall of fame. Well, that was. You could buy a ticket to get a drink, but then you could tip the bartenders with their Venmo account.

[Clark Howard]

How much was the water on the table at that. That was free. I. I have never bought a drink at one of these cash bars.

[Krista]

Really?

[Clark Howard]

Yeah. I just drank the water on the table.

[Krista]

Let's go to questions.

[Clark Howard]

Okay. Am I too thrifty?

[Krista]

I don't know. Of course not. This is why you have the show. This is why I am working for you. Theresa in Ohio says I am looking for a credit card that will pay cash back. This credit card will only be used to pay my propane bill. What credit card will offer me the Best percentage rate.

[Clark Howard]

So this has gotten to be so much easier. It blows my mind. I remember when we first talked about a 2% cash back card and I think there was only one in the marketplace or two. There were two at the time. Now I think there's like a dozen of them available in the marketplace. We got a list of [e-mail] and 2% seems to be the sweet spot in the market. There are a couple of cards now that will pay you 2 and a half or 3%, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops using one of those that pay two and a half or three. The beauty of the 2% cards is none of them have an annual fee. And Krista wants to make sure, you know, we have a credit card.

[Krista]

It's not just a credit card. We have a cash back credit card calculator tool on clark.com I think this is the coolest thing. You input how much money you spend a month at different restaurants, drugstores, gas, grocery, wholesale clubs or other and then it will show you which 2% cashback card or other cards will be the best cash back for you. Nobody's got something like that.

[Clark Howard]

So let me tell you what we've been doing. We're able to use, would I call this a use of AI somewhat. We're able to use some of the functionality that people talk, AI, AI and we're able to say, you know, wouldn't it be great if people had a way to really know the best deal on this, that or the other? And then we're able, in a fraction of the time it used to take to create a tool that you're able to do simple inputs and you're able to see as close to a perfect answer as you can. And you know, we're busy in our lives and there's so much noise and how do you know what really is the best deal or best choice? And so we're putting up more and more of these decision making tools because the capability now exists for us when we have one of those brainstorms to be able to generate that as a smaller company instead of some big bureaucratic right.

[Krista]

And we use, we use our data that our writers are always gathering on, like when the charge, the card offers change and all that stuff. So that's the backbone is the database. From our staff. Joseph in Ohio says, Clark, I was recently listening to your advice on raising your home insurance deductible higher.

[Clark Howard]

Oh boy, this is not going to be a good story, is it?

[Krista]

About four years ago we followed your advice and raised our deductible to 3%. Wouldn't you know it that a year later we had to file a claim when our ceiling collapsed due to water damage from a frozen pipe. We needed to have water mitigation, then repairs to multiple rooms on the first floor of our house. That sounds like a total nightmare. With a high deductible, we had a difficult time getting all the services we needed. The water mitigation services fell below the deductible. So the insurance gave us a little advice on how to handle. And the company doing the mitigation did not seem to understand how to handle a claim where we'd be paying the mitigation costs out of pocket. In addition, the insurance company took every opportunity to find reasons not to pay for repairs, making it a very long and miserable experience. You've talked about raising your deductible, but I've never heard you talk about how to handle the management of a claim when you're in this situation where you have to pay significant money or cover portions of the service or repair before the insurance company will start to cover repairs. How would you recommend managing a claim when you have to file a complex one?

