
Should You Relocate To Build Wealth? & Fastest-Growing Jobs for the Next Decade
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Clark Howard
It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard show where our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. Today is our first show show of the month of Febru ugly, but the reality, the good news sunsets a little later day by day. And I know if you live in a cold climb, well, we're marching towards better weather. And I got some positive things to talk about today. First, I want to talk about how important mobility is in life. I'm not talking about, you know, the physical mobility, you walking around, that's important, but flexibility to other places, other jobs. The more you keep your eyes and ears open and the more flexible you are, well, the more opportunity knocks. So I want to start by talking about that in a way that we don't do anymore. Americans used to move a lot and so much out there about how people are never going to be able, never. People who have not been able to buy a home will never be able to buy one. And it's a fact. It's become really hard for first time home buyers. The average age that somebody buys a first home is almost a decade older than it was not that long ago. Things have, at least for now, changed and time is going to help that because over time, as people's incomes go up, housing has to go through a time of a timeout. Basically that's why in so many markets, housing prices have stalled. Some markets prices have actually declined, some not A precipitous drop, like from the banking scandals and the Great Recession. None of that because all the fraud that happened then. But over time, the affordability issues. Time will heal. But what if you don't want to wait that time? So I saw something recently which was an article talking about how basically your life's never going to be the same if you can't buy a home like prior generations did. And that is jumping to conclusions I don't support because the reality is we've always had markets in the United States where housing is so expensive that people who live a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle, who in other zip codes in the United States would reach an age point where they buy a home, in many of those places, people rent through the years because financially it makes more sense in those markets to rent instead of buy. And I could name a bunch of them. A lot of them are in California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut. There are any of a number of places that's true. And because it's so much a part of the culture that people rent or buy even as their income rises, it is not the disruptor that I've read that people believe this lack of affordability is really stunning people's development through their lives. I don't buy that, but I do understand 100% because I remember when I bought my first home how much that meant to me. And there are things you can do going back to the mobility that make a difference. I've seen these charts of where housing is affordable and where it's not. And there's a huge swath of the country that housing remains very affordable and people on a traditional middle class income can afford to buy a home and even a bit more. So now that mortgage rates have come down, you know, more than a little bit, they've come down to a point that makes them not like they were, you know, last decade, early last decade, but still more reasonably affordable. And so if you look at the stats, inventories have been rising. Do you know that there's roughly 20 states in the country, from what I've been studying the stats, that there's now more inventory for sale than there was before? COVID That's right. In many states now the buy demand equilibrium is back to where it should be, even a little higher in favor of buyers. And so think about this too for. And I'm going to talk more about the job thing later. Think about if you feel kind of stuck in your job, you feel like you kind of dead ended or hit some kind of Ceiling. Well there may be opportunity somewhere else in the country for a better job and it could be a place that's the twofer that also has more affordable housing. So think what I have always called and people used to call the heartland, much of the Midwest, a lot of the mid south and a lot of the states blending towards where the eastern half of the states are more Midwest and the western part of more mountain states. Think the Dakotas, think Nebraska. There's opportunity for affordable housing. I saw an item, I forget where it was one of the things I read story about a town I love Appleton, Wisconsin which in my radio career in syndication I spent a lot of time visiting markets in Wisconsin. I always loved Appleton. And so I saw this article about it and how affordable housing is and how people are able with a regular middle class job to buy a nice home in a nice neighborhood. And then there were. There was almost like an afterthought talking about how crazy cold it is in the winter and how little daylight there is in the winter. And that that's the trade off you got to look at with a lot of the markets in the United States that are affordable, particularly in the Midwest and northern Midwest. But it's just a fact that this lack of affordability we see along the coasts, both coasts is not the story everywhere.
Caller/Listener
Krista Charlie in South Carolina says Clark has said both of us need to have established credit in our individual names, but most of our credit cards are in my name and two are in my wife's name. When I pull our credit reports, all of the cards show up on both of our credit reports. Is it still important to have a few more of the cards in her name? And why.
