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The Clark Howard Podcast
02.20.26 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Crypto - A Different Perspective
00:40:02
Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Crypto - A Different Perspective
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- [00:00]
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- [01:37]
Clark Howard
It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And I hope you're getting excited for your weekend. I know I am.
- [01:55]
Apple Card/Advertisement Voice
Always.
- [01:55]
Clark Howard
But first, I'm excited to hear your corrections and your admonishments for the stinky advice I've given out in our weekly Clark Stink segment. And later, I want to guarantee that we get more Clark Stinks posts, but by giving you my perspective on crypto and how I want you to think about it. So get ready. Some of you who are really into crypto, you can go ahead and start writing your Clark Stinks now. But without further ado, it's time for this week's Clark Stinks. I should have never encouraged you to speak you must think I'm pretty stupid.
- [02:39]
Krista
You should be ashamed of yourself.
- [02:41]
Clark Howard
Well, maybe I'm wrong.
- [02:42]
Krista
Maybe I'm wrong.
- [02:43]
Clark Howard
Maybe you're right, pal. So I just stand here awkwardly? Those of you watch our YouTube show know that while Krista is dancing, swaying to the music, I couldn't dance if my life depended on.
- [03:00]
Krista
You should do the Elaine from Seinfeld.
- [03:02]
Clark Howard
I don't know that.
- [03:03]
Krista
Oh, it's the worst dancer.
- [03:05]
Clark Howard
Oh, it's like. Is that it?
- [03:08]
Krista
Yeah, that's good. All right. Zach in Texas says, clark, I love you. You have my favorite podcast. But this Valentine's Day season, you stunk like a bouquet of wilted roses forgotten in back of a hot car. Here's why. You said on the podcast that Sam's Valentine's bouquets averaged around $50 delivered. I thought, wow, that's amazing. So I hopped onto Sam's site, put that $50 bouquet in my cart, and then. Yikes. The Delivery fee was $125.
- [03:39]
Clark Howard
What?
- [03:40]
Krista
No, thanks. I drove to Aldi, bought four beautiful little bouquets, arranged them myself, and my new wife was absolutely thrilled. And I saved well over that $125 delivery fee. Thanks for all that you do. But yeah, man, you missed the mark this week. Last week, really? And then Neil and Chandra wrote in this one, clark, you stunk on Valentine's Day. Dollar store gifts. Psht. We can beat that. Take your lovely bride to the local thrifty Rite Aid, treat her to a 99 cent ice cream cone, escort her over to the Hallmark card section, pick out the sappiest cards for one another, read them to each other aloud while devouring your ice cream, laugh your butts off, then politely return the cards to their proper spots. Voila. Valentine's Day for two bucks. All kidding aside, we love you, Clark, and thank you so much for your valuable advice.
- [04:30]
Clark Howard
Let me go back to the Sam's Club thing. You could knock me over the feather. Because I looked on their website, didn't see anything about a delivery charge. I know on the Costco site there were all these arrangements you could do for Valentine's Day for 50 bucks. Now we're too far past Valentine's Day to know what was actually going on at the same site, but I've always said that nothing beats self delivered flowers instead of stranger delivered flowers, so. You know, I always buy lane roses from Costco before the price increase for the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day. I did that this year, but then she sent me to Trader Joe's with a shopping list. And they had a special on tulips. And so I bought her an arrangement of tulips that they had. And it was like, like $7 or something.
- [05:24]
Krista
They. I love Trader Joe's flowers.
- [05:26]
Clark Howard
And the tulips were just beautiful. And she loves tulips. Oh, yeah, they were wonderful. Except what did she have to do with the tulips?
- [05:33]
Krista
Put them in a vase.
- [05:34]
Clark Howard
Put them in a vase high up. Because one time I brought her tulips from TJ's. And what happened?
- [05:42]
Krista
One of your dogs ate them.
- [05:43]
Clark Howard
The dog ate everything all the way down the stem. And then we had to go to the emergency vet center.
- [05:50]
Krista
Is this the same dog that ate like cocoa powder one time?
- [05:53]
Clark Howard
Like, yeah, a cooking cocoa powder. And another time, eight grill wipes.
- [06:00]
Krista
Oh, my gosh.
- [06:00]
Clark Howard
Has been at the emergency center for all those.
