Unknown Female Speaker (7:01)

Well, for me, it's like, this cream is going to make your skin just look amazing. Look at my. And they're putting it on and.

Clark Howard (7:08)

Yeah, and see you.

Unknown Female Speaker (7:10)

I'm a sucker for those things.

Clark Howard (7:11)

Hook and mouth and you just. They reel you in.

Unknown Female Speaker (7:14)

Yeah. I've been doing this, though. I was subscribed to a lot of emails from stores I really like. And not that I don't like the stores anymore, but I've been unsubscribing. So I'm like, I don't need to see it. I don't need to see your new line, your new stuff. Like, if I need something, I will go shopping and then I will look like I'm not gonna be pulled in because there's a sale. And then, you know, you just start. It's easy to get to get hooked in and buy stuff you don't need for sure.

Clark Howard (7:40)

But you don't have an automatic answer for me on the influencers. How to avoid that.

Unknown Female Speaker (7:44)

It's hard. I mean, I've been just telling myself, like, I'm not buying anything. So when I see someone starting to put, say, a skin cream on, I just swipe on from their story on Instagram, which is where I usually am online.

Clark Howard (7:55)

Okay.

Unknown Female Speaker (7:56)

Mm. It's not easy.

Clark Howard (8:01)

Yeah. So I find that I'm much more relaxed about all that than I used to be because I have unsubscribed from so many emails and text message services because I've found that I really don't buy nearly as much.

Unknown Female Speaker (8:19)

Do you still subscribe? Do you still get the Costco emails? And do you look at them?

Clark Howard (8:23)

Oh, I look at Costco and Sam's club. I mean, if I am going to spend money buying from the warehouse clubs with the smallest markups of anybody.

Unknown Female Speaker (8:31)

Mm.

Clark Howard (8:32)

I mean, that's my jam, right? Yeah.

Unknown Female Speaker (8:35)

Okay. We all have one. Okay. David in California wrote in and said, I love your podcast. I don't know how you're Always in a good mood. What is your secret?

Clark Howard (8:43)

I have the greatest life anybody could ever hope for. I do.

Unknown Female Speaker (8:47)

I just think you're also naturally an optimistic, happy person. You definitely have a.

Clark Howard (8:53)

Definitely Pollyanna.

Unknown Female Speaker (8:55)

No, I wouldn't say that. You just have a. I mean, it's great to be around your energy. You have a natural happiness level that a lot of people would love to have.

Clark Howard (9:02)

But I feel like my life from my whole life has been so very lucky. And even when hardships happen in my life, they ended up being great events in my life. So it's just, I've been. I feel like, you know how some people feel like they've got like a. A dark cloud following them?

Unknown Female Speaker (9:22)

Right.

Clark Howard (9:22)

I feel like I've just got sunny skies.

Unknown Female Speaker (9:25)

Got a rainbow over your head?

Clark Howard (9:26)

Every day of my life.

Unknown Female Speaker (9:27)

All right, well, we'll move on now to David's question. I bought some I bonds when you had recommended them a while back and they did really nicely.

Clark Howard (9:35)

The early 10% interest.

Unknown Female Speaker (9:37)

As of today, I've earned about $1,276. I know you're saying sell them now and take the 90 day interest hit, then reinvest them in the new I bonds with a guaranteed base rate. Besides the interest penalty I take when I sell the I bonds, I'm also liable for capital gains tax.

Clark Howard (9:55)

No, you're not. It's much worse than that. We'll get to that.

Unknown Female Speaker (9:59)

Between the two costs, it seems like it's taking a big hit from the money I made. Wouldn't it make sense to just hold them? Is there a formula for how long I would need to hold the new I bonds to recap that loss? Or is there some kind of plan like I think there is in real estate where if you reinvest immediately, you don't have to pay taxes?