Clark Howard
Okay, great question, why? Why are you showing up on each other's the cards that one of you has showing up on the other? I assume, and I'm making an assumption that you've made the other authorized users on all your cards. So the credit of one is showing as the credit of the other, but it's not really credit. If you look at the report, it'll show that it's authorized user status, not a legal responsibility except in community property states for the authorized user to be responsible for the debts run up by the owner of that account. Credit card companies, banks used to issue joint credit cards. Some people may have old, old, old legacy credit cards that are joint cards. But today almost always the banks and credit unions issue a card and allow that card owner to add authorized user two cards in your spouse's name. That's okay. I mean That's Noah's Ark. As long as both of those cards are from different issuers, your spouse has sufficient credit in their name. You could add maybe if another good card comes along, if you run balances ever low interest rates or good rewards or whatever, you could pump it up so that it's a little more equal with cards.
Caller/Listener
AJ In Virginia says, hey Clark, you always say how affordable umbrella insurance is. I have a $2 million policy. Last year it was $240 for the year.
Clark Howard
This year that's cheap for 2 million.
Caller/Listener
Yeah. This year the insurer bumped up to $1800. They said they were the lowest in the industry for years but had to come up to industry levels, especially because of all the lawsuits happening for accidents in my area. I also had a 16 year old join in my auto policy this year. Does this sound right?
Clark Howard
Okay, so the answer you received is incomplete. There are a couple of factors here. One, yes, if you were getting $240 a year, you were getting a $2 million umbrella. That's really, really a bargain. Then to turn around and raise it eight times over. Now you're above what's typical in industry and being told that they were charging too little. Yes, but going up eight times over, no. The teenage driver could be the key thing and the person you spoke to at the insurer may not be aware of that. I would say that's likely. I would also say that your insurer is not necessarily the cheapest these days because they went through a period of losing a lot of money. And I think it'd be a good idea for you to go shop your auto coverage even with a new 16 year old driver. Shop your auto coverage and shop the umbrella and see if these premiums overall are in line. Not just because you were told that the premium was in line. You go verify yourself.
Caller/Listener
James in Michigan says, as an uncle to two nieces and one nephew, I've been contributing to their children's 529 education plans for many years by arranging to send monthly payments into their various plans directly. I don't receive any tax benefit for my contributions. Would it be a better idea to send the money to my hopefully trustworthy nieces and nephew and let them deposit it into their 529 accounts as they could receive the various tax benefits. Or do you suggest any better solution?
Clark Howard
Right. So James, I am crazy confused by your question because with a 529 account there's usually an adult that's the owner of the account.
Caller/Listener
I'm guessing the nieces and Nephew are adults and they have their own kids. That's how I think he's doing it. So they put then money in.
Clark Howard
So then they're for the great nieces.
Caller/Listener
I believe so. I believe that's what it is. Okay, I could be wrong.
Clark Howard
That's right. That you got the two nieces and one nephew and you're talking about for their kids, not for them. And they're the owners of the account. You're completely correct because the owner of the 529 account can take. You're in Michigan. Michigan has a state tax deduction. I'm almost certain for 529 contribution.
Caller/Listener
They do. It's up to $5,000 for an individual and 10 for a couple.
Clark Howard
Great. You're on top of it, aren't you, Krista? Okay. So if you give the money to the adults of whoever the owner, the beneficiary is, they then get the tax deduction by putting the money into the 529. As long as they're. They're going to take the money, not spend it and put it in the 529s. That's great. So you're right. You got to have that trust that they'll do what your generosity is for. And that's a wonderful thing and a generous thing for you to do. If you owned, which is often a case, a family member will own a 529 on a grandchild. Great niece, great nephew. Niece or nephew, whatever. And you in many states and yeah, in Michigan, that's one of them, you can have the tax deduction even though you're not the parent of the child who is benefiting from that 529 plan. So I hope that helps. And again, we're supposing, as Krista did, that the nieces and the nephew are actually the parents of the children you're benefiting. Otherwise, whoever owns the account, it's almost never a good idea for the beneficiary of 529 to be the owner of the account as well. There are a number of reasons for that. And there are rare circumstances that it is a good idea for somebody to be both the owner and the beneficiary. But usually it will be someone one generation older who is the owner of the 529 account for the benefit of whoever the beneficiary is. And the beneficiary designations can change over the years depending on what goes on with family circumstances. Coming up ahead, the second part of the mobility thing I wanted to talk.