[Clark Howard]

This is a great question. Regardless of deductible. This is a great question. When you have a complex claim in most states, you want to hire an independent adjuster. That's what it's called in some states and others it may be called a public adjuster. This is someone who is an expert, usually independent, could be working for the insurance company on one case, working for a consumer on the other. They go through the policy contents, you know, the contract you have with the insurer, they figure out what should be covered. They you're your advocate with the insurance company on a complicated claim. And let me tell you, a claim like you had would have been complicated even if you had not raised your deductible. What the deductible did was make it more painful for your wallet to go through this. But the complexity is a problem. And insurers, the more complicated a claim gets, the more difficult they are to deal with. When you have a linear claim, just a really simple claim, which a lot of claims will be more straightforward, a lot of people say, gosh, the insurer was great. They said, yeah, here's your money, go take care of it and have a nice life. But with a home, a lot of claims will be more complicated. And that's why you need an expert from the industry who is your own representative. There are a small handful of states where the insurance industry has tried to get through the state legislature laws that would prohibit a consumer having representation dealing with an insurance company. But that is a very rare bird indeed. And I couldn't even tell you if any states actually made it through the legislative process of doing that.

[Krista]

And this is from Neil in Georgia. I recently closed a bank account, received the funds, and then noticed online that there was interest left over that I had to ask the bank to send to me. Previously, I've lost online access when closing accounts. So I wonder if there are interest balances out there that I don't know about. What's the best practice for closing an account to get all of the interest, like close at the beginning of the month or ask that the interest be credited and then close the account?

[Clark Howard]

Okay, so this, Neil, is a new problem that has come up repeatedly in the last few years. So it used to be standard practice that interest was calculated daily and credited daily. Well, now a number of financial institutions, both banks and I don't know of any credit unions doing this, but banks and brokerages are now bookkeeping wise, calculating interest for you potentially every day or even some now are only calculating interest monthly. And so they only credit it at a certain point. And it won't necessarily be the end of the month, could be the 12th of the month or 15th or whatever. Oddball thing. This is a double benefit to an institution if they calculate monthly instead of daily because you compound less over time interest. So you're getting less interest than it actually looks like. The second thing with it is that people end up with stranded money behind don't know about, and the bank has use of that money or brokerage for years till this is again a state thing when under that state's laws, you're from Georgia, when Georgia would require that money from abandoned accounts has to be turned over to the state. So then that financial institution you were with has use that money potentially for years and years to come. So you have to know before you close an account. Now, it shouldn't be this complicated, but you have to know, is there any interest that has not yet been credited? What date of the month is interest credited? And you close your account on that day. And this happened to me recently with an account that I had at a brokerage where I had to make a transaction with money and then the money for interest credited later and it was a decent amount of interest. And then I had to go through the whole process of going back and getting that money. So I have experienced this myself, Neil, part of the joys of unnecessary complexity in the banking and brokerage industry. So this is the end of this episode today and the beginning of the new Clark podcast. Well, I'm not going to say new and improved. It's improved from my life. I told you last year that I'm going to do three episodes a week in 25 instead of five. And I just decided a while back that I wanted more time in my life. And so I'm doing podcasts Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So every day of my life leads into another off day. Isn't that fun?

[Krista]

That is fun. And for me, I am doing a special. I'm doing a weekly episode that will air on Tuesdays. We're calling Ask an Advisor. It's part of the Team Clark mission to help you in all areas of your life with all things money. And Wes and I are going to be. Wes has filled in for you a couple of times. Wes Moss. We're going to be doing an episode where he's going to answer your more complex investing questions and go more in depth about the market and things like that. They're going because he's a fee only fiduciary financial advisor, which is what we recommend.

[Clark Howard]

And so when I talked about this a month ago, I was talking about how when I started in broadcasting in the 1980s, for a long, long time, no one ever asked me a single question related to investing going through the 90s. But as traditional pensions have gone away and people are responsible for their own savings and investment choices and the products have become much more complicated, as we were just talking about that, even a simple savings account is more complicated than it used to be. These questions are getting more specific, more involved. And so having a fee only fiduciary financial person answering those questions was something we've batted around for two years. And it tied in perfectly with me wanting to cut back my work schedule. So you'll have weekly, that is a targeted episode. And then we'll have our normal general advice kind of episodes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all geared towards you learning ways to save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And so now I won't say as I usually do, see you tomorrow. I will see you Wednesday.

[Krista]

But I'll see you tomorrow.

[Clark Howard]

That's right.