Clark Howard (10:17)

Not that I know of with I bonds. The thing with I bonds is its ordinary income tax, which is worse than capital gains. So whatever your overall tax rate is, you're paying that on the I bonds. If the I bonds put you into a higher tax bracket, you're paying that higher tax bracket on the I bonds. So why would I have you just pay the tax on the $1,276 and buy the new I bonds? Because if you're going to hold them as a long term holding, having the spread where the I bonds you bought back when they were earning just under 10%, you just got the rate of inflation which is trended steadily down. You don't get any bonus. The new series eyes you get the rate of inflation plus bonus interest. So over the years, if you hold them a long time, you'll benefit from the hurt today for the long term benefit. On the other hand, if your intention is not to hold the I bonds for, you know, 20, 30 years, if that's never what you intended, it's not your plan, then you're probably right to not pay the taxes. If your intention long term is not truly long term.

Unknown Female Speaker (11:43)

Jen in Wyoming says I have a pre tax 457B that I would like to start rolling into an in plan Roth. I plan on rolling about $30,000 each year as I can afford the taxes and it keeps me in my tax bracket. Is there any advantage or disadvantage to doing a lump sum at the beginning of the year or over 12 equal amounts over the course of a year?

Clark Howard (12:05)

So this is a great question. So you're going to pay tax based on the value of the account? As a general. This is general what I'm about to tell you. The values of the underlying investments in your 457, if it's in stock type, holdings in there are very, very high. Right now the stock market has had an incredible run upwards and there's pretty good likelihood at a time impossible to determine that we're going to have a meaningful correction in the market, potentially a bear market. So if you all at once, beginning of the year, transfer the 30 grand and then the market falls by an appreciable amount, you've paid tax on it at its peak value. This is kind of like a form of dollar cost averaging. If you keep doing it year after year in monthly increments, you're not having to worry about the movements in the market. That could mean you paid tax on phantom money that you don't have. And that's why I like doing it in the equal amounts over the course of a year.

Unknown Female Speaker (13:20)

Gary in Tennessee says Clark, I know you regularly advise people to check credit card statements monthly. Some years ago I began checking our cards and bank accounts on a weekly basis once they became available for review online. It takes less than one cup of Costco's excellent Don Pablo coffee on a Saturday or Sunday morning to review charges and credits to all four of our credit cards and both of our banking accounts. Investment accounts for retirement are reviewed monthly. I found it much easier to remember what has changed a few days ago, charged a few days ago instead of a few weeks ago. Over the years there have been a couple of fraudulent charges that were quickly cleared up after the review is done. I pay the balance on each of those credit cards. That action has ensured that we have never had a late payment, nor have we paid any interest on a card in many years. There have been a few times that I've chosen not to pay the full balance one week, but always caught back up the next week. There's also been a few times I've chosen to hold off on some purchases for a week due to a high spend another week. The weekly reviews and payments have made a big difference in our financial life.

Clark Howard (14:22)

Okay, I love your personal discipline. I have a hard time getting people to look at their statements at all. I mean, the truth is most people just look at whatever balance is reported by the credit card company, by the bank or credit union, and never look at the individual charges. And that can be so dangerous. As we've heard again and again when people later realize, wait, I was paying. That was coming on my credit card statement month after month after month. I don't have that. That must be a fraudulent charge or whatever and your rights to dispute it only go back 60 days. So as a basic at least check the statements monthly. What we do in our household is we check them twice a month and pay credit cards twice a month. In your case, it works wonderfully doing it weekly. But that's a heavy lift, a heavy ask for most people, and I'm so glad you're willing to do it and it's working so well for you with your money coming up ahead. Speaking of money, your money is so at risk when you use public WI fi and we got to talk about it.