- [06:04]
Krista
She weighs like two pounds, nine pounds. She was. She's got nine lives. She has nine pounds and nine lives.
- [06:11]
Clark Howard
She has made it to double digits.
- [06:13]
Krista
Okay.
- [06:14]
Clark Howard
And it's absolutely shocking. This is our dog, Winston Churchill, who's made it to 10 years. 10 and a half now.
- [06:22]
Krista
All right, we'll move on.
- [06:23]
Clark Howard
Costs more than a college tuition for all these vet costs.
- [06:27]
Krista
But you love her.
- [06:29]
Clark Howard
Oh, absolutely.
- [06:30]
Krista
Josh in Pennsylvania says Clark's explanation of Trump accounts gave off an especially foul odor. To call it an explanation isn't even accur because he didn't say what investment options are available or what the tax treatment is other than, quote, unquote crummy. I understand you don't like it, but how am I supposed to make an informed decision based on your segment? Also, isn't this a big step towards helping people save for retirement and not depend on Social Security? And this one from Mike and Marilyn Clark. You're missing out on a great strategy with the Trump account that will hand your child a $10 million tax free retirement account when they turn 18. It converts to a traditional Iraq during those likely low income college years. They can then convert everything to a Roth without paying any or very little taxes. Let time work its magic from there. And then they have a tax free account sitting there with eight figures in it waiting for them at retirement. You should rethink your strategy here. And also, many people wrote in wanting further explanation of what the tax bond is.
- [07:27]
Clark Howard
Yeah.
- [07:27]
Krista
And then others were angry that you even talked about it for political reasons that I won't go into.
- [07:32]
Clark Howard
Well, I mean, that's the hard part In a country that's so split for all these things to have the president's name on them because Things that could be really good to use. There are people who won't do it because the President's name is on it. There are other people who will put money into something or make a choice because the President's name is on it and it may not be a good option for him. So I wish that these things had more benign names like child IRA for this or something like that. So we don't do politics here on the show because we are a safe zone for people away from politics. There's, there's plenty of places you can go if you want to be angry at each other. That's not what we're about. Okay, so on the Trump accounts, because that's what they're called, they are set up to be very advantageous for kids born over a three year period where the government will seed the money with $1,000. You just get. Then there are companies and individuals that are giving money to kids, maybe for income levels or whatever. There's whatever people want to do. And then that's free money. Absolutely great to have a Trump account in those two circumstances. And yes, there are things you can do where you can put money into a Trump account. Even though tax time bomb, if a kid as an adult just takes the money and spends it, the tax treatment of it is not good at all. I'll leave it at that.
- [09:10]
Krista
Well, no, I think you should say it because people want you to be explicit. What does a tax time bomb mean?
- [09:15]
Clark Howard
Tax time bomb means a lot of things with the code if they're not used for the intended purpose, like this. For retirement, you will have what's known as ordinary income tax, which is the highest tax rate it could be. And if a child is a dependent, depending on what tax laws might be 18 years from now, it could be the much higher parental rate instead of the kid's own tax rate. Also potentially subject to a 10% penalty when not used for specific purposes. Okay, so let's move away from that and tell you, we heard all the feedback and so we have put together a comprehensive guide to how Trump accounts work, the pluses and minuses, how to benefit the most from the pluses and avoid as much as possible the minuses@clark.com and it's just straight information. That's where you should go to find out much more specifics. Now, going back to what I said when I talked about on the podcast, if you are thinking, hey, our kid might go to college, other than the free money you get from somebody else, the superior move is to open a 529 account for your child. We have a full explanation of those on clark.com clark.com 529 and that money, up to 35,000 of it can later grow tax free. Many states have an upfront tax benefit doing a 529. It's tax free when used for eligible expenses which goes beyond college. It can be Private School, K through 12, can be for various training programs, technical school, that kind of thing. And then whatever is not needed if the person never goes to college, whatever, up to 35,000 can be moved tax free into a Roth IRA and continue for a lifetime to grow tax free. It is in my opinion a superior choice to the Trump account. Now going back to one thing I did not mention, investment choices. One of the things that's really nice about the Trump account is they recognize that these kind of accounts can be ruined by high commission unethical salespeople with very very costly inferior products. So there are tight guardrails in the law to make sure that the investment choices in a Trump account are very very low cost. Going to the 529s I've talked about in the past, we show you very clearly what are the investment choices. Whatever state plan you're in that your 529 money should be invested in so that you also avoid high costs.
