Krista (5:08)

mine are all over the place now in terms of subscriptions for sure. But like you'll have a card that maybe gives you cash back on groceries or gas, things like that.

Clark Howard (5:18)

But that's different than what I'm talking about here because where I want you to pick up free money back into your life is by getting control of all the things you're paying for on a regular basis. How about, oh, I may be talking to you right now. How many of us have a gym membership or an exercise class membership? Because particularly for women being in exercise class programs versus being in a traditional gym, women tend to thrive for some reason a lot more than men doing exercises part of a group scheduled regular activity. They're more likely to go and do it. And so how many of these things are laying out there with the best of intentions that you're going to go do it, but you can't remember the last time you went? Either resolve to go, start doing it again, or you can it. This is your money we're talking about. How many different things that we're subscribing to. And to my family, would you please stop deciding there's some show you have to watch the stream of and sign up for some streaming service? And the first I know about it is when I see the bill for the streaming thing.

Krista (6:44)

Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

Clark Howard (6:46)

Clark, there's obviously a personal problem I have. I'll say, who signed up for Hulu? Who signed up for. What do they call HBO now? Is it Max?

Krista (6:59)

Yeah, I think it's back to HBO Max now.

Clark Howard (7:01)

Well, whatever. I just saw it on a bill. I'm like, what is that about? I mean, this thing of all these endless subscriptions drives me crazy. Okay. I'm breathing deeply.

Krista (7:18)

Okay. Do you wonder why they don't ask you? Judy in Florida wrote into you, Clark, and she says, hi, Clark. First of all, thank you for all the years of amazing financial education. I truly appreciate the work you and your team put into this and your kind way of addressing each listener and viewer. I haven't the space in my small home to put any exercise equipment that I really do want to use. Treadmill, rower, and stationary bike. So I want to join a gym to take better care of my health. Is there a gym that does not require me to give either my credit card or worse yet, my bank account information for automatic drafts? I can pay the entire year at once, but I don't want to give any account information so that a gym can continue to bill me in the event that I want to cancel or find another gym after the annual membership expires. It seems this is merely a way to keep people on the financial hook, regardless of their desire or ability to remain at the same gym? This method seems to be completely covering the health club landscape.

Clark Howard (8:21)

Yeah. And not only does it cover all the gyms, the health clubs, it also is true with the YMCA or any other nonprofit that they're going to have a method that they're going to charge you to a credit card or debit from a checking account. So I've thought a lot about this, and I think the best answer is what I've always said, which is the no contract gyms. Popularized originally by Planet Fitness, there are now a lot of smaller chains as well that are no frills. They tend to rent a vacant space and a shopping center. Basic fix up. They're not going to have mahogany paneled wood. They're not going to have a little cafe in there with frou frou drinks.

Krista (9:14)

I don't know that that's true. My gym has all those things you just mentioned. It's not. It's actually a really good deal and it's not a contract. But.

Clark Howard (9:23)

But just like you haven't even let me finish.

Krista (9:25)

I'm sorry I interrupted. Now I'm in a Clark.

Clark Howard (9:27)

No, no. How much per month are the no frills gems?

Krista (9:32)

Oh, like 20 bucks.

Clark Howard (9:34)

Not that much. Oh, how much is your mahogany wooded fancy place a month? That's no contract.

Krista (9:41)

My gym, it is a really nice one, I'm not gonna lie. Has a really nice sauna too. It's got multiple classes, like all different, including Pilates, reformer machines, all included. And I pay 149amonth. And I think that that's when I looked around. Oh, don't pretend you're passing out. I use it a lot. It's. I feel like health is important, you know, And I love going there because I like it so much.

Clark Howard (10:07)

So I'm really like. I mean, my goodness. Because yes, you work out all the time. You are that person.

Krista (10:15)

I mean, I pay for that and I pay for my peloton membership and

Clark Howard (10:20)

you pay for exercise classes you go to outside of that too. But yes, but you're a machine and you were a college athlete.

Krista (10:29)

I was not.

Clark Howard (10:30)

All right, whatever you are anyway, I mean you, you have always been.

Krista (10:34)

It's part of my mental. It's a big mental health thing for me.

Clark Howard (10:37)

Again, physical, we're talking about completely different economics.

Krista (10:41)

But other gyms, like there are the ones I belong to and they're also no contract. But most of them, they do require you to give like 60, 30 or 60 days notice. So you are going to have to pay for.