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Clark Howard (18:19)

It's so easy. You're anywhere out and about. You're at a restaurant, a cafe, you're in an airport, whatever, any public space, and you hook up to the WI fi there. This is a practice I want to break you of. It's very rare today that on our phones we don't have enough data on our plan that we need to use a public WI fi spot. You are so much more secure. Let's say you're. You're at a place with your laptop. What I do is I bring up the hotspot on my phone and I'm connected to my own hotspot. I know it's safe. The problem with public WI fi is it's rarely safe and secure. Also, you have the problem that you might connect to something that you think is the place you're at, but it's actually a crook who's either trying to snoop on you, load a virus on your device, whatever. I think how often it is what's the first thing people do when they connect to public wi fi? It seems the first thing they do is they go check Their email. Imagine that network's not secure or secure enough. And prying eyes are having a direct path into your life with your email. Think about people who access their banking apps or brokerage or any kind of app involving money and doing it over public WI fi. This is not safe. You think about how common all the data hacks are and think how easy this is. This is low hanging fruit. You don't have to be that sophisticated as a crook to be able to steal from somebody who's accessing public WI fi. Now, for me, I'm not on an unlimited data plan, but I routinely use the hotspot on my phone. A lot of other people are on unlimited data plans. I get 50 gigs a month of data. Let's see, I've used 7 gigs of data and I'm exactly at the halfway point of my monthly allotment, so I've used seven out of 50. I'm in no danger of of blowing through my data. But if you travel a lot like I do, but I guess I'm not on my devices that much or you do travel a lot and you are on your devices a lot, it's really affordable now to be on an unlimited data plan with an unlimited hotspot. You can look at our cell phone plan guide and find something that fits your needs. But whatever is going on in your life, I want you to cut your instinct to go on public WI fi because you're giving a direct highway to thieves. One of the data security analysts that I have interviewed for television has made it clear that there's not a circumstance, not a single circumstance where he ever uses public WI fi because it's flat out not safe.

Unknown Female Speaker (21:55)

Okay, this came in from Vicenza in Montana. This is not a question, but some input. I'm a solo female traveler to Southeast Asia. You helped me be confident and I used a lot of your recommendations. But I have some things to add that I think might be helpful. You may have already covered this. I'm visiting Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam on a two month trip. Each of those countries uses a different esim. So I've had to buy a new ESIM for each of those countries and I needed to be in WI fi. I only found this out as I got into a new country and arrived with no cell service and bus depots don't have free WI fi.

Clark Howard (22:35)

Yeah, in several of the countries you're in, the access to WI fi isn't that great anyway, which I'm sure you've seen repeatedly.

Unknown Female Speaker (22:43)

I'd land and I Couldn't book a grab taxi service. I would ask to use someone's hotspot and thankfully someone would help. I became a master at loading new esims. Use a different web based designated email address like Gmail for all your itineraries, tickets, et cetera. I found it frustrating to weed through my regular emails to find all my travel emails because of my ESIM issues. I found that my outlook emails sometimes didn't send or receive until I got a new esim. Even then some emails were just lost. 2 factor authentication was hard because I ended up with an international number and my US number wouldn't work and and my email was spotty so I couldn't authenticate my credit cards. Did not like it. Update your new emails with them before leaving. I'm currently only halfway through my epic journey. I have more but I'm out of characters. Thank you for being you. Love your show.

Clark Howard (23:32)

Well, thank you and I hope you continue to have the best time ever in Southeast Asia and the time of year. Think about it. You escaped winter in Montana. It's been felt like Montana and much of the country recently, but that's really, really wonderful. I've been to several of the countries that you're in and what a great experience. So it's so weird. I've talked in the past about Google Fi and anybody taking an extended trip like this would benefit from having Google Fi as your primary and then you buy local SIM where you are because you'll need both Google Fi eventually. If you've not been a regular customer, theirs is going to send you a warning for a long, long trip like yours. It's two months and eventually they might cut you off but because you land anywhere and you use it just as if you're home, it's a great thing for you to have. For international travel is like the backbone of what you're doing. And then you use the esims as you said. I love your advice of having a trip based email that you're using that everything for your trip is found there and it doesn't get cluttered in your regular email.

Unknown Female Speaker (24:56)

I also, I do create a folder usually for a trip in my regular email and I put all those emails in there. If someone doesn't want to create another email address, that's a good way to do it too. So you just go to that folder and you've got them all categorized. Okay. And have a great trip. That's amazing.