- [12:05]
Krista
Krista okay, two more that were very popular posts. This one is an example of that from Hama in California. Clark and Krista stink like a corpse flower. But like a corpse flower, it only blooms once a year. So no big deal. Kidding aside, there's a very simple and elegant solution to making sure credit card charges are authorized and easy to reconcile. You don't need a third app and you don't need to scan receipts unless you want to. I set up alerts on all my credit cards so I get a text or app notification every time a charge is made. The upside is huge. If anyone uses my card without authorization, I know immediately and can contact the credit card company right away. No end of the month detective work required. So many people wrote in and said they do the same thing.
- [12:48]
Clark Howard
I love it because you know, I get that on Google Wallet where I get an alert every time. But this is where you have alerts from all your credit card companies. Beyond that, that's really a good idea. Thank you for that suggestion. And what kind of flower are you and I?
- [13:05]
Krista
Corpse flower. Okay. Tony in Texas says, I can't believe I have to write a Clark stinks about Clark's response to a Clark Stinks that's like hiding a stinky diaper in a litter box. On a recent episode, Clark said he doesn't talk about IRS free fillable forms because you have to mail your return in. That's totally incorrect. You can e file for free. I've been doing it for years. For those of us that can't use free file but still like to spend less and save more, free fillable form saves you from spending on tax software and provides the opportunity to understand the tax code better. And lots of people do.
- [13:41]
Clark Howard
Yeah, and I want to tell you how this is like the perfect example. These last two posts about why we do CARC stakes. Never am I supposed to have the final word. We all learn from each other and I'm just a guy. I can't remember everything. You also become lazy in your habits. So these posts help each other so much and help me as well. And I just love it.
- [14:10]
Krista
Scott in Washington says Clark smells worse than a number two diaper left in my trunk after a long road trip on a recent hot summer.
- [14:17]
Clark Howard
We got a lot of diaper references.
- [14:19]
Krista
Now they're stinky. Clark often house the various trip coverage benefits of the premium travel credit cards. I have a CHE Sapphire reserve card and I got this a number of years ago for these benefits. Late last October, we got stranded overnight in Reykjavik after a freak snowstorm when all outbound flights got canceled. Who knew snowstorms in October were unusual events in Iceland? While our third stay in Iceland was not unwelcome, we love it there. Dealing with Chase reimbursement was a nightmare. They eventually denied all claims as the airline policy states that they will reimburse travelers for expenses incurred due to canceled flights. Meanwhile, we're still waiting on the airline to process our claim more than three months later. And that stinks. The quote unquote coverage is really non existent. I canceled the card, but I'll never cancel.
- [15:06]
Clark Howard
Clark, I want to thank you so much for that post because there's a lot written about the coverages from the premium travel cards. And what happens, I find is that the marketing people come up with these things and then the the numbers crunchers are like wait, do you realize how much that costs us? And so they over promise and under deliver. And I'm not speaking specifically about Chase, I'm talking about any of the cards. And it's the same problem if you buy a standalone trip policy of some kind. Getting paid on them is crazy difficult and the insurers fail to act in good faith. Now let's talk about failing to act in good faith. The airlines across Europe just cannot stand the consumer protections that are part of the law. And what Europeans do and what Americans who are eligible under European rules need to know is that they hire advocacy firms that take a cut of the action because 100% of nothing is still nothing. And when Americans try to handle a claim with a European airline or a US Airline on a flight to or from Europe, you will just beat your head against the wall because they're just going to stonewall you and not pay. These third party firms that tend to take somewhere around 20 or so of the money, sometimes 30%, know how to play the game and have much more success getting claims paid. I would be shocked if you ever get paid by the airline trying to do your claim directly.
- [16:54]
Krista
And Ross in Texas says Krista stinks like a nasty fast food order that gave me a tummy ache. During the question about Costco Travel car rentals offering add on auto insurance, Clark said to check if the coverage was secondary Stinky Krista did a brief cursory Google search in the background and confidently responded that Costco Travel was offering secondary coverage unless outside the US and poor Clarky gave praise for the quick response as he was hoodwinked by the stink. You were reading the city Costco credit card car rental coverage documents, not the coverage offered through Costco Travel for their own rental cars, which was the original question.