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Don McDonald
You know what's funny about free financial advice? It's usually the most expensive kind of Hi, I'm Don McDonald from the Talking Real Money podcast. For over three decades, my co host Tom and I have been the antidote to the financial nonsense that fills the airwaves. We don't sell products, we don't have sponsors paying us to recommend their funds. We just tell you what has actually worked. Backed by decades of academic research, not some guru's gut feeling. Our listeners tell us we're like car talk for your money. Minus the car problems with maybe even more bad jokes. You're already listening to a podcast right now, so finding us couldn't be easier. Just search for Talking Real Money or visit talkingrealmoney.com give us a few minutes. The worst that happens, you're mildly entertained. The best? You stop making your broker richer and start building actual wealth.
Clark Howard
Just search for Talking Real Money.
Don McDonald
Talking Real Money is an educational podcast, hosts or affiliated with a registered investment advisor. For disclosures, visit talkingrealmoney.com we all have.
Caller/Listener
Moments when we could have done better.
Clark Howard
Like cutting your own hair.
Caller/Listener
Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato.
Apple Card Announcer
Ouch.
Caller/Listener
Coulda done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab.
Clark Howard
Get Market Insights, education and human help when you need it.
Caller/Listener
Learn more@schwab.com LinkedIn is pretty great at a lot of things, like helping you tap into the latest trends and insights in your field. We cannot stop your coworker from tapping her pencil. LinkedIn can help you find new jobs that align with your career goals. We cannot help you find the source of that weird smell in the office fridge. And while we can't stop your co workers from bringing their hobbies into the office, LinkedIn can help you bring your career to the next level. LinkedIn is the network that works for you.
Clark Howard
A lot of people feel kind of stuck right now. So many things I earlier, as you just heard in the podcast, talked about the issues in the housing market and how you can address those job market Something I've talked about forever is how the nature of work and the jobs that we have change continually. And jobs that existed 20 years ago, 10 years ago, that don't exist now. And in turn, all kinds of new jobs exist today that never existed, that churn in the nature of work never stops. Also, where opportunity is, is not just a job, it's a place. So going back to the theme of earlier, if you feel like you're kind of just treading water, you're not getting to your goals in life, it's maybe time to consider where is the opportunity, both in work and where you live, and what it affords as possibilities to you. So don't feel like you're just stuck in the mud. On the job front. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a list that, I mean, you can read BLS stuff if you're ever having trouble falling asleep at night. It works just effectively, as effectively as listening to me, where I can help you fall asleep. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics has put out a list of the jobs that are growing the most over the next decade. And what's fascinating about the jobs that are growing is they pay either really not very good pay levels, jobs that are growing really fast, and then there are others that are growing really fast that pay a lot of money, a really decent living. A lot of the ones that pay really well require some training, some education, but not necessarily college. Maybe technical college. It may be professional courses, technology courses, whatever. Okay, you ready? This will not surprise anyone. By far and away, the fastest growing job category over the next decade is going to be people who provide assistance with daily living for people that are aging and can't fully take care of themselves. You either working in somebody's home or working in a facility as health care aid. And the number of additional jobs in that is going to be gigantic and is one of the lowest pay rates of any industry. Typically, somebody will make 35 grand a year in a job that's so desperately needed. You go visit any relative who's living in any senior facility and you'll see how short staffed they are. And the pay just isn't enough. And so they've got so much turnover. But that's back to that whole thing. How are we going to pay for people aging and and what are we going to do about health care? But guess what's number two besides that behind that software developers at a pay level four times what it is for the personal care aid people. Four times the pay and second most growing job category in the country. Working in basically working in warehouses comes behind it. Pay about the same as the home health care personal care people. Followed by fast food workers who make the least of any of these categories. Working in a regular restaurant. Next. Basically those two are together. But then let's look what's after that. Another field that requires this one you got to go to at minimum community college or more. Being an RN. The shortage of RNs huge RNs depending on the market will make somewhere between 80 and 130,000 a year. Best guess average is pushing close to a hundred thousand. And that's one of the fastest growing fields. Being a manager with operational skills like organization development kind of training or skills right behind RNS pays a little more than our ends make being someone with a finance degree which is interesting because that's what my son in addition to becoming a commercial airline pilot is also getting a finance degree. I wonder if he saw this list because I didn't suggest that to him. It's one of the highest pay rates on this list. Being in finance and huge growth area. Being a manager of a medical facility. Big future growth in that pays pretty well on average about 120 grand a year. Being an NP nurse practitioner, huge demand for that. You take that and rns together it's the largest job category of growth over the next 10 years. And the NPS make an average of 130000 a year more schooling than being RN. Then we got another. When you don't make a lot of money in working general construction, not a skilled trade but working in construction. Big growth in that make about 45000 a year on average. The reason why am I going into so much detail. I want you to see the pattern. You got great growth in jobs that don't require necessarily meaningful training. A lot of demand for them, a lot of growth for them, but they don't pay a lot. Then there are a lot of others that require some level of education, training. Potentially college with big growth and really great salaries. Of course, there are various ones in the computer industry that pay average well over 100,000, have a lot of growth. So think about what I'm talking about. A lot of jobs you just basically show up for and they train you and you're almost disposable to the employer than other jobs. You got to get yourself trained or educated. They need you and the money is enough to have a good lifestyle. So there you have it. Krista, what you got for me?
Caller/Listener
Okay, we've got Ed in Oklahoma who says recently you discussed how the credit bureaus changed the method of freezing credit.
Clark Howard
Right.
Caller/Listener
I believe they used to give us a passcode we had to remember. And now there's a new system you like better. My concern is even with the new system, you're thawing your credit report to the whole world, if only for a little while. What I would like is for the credit bureaus to give us a one time code to forward to the creditors so only they could access our credit reports. What do you think?
Clark Howard
I love that.
Caller/Listener
Brilliant.
Clark Howard
I love that. That actually came up forever ago. And I forget what state I was testifying in one of the states and a witness before me, you know, for trying to get a credit freeze law in place, and one of the witnesses before me described exactly that, that the way credit freezes should work and that expert witness's opinion was exactly what you said, that the credit thaw was only for that individual creditor. And the way it was done is you would issue to them a one time use code that they would use to access your credit. And that's never been something that ended up part of the system, you know, because credit freeze used to be state by state. It was not a federal statute. And I don't know if any of the states did adopt a system for secret code you would provide and your credit remain frozen, except for that one credit grantor, they would be able to pierce the freeze with the code. I think it's a great idea.
Caller/Listener
John in Florida says. I noticed what I think is a basic oversight about one of the very important advantages of a Roth. It is simply its uninterrupted consistency to grow. While a traditional IRA is dismantled by RMD's required minimum distributions, the Roth continues to accelerate faster tax free past the age of 73. The other IRA disruption, loss of momentum and human behavior in the face of any restructuring speaks volumes. I haven't heard this point brought up by anyone. Am I missing something? And by the way, Clark started me on Roth. On A Roth In 1997, I had a modest salary with consistent full contributions. Then I retired and I'm now what would be called an RMD age, except I have a Roth that continues to grow untapped at just under $1.3 million.
Clark Howard
Wow, wow, wow. The power of time compounding of money growing tax free, spending tax free. And that's why I'm the man from Roth. He's right about what he said that the one of the big advantages of the Roth, it's not going to affect your Medicare premiums, not going to have to worry about irmaa. Irma is something you don't want to know about.
Caller/Listener
I do. Wes talks about that a lot on Tuesdays.
Clark Howard
All right, so you got to deal with irmaa. And if you pass away with money still in a traditional ira, the tax code treats your heirs so bad ugly that it fits. Saying the expression bad ugly Roth money, on the other hand, is an inheritable asset is phenomenal for your heirs that inherit the money. And when you need the money in retirement, in other words, it's not going to be sitting there as a pile to go to your heirs. You're taking it out, you're not having to pay tax on it. It's just the best.
Caller/Listener
All right. David in Florida says, I recently took a short vacation trip to Milford, Connecticut from Florida to celebrate my mother's 95th birthday.
Clark Howard
Wow. Happy birthday to your mom.
Caller/Listener
I found booking a hotel room to be very confusing. The the stay at the hotel was needed for Saturday, Sunday and Monday night. What I discovered was that booking for three consecutive nights was more expensive than for booking Saturday, then making another reservation for Sunday and Monday. Could you please explain what is going on here?
Clark Howard
Yeah, I can. So this is something that goes on in the hotel business and a lot of hotels, what they do is when you're booking a multi night rate, it will show you when it gives you back the quote, it'll show you the rate for each night. And if the rates variable, as is at most hotels, it'll show you a different price for each night based on demand. Other hotel chains, when you cross into the work week, then because Monday night's work week, a lot of hotels will discriminate against you if they're in areas that are geared towards business travelers instead of vacationers. If you go outside Friday, Saturday night, they treat your whole stay as a business travel stay and charge you more money per night through the whole stay. In other words, they don't charge you a nightly rate. So if you're staying somewhere and let's say is a vacation area, beach resort, something like that. Know that usually Thursday, Friday, Saturday night will be much higher than Sunday through Wednesday night, Sunday night through Wednesday night. And in those cases, and you're saying a longer time that bleeds over, you want to check the rates separately for the weekend nights, then you do the weekday nights and. And then look at it all together and you'll be able to see does the hotel charge you by demand per night and have a different price for every night, or do they automatically charge you a higher rate that bleeds out of the weekend if you are going outside of the weekend. And normally the days outside of it would be cheaper, but because you booked over the weekend, they charge you the higher rate all through the time. I hope that made sense and I didn't just blab on there. And I want to thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that our first show of February was a great start to the best part about February. It's the shortest month of the year. The gray skies, the cold weather in so many places. I love that it's the shrink raid month because March always feels so much better to me. I don't know why, just does. But anyway, we're gonna put together a great February ugly month of shows for you, I promise, all month long and know what we're about. You being empowered with knowledge so you can save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off.
Episode: 02.02.26 – "Going Mobile: Relocation For Jobs And Homeownership"
Date: February 2, 2026
Host: Clark Howard
This episode centers on Clark Howard’s core philosophy: empowering listeners to make better financial decisions by embracing flexibility and mobility, both in career and homeownership. Clark discusses the changing landscape in U.S. mobility for jobs and affordable housing, answers listener questions on credit, insurance, investing, and taxes, and encourages listeners to reconsider how location impacts both job opportunities and the ability to own a home.
[01:05–07:57]
[07:57–12:56]
[17:55–25:13]
[25:13–29:21]
Clark’s tone remains friendly, practical, and focused on actionable personal finance advice. He stresses empowerment, clear thinking, and DIY spirit, with an undercurrent of optimism about overcoming today’s economic challenges through flexibility and savvy planning.
In sum, this episode blends Clark Howard’s signature brand of frugal wisdom with actionable strategies for riding the currents of a changing housing and employment landscape—emphasizing that opportunity still exists for those willing to look beyond their present horizon.