Clark Howard (25:11)

That's awesome.

Unknown Female Speaker (25:11)

Marilyn in Pennsylvania says, I just started a new job that offers a 403B. I have a 403B from my previous employer. Can I roll it over? Or is there any benefit from rolling my old 403B into a new the new one? Can I continue to fund both of them? Is there a yearly total contribution limit If I'm funding multiple 403Bs? Thank you for all you do.

Clark Howard (25:31)

Yeah. So first of all, there's something you got to know with 403 BS. There are really junky, terrible 403 BS with extremely outrageous commissions and very high ongoing expenses. And then there are ones that are not trash. And it's hard for you to know and don't know if you are a teacher or work for a nonprofit, work for a hospital system. Whatever it is, you need to know that that there's a big difference from one employer's 403B to another. So would you move the money from the old one to the new one? You would only do it if the new one is a lower cost plan than the old one. And there's there's a website I mentioned just recently on the podcast 403B wise.org if you go there they may have database on your old plan and your new one telling you what the expenses are that nobody wants to tell you of your old plan. What are the expenses of your new plan and you're able to make that decision. If your old plan is a very low cost 403, leave it. If your new plan is an expensive one, you want to see if there's alternatives that you can use at the new employer. You're capped in total contribution each year regardless of where you put the money. But just know that most 403 plans are. You know, we talk on Clark stinks, how much I stink, whatever the worst putrid thing is anybody's ever said I smell like most 403 plans are that times 100.

Unknown Female Speaker (27:23)

Bob in Minnesota says After rolling over my old 401k, I'm feeling dissatisfied with my financial advisor. Since we're hoping to retire next year, I'm considering rolling that account over to Fidelity where my current work account is held, and investing it in a Vanguard Target fund with an expense ratio of 0.075%, which I'm already invested in. I'm also thinking about consulting a fee only advisor to help create a retirement plan rather than having someone else manage my investments. Would you recommend having an advisor manage my accounts for the first few years of retirement or should I handle it myself? Also, is it a bad idea to combine my old 401k with my current Fidelity account or should I keep them separate? I like the idea of consolidating.

Clark Howard (28:03)

So Bob, I love consolidation but in this case I don't love you flying blind here. You picked a financial advisor who obviously you don't trust and you need to exit from that individual. I think it is a good idea for you to go to a fee only financial advisor in the early years of retirement when it's really hard to know not just how to manage your money, but what are the things you need to be aware of, how much money is safe for you to spend each year in retirement and all the rest. I think a fee only financial planner is invaluable. You can hire somebody by the hour. You can hire somebody at a the most common amount is 1%. You talked about having a Vanguard target fund. If you instead consolidated your money at Vanguard, you could potentially participate in Vanguard PAS personal advisory service where you were assigned to a Vanguard fiduciary employee and the maximum you're charged for that advice is 0.30 of a percent per year. There are a number of ways you can hire somebody who is a fiduciary. You don't want somebody who starts hemming and hawing or saying, well, we're a fiduciary for some things but not for others. No, you want someone who is a fiduciary, period. And it's not just that they're doing it the right way. They also have to mesh with you. They got to be the right personality, they got to be a good listener. They'll ask you a lot about what your goals are and all the rest. And it is a very valuable time to hire somebody who you trust, who you're comfortable in working with, and will set you on the right spending path and right investment path during retirement. I'm glad you asked this question when you did and I wish you a great, great retirement in front of you when you get to it. And thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. It's a wonderful opportunity as we all learn from each other and what I love doing this podcast is every day people take me to questions I never would have thought about. It broadens me. It makes me think about things in a more holistic way than I would otherwise. So I am grateful to you for this interactive we get to do on each podcast we do, each YouTube show we do and know what this is all about. It's all about you. I want you to learn ways for me to save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And remember, on clark.com you'll find our information on different ways you can get that advice you can trust.