- [17:30]
Clark Howard
Is that right?
- [17:30]
Krista
So I looked at this and I well that is the correct that is for the city card. When I look at Costco's travel policy it says can I buy additional coverage on the rental cars? And what they say is you can buy additional coverage from the rental car companies and you have to talk to them or you can use our Costco City card which provides the coverage I described. So I think if you buy a third policy like an overall travel policy, it's from usually Allianz I believe through them. Right.
- [17:59]
Clark Howard
I never have known how to say that company, it's alliance, something like that.
- [18:02]
Krista
Yeah.
- [18:03]
Clark Howard
We need a French speaker.
- [18:04]
Krista
Yeah, I'm not sure about that policy. So I guess I do stink.
- [18:08]
Clark Howard
No, I mean come on. This car rental coverage is a toughie.
- [18:13]
Krista
Yeah.
- [18:14]
Clark Howard
I have defaulted to the very card we heard the complaint about about another travel thing, the Chase Sapphire Reserve and I use that rental cars because of it being primary coverage. Fortunately I've not had to deal with claim and don't know how that would go.
- [18:32]
Krista
I use that with booking through Costco Travel. But also someone else wrote in and said that you stink about the rental car travel coverage because their actual car insurance company says they cover rental cars. But the problem with that is then you're doing a claim against your auto insurance, which is why.
- [18:48]
Clark Howard
Which is the big thing you want to avoid is having a claim against your auto insurance because insurers don't cut you much slack on that. And so I want you to avoid making claims, which brings up a completely separate topic. I'm just going to cover for one second that I apparently have confused people no end about. And that is homeowners insurance and when to make a claim. And I just want to emphasize this because obviously I've not explained it adequately. So I'm just going to throw this in right now, completely unrelated to this. Clark stinks. But this made me.
- [19:28]
Krista
You're saying, you're saying you, you stink, right? Is that what you're saying?
- [19:31]
Clark Howard
I do stink. Okay, so homeowners insurance has become a use it and lose it kind of proposition. The only time, the only time you make a homeowner's insurance claim is for a catastrophic loss. Do not trust where the policy says, oh, you make a claim for this, make claim for that, make a claim for the other thing. And you're only going to have your deductible. That's why I want your deductible to be as high as your mortgage company will let you do or as high as you can stand. No more $500 deductibles, thousand dollar deductibles, whatever. You need to be your own insurance company for more routine events. And you only file a homeowner's insurance claim for what would be a catastrophic loss. Now, everybody's definition of catastrophic is different. But you need to know that with the difficulties of obtaining and keeping homeowners insurance, the last thing you want is anything that is a claim. Because it's like a mark of shame. Hey, that rhymed. Anyway, thank you so much for all your Clark stinks. And coming up ahead, I'm teeing you up for a full round of Clark stinks is. I'm gonna talk about crypto.
- [20:57]
Krista
So I stink again. I just looked at my travel. I was wrong. It's not aliens.
- [21:02]
Clark Howard
I thought I was done.
- [21:03]
Krista
I know. Okay, well, we're always trying to correct, right? If you just think wrong, Zurich looks underwrite a lot of the. They write a lot of the Costco third party travel insurance policies.
- [21:14]
Clark Howard
And you know, that is a moving target. It could be different by state, it could be different by product.
- [21:21]
Krista
And you have to really read that individual policy before you book any travel insurance and see what do it when you've got.
- [21:27]
Clark Howard
No. No distractions. Not while you're watching something or having your kids running around or whatever. You need to fully focus because the brochure sounds great. The contract language and insurance policy is always what they don't want to do, not what they are going to do for you. Oh my goodness. That crossed into cynical. I don't like cynical. I just want you to be careful. Careful. Yes. Thank you. Just careful and then straight ahead.
- [22:00]
Apple Card/Advertisement Voice
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- [22:34]
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Apple Card/Advertisement Voice
Ouch.
- [22:43]
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- [22:52]
Clark Howard
when you need it.
- [22:53]
Schwab Advertisement Voice
Learn more@schwab.com we all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen. So now you look like a tomato.
- [23:07]
Apple Card/Advertisement Voice
Ouch.
- [23:08]
Schwab Advertisement Voice
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- [23:22]
Apple Card/Advertisement Voice
this message is brought to you by Apple Card. It's a great time to apply for an Apple card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple Card, you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, you must apply at Apple Co getdailycash Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.
- [23:52]
Don McDonald
You know what's funny about free financial advice? It's usually the most expensive kind. 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.
- [24:43]
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- [24:45]
Don McDonald
Talking Real Money is an educational, podcast, hosts or affiliated with a registered investment advisor. For disclosures, visit talking realmoney.com crypto is
- [24:55]
Clark Howard
a really, really polarizing activity. I've talked in the past about how my son from time to time plays in the crypto thing, and his best friend, going all the way back to middle school is really into it. Talks about his crypto, wallets and all that. The thing you need to understand is that crypto is still, still a truly unproven form of money. Why do I say unproven? Because one of the keys with money is that it represents stability. Crypto is anything but stable. Having been very much part of the social media world with influencers, talking about this new crypto is going to go to a zillion, or this is how you're going to make money with crypto and you need to do this on this crypto exchange and whatever, whatever, whatever. Crypto is still an infant. And it also came to life in an era where buzz can create these enormous swings up and down. And I love it that recently I was reading an item in Barron's magazine about how certain people in the financial industry were touting how, in spite of the rough ride bitcoin has had lately, that it was going to go to 200,000 a bitcoin. And then others were saying the value of crypto is zero. It's all a hype machine. So it's too early to know which extreme is right. But what is clear is that crypto is highly volatile. And a lot of people are doing things in the crypto market where they're gambling with leverage on small moves in the crypto leading to big returns. And what they're not counting on, sort of say banking on that would be a bad way to describe it, is that if the crypto you bought goes down, those losses are magnified because you did so with leverage, which essentially borrowed money. And there are a lot of really really, really brilliant people. Big money people who've lost billions of dollars with leverage recently betting on the movement of bitcoin. And bitcoin is just one of and the best known and considered to be the most mainstream of crypto. If it is an alternative money, it would not have, if it was really one, it would not have these enormous swings in value. Those swings in value are clearly an amateur marketplace. It should not be that hard to show value day to day. And there are times that crypto, which a lot of people touted as an alternative to holding gold, moves in very different cycles than gold or another precious metal, a hedge against difficult times or uncertain times. Crypto acts more like a straight speculative endeavor. I will not call it an investment. And that's why the movements are so erratic and don't follow a normal pattern. So am I telling you not to put any of your money in crypto? No. Am I telling you not to bet the farm on crypto? Yes. Am I telling you to only put money in a crypto, it's money you would lose zero sleep over if you lost all your money? Absolutely. That's the most you put in. Crypto is what you can afford to lose and make no impact on your life. And borrowing, speculating where you leverage your positions. Oh man. And when people tell you that you can put your money on a crypto borrowing exchange and earn a great return on your money and that it's so much better than having money in a CD or savings account where you are lending money to a financial institution, you tell me where the FDIC is or the NCUA for a crypto exchange. Let's talk about the people who thought they were doing zero risk lending and lost their money. So know that this is playing with fire. Now I've said it now. Clark.com Clark Stinks is where those who are crypto advocates and feel I'm telling a slanted, one sided, unfair, lame kind of idea about crypto. That's where you go post and then Krista will read your posts.
- [30:04]
Krista
Okay, we'll go to some questions. Brian in Pennsylvania sent this one in. In May my fiance is scheduled to graduate from vet school.
- [30:12]
Clark Howard
Congratulations.
- [30:13]
Krista
Yeah, Brian says woohoo. It has been a struggle, but she's almost there.
- [30:18]
Clark Howard
That's great.
- [30:18]
Krista
We have a house together and I've been covering the mortgage and home expenses. Last year I had to take out a small home refinancing loan for some repairs. So her income will be welcomed. We also want to start saving for a wedding. Unfortunately, between undergrad and Vet school. She has approximately $400,000 in student debt. I know she will be a great vet and it will be worth it. But right now I'm worried about a plan for her loans. She also has a little credit card debt for personal expenses. Do you have any recommendations for budgeting? She's very excited about her future first year salary. But I'm worried about the school debt and our house expenses. Wedding savings.
- [30:55]
Clark Howard
Okay, so Brian, both of you are going to hate me. So I'm going to say the part you're going to hate first and then I'm going to talk about what you specifically asked. $400,000 in student loan debt. You got the mortgage, you had to take out a renovation loan. Isn't that what Brian called it? You have to do that. She's got some credit card debt. Your wedding is going to be beautiful because of the love the two of you have for each other. It's not going to be beautiful because you do a big fancy blowout wedding. Do a budget wedding. Don't build on more debt. That's my suggestion. Okay. Now with the student loans, you got to get all the contracts out and you got to figure out private loans, federal loans, fixed interest rate, floating rate, and then what those rates are. The federal loans probably qualify for one or the other of the various IBR programs, Income based repayment. And the IBR loan payments allow for the payments to rise and fall based on your income. First her income, then your income together. And then after so many years of payments, the remaining balance is forgiven. It's subject to tax, but it's forgiven. The private loans are a whole different matter and I hope that it's very heavily tilted towards federal loans. They may in fact have a floating interest rate and there's no loan forgiveness for them or anything like that. The priority generally is to pay only what's required under IBR on the federal loans and throw money as heavily as you can towards the highest interest rate. Private loans that will change over time, which one's the highest interest rate and then minimums against the others of the private loans. So this is a complicated process that requires just taking some time to figure out what makes up those $400,000 in loans so that every dollar that goes towards them is most efficiently put towards them. And congratulations on her completing unbelievably difficult education. Veterinary medicine is so hard. It was funny because Lane was talking about, imagine a human doctor just has to understand the human body. Think about a vet has to understand the bodies of so many different animals. I mean, wow, that's so true.
- [33:46]
Krista
All right, Dara and Marilyn says, with tax season upon us, is it safe to enter our banking information into software like Free Tax USA or TurboTax? Yes. To receive our tax refund, absolutely. And you talk about setting up other bank accounts for Venmo or paying only utility bills. Should we be doing the same to get our tax refund?
- [34:04]
Clark Howard
No. I mean the risk level is almost non existent with the tax prep firms. You don't need to go to an extra step like that like you would with Venmo or Cash app. And remember, big bad Zell, don't use it.
- [34:22]
Krista
Dave in Ohio says I was listening to your recent discussion about businesses no longer accepting cash. For retailers, managing cash is quite an ordeal beyond just fearing robbery. Counting drawers each shift, managing the float, moving cash between drawers, reconciling what's in the drawer versus the cash sales and returns throughout the day, researching discrepancies, pulling cash out to make bank deposits, adding change acquired from the bank, and yes, the risk of theft by an employee or a quick change artist pulling out that classic scam. It all adds up to be a lot of risk and overhead. On the flip side, businesses have to deal with credit card transaction fees plus the lag between when they complete the sale and when they get the deposits. Add the risk of chargebacks and credit card fraud. The seemingly simple transaction of accepting and receiving payment is really not so simple. No wonder there are so many fintech companies in the game. And I don't blame a small retailer for opting to forego cash or to pass on the crazy credit card transaction fees to the customer.
- [35:21]
Clark Howard
I really appreciate this post because I have glossed over the other expenses that are kind of like hidden expenses of accepting cash beyond just being more subject to armed robbery. And I went to have acupuncture recently from an acupuncturist I've seen for years. She was charging me for the session and she was using Square and I said how come you're not charging me a fee for accepting Square? And she said well, I don't feel really right about that, so what about if you gave a discount for your cash customers? And she said well, I'll think about it, but the reality is it's one of her biggest expenses, the credit card merchant processing fees. And I'm a big fan. Even though I love using these reward cards, I'm a big fan of businesses that are charging me a fee to cover those expenses since we don't have a free market because the Visa MasterCard Cartel. I think that businesses should feel free to pass those costs on to us.
- [36:36]
Krista
All right. And Monica in Pennsylvania had us actually, a question for me. She said on the podcast, Krista mentioned she receives $10 a month off of her peloton membership by using one of her credit cards. Can you please share which credit card offers this benefit? And that is the Chase Sapphire cards offer that $10 off.
- [36:55]
Clark Howard
Is this the Chase Sapphire?
- [36:56]
Krista
I know, but, you know, we've received a lot of questions about this. Like, you know, it's very hard to keep up in these offers from all the credit cards. They come and go and you have to opt in. And so we're working on a, we're trying to find a free solution for people to organize that better@clark.com.
- [37:11]
Clark Howard
yeah. So what we're trying to do is come up with a tool because it's so hard to keep up with the idea that every one of them except the Capital One Venture X, the City Strata Elite, the American Express Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve have become basically coupon books. And some of them automatically activate. Others you have to manually enroll. How you enroll in them can be different from one thing to another, even with the same credit card and their website. And so it gets to be a bit of a bother. And so most of those ancillary benefits that will defray that annual fee are never used by people because of the complexity of it. And that's why we've talked about, and we're working on trying to come up with a way to streamline that so that you don't leave money on the table.
- [38:08]
Krista
And if you have that Chase car, by the way, I, I texted you about this when I saw it that Aldi's giving. I think it's 10 back 7 if you add it to your car for
- [38:17]
Clark Howard
the next 10 minutes. And 10 minutes only get to Aldi.
- [38:21]
Krista
It's like Clark Aldi. You can get even more back.
- [38:24]
Clark Howard
Oh, there's an Aldi being built near me. And it seems like it's taking them forever to build it. And the sign is up.
- [38:32]
Krista
Oh, you're peering in the windows and
- [38:34]
Clark Howard
no, they've got a big chain link fence around it.
- [38:38]
Krista
Like you out.
- [38:39]
Clark Howard
You can't get close to it. But I, you know what I won't do? I won't be going there when it first opens because it's a mad house. You ever been to an opening of an Aldi?
- [38:49]
Krista
I have not.
- [38:51]
Clark Howard
Oh, well, this just shows what a loser I am. I've been to the opening of you know, Aldi and I've been to the opening of Lidl and these two German arch rivals that are growing in the United States have to call them cult followings. Doesn't quite.
- [39:09]
Krista
I've done that with the Trader Joe's.
- [39:11]
Clark Howard
You've gone to a TJ's opening?
- [39:12]
Krista
Yeah. I love.
- [39:13]
Clark Howard
What do you get at a TJ's grand opening?
- [39:16]
Krista
Well, I just wanted to get in the store and see it. I didn't get any prizes or anything.
- [39:20]
Clark Howard
No prizes, no.
- [39:21]
Krista
But they had awesome merchandise. It was great. I love Trader Joe's. Well, this is not a commercial for TJ's. No. And when you say that, I. I only hear TJ Maxx, which is another story I love.
- [39:34]
Clark Howard
Oh, I always hear Trader Joe's referred to as T shirts. I guess I'm just more inside.
- [39:40]
Krista
Yeah, you are. You definitely are.
- [39:42]
Clark Howard
Yeah. And how funny is it that the same family owns Aldi and Trader Joe's, which are such different vibe stores?
- [39:51]
Krista
Very different.
- [39:52]
Clark Howard
But Aldi is on its way to being the third largest supermarket in the United States with their little stores. Well enough today from us. And I hope that you have a great, great weekend. And we've got so much for you on clark.com and clarkdeals.com and we now have on the weekends, an investment personal finance kind of newsletter as part of our regular Clark newsletters. And our newsletters are free. They have what's known as a sky high open rate, which means people find the information in our newsletters valuable enough that even with busy lives, when you get them, the open rate is. Anytime I ever talk with anybody about our open rate, they're like, what? What? Because they've never heard of any, any newsletter ever having people open at such a high rate. And I really am so proud of our staff that worked so hard to make the information relevant, usable, actionable by you. And if you ever want to sign up for any of our newsletters, clark.com newsletter or newsletters both get you there and you see the choices we make. It just as easy to dump us is to sign up. So if we're wasting your time, you delete it. If you find it useful, you open it. And when I say deleted, I mean you can discontinue getting a newsletter product for hours if you don't find it useful. Just as easy as the initial sign up, which is how it should be with things. You sign up for that, then people play games with you to discontinue them. I don't believe in that. I want it to be serving you, empowering you with ideas so you can save more, spend less, and never, never, never, not ever get ripped off. So you go enjoy that weekend and we'll be serving you Monday.
- [41:56]
Krista
Are you a player in the private equity industry? Troutman Pepper Lock is one of the leading national law firms focusing on middle market private equity. Our podcast, PE Pathways, brings on dealmakers to share their thoughts on trends and developments. We do a deep dive into the M and A industry with topics around tax and employment issues, regulatory developments, and much more. Check out PE Pathways wherever you get your podcast.