Clark Howard (10:52)

Yeah, yeah. So. But let's think about the math here. So, Judy, if you join one of these very basic clubs, you're going to have all the equipment you want. And most of them have very clean bathrooms and that's all they're going to have. And depending on the club, there'll be typically 10 to $20 a month. And they don't have contracts and there's no high pressure salespeople. There's no fancy facility like Krista goes to. But if you think about it, if you join a gym at 15amonth, you've gone for 10 months before you've met what Krista pays for one month. See, you're in a completely different orbit right then.

Krista (11:37)

I feel like there's also in between which is like the YMCA membership but all these, I don't know of any of them that wouldn't want you to give a credit card for the month.

Clark Howard (11:47)

That's what I was going to say is you, you're in fact with the no frills gems, usually they won't take a credit card. You have to allow a draft of an account. If you're freaked out about that, what you do is you just set up a separate account with one of the online banks and have the drafting come from it and then you don't have to worry about what risk there may be by you having the automatic debit.

Krista (12:13)

And I would be nervous paying annually in advance for a gym that could just shut down.

Clark Howard (12:18)

They shut down and your money's gone. The thing with the YMCA or the other nonprofit organizations, usually you're doing annual memberships with them. With the no frills gyms you're doing generally monthly. And they may have, as you said, 30 day or 60 day cancel. But she's not looking based on what you read to me for ymca.

Krista (12:44)

Although mine is month to month by the way. I understand. I shouldn't have even said it. There's a bunch of Krista stinks now.

Clark Howard (12:51)

No, that was just funny because I

Krista (12:54)

was just pointing out. I wasn't even trying to say how much it costs. I was just trying to point out that like several gyms, I mean I've checked out a lot of them because my beloved gym close my little gym and I could have paid a year in advance for that and I didn't. But anyway, I was just saying like a lot of them don't require contracts. Most of them don't anymore.

Clark Howard (13:11)

Yeah, contract clubs. That's the one thing that regardless of what you pay per month, that's the one thing you do not want to do. Contract gyms involved with the high pressure salespeople, the long term contracts that is thankfully becoming less and less a factor in the industry and it was a plague on your wallet.

Krista (13:37)

Mike in Maine says we plan to build a second home in Maine and have already purchased land in a lake community. We planned on getting a construction loan from a local bank, but our builder also put us in contact with a loan officer that he works with on a regular basis. The loan officer said he would be able to compare construction loans for us, but then suggested another option. He said we could have the builder finance the building of the house, in which case we would would temporarily sign over the land to the builder through a lawyer when the house was completed using our plans and specifications. Then we would buy the house and get a mortgage on the completed home and the land would be transferred back to us. We've never heard of this and are wondering which is the better way to go. For those of you who aren't watching the YouTube, Clark has had his hands over his mouth the almost the whole time I'm reading this. Well, since I said transfer the land. Right.

Clark Howard (14:32)

Yeah. Okay. What is this shallow breathing I'm doing today?

Krista (14:37)

Your aura ring is going to be going crazy.

Clark Howard (14:39)

Yeah, my aura is. And I had my best aura numbers in the six years I've been wearing aura two nights ago. And now I'm just going to have the worst numbers ever. Tonight's numbers anyway. No, no, no, no. You do not sign over the land to the developer. I mean, I can't even begin to think of how many ways this would bite you. You own this land in Maine. You hire a builder to build on your land, know you have lean risk. If you don't know what that is and look up online and, and look up, do a search lean risk when a builder builds on your own land. And you'll learn that having a construction attorney who works for you who reviews whatever contract you're negotiating with that builder to build on your land. And you do not sign over your land to that builder because some loan officer says this is going to be so much better for you. No, it won't. And when you hire somebody to build on land that you already own, the lawyer you need is not a general practice attorney. It's not a lawyer who does real estate closings. It is the specialty type of lawyer, a construction law attorney. And in Maine, just like any other state, you're going to find people who, this is what they do as their specialty and that's who you want to consult up front as part of the whole process of negotiating that builder's contract.

Krista (16:26)

Kenneth and Georgia says, I've received two different quote, unquote benefit offers for insurance, one from my electric company and one from my gas company. Have you seen this become more prevalent these days? They talk about how homeowners insurance typically don't cover certain aspects of repairs, et cetera. I thought it was weird that two utility companies are now sending me this in the mail.

Clark Howard (16:48)

So it's not just. You said power and gas, right?

Krista (16:52)

Yes.

Clark Howard (16:53)

The water, water service provider. Very common you'll get these pitches for insurance. Municipalities that provide various services will sign up with one of these outfits. They get commissions from any of these organizations get commissions from pitching the specific purpose insurance. It is true homeowners insurance no longer covers your home and property in ways like they used to. So you do have any of a number of things that the homeowner's insurer would say, oh, as I'm so sorry this happened to you. Your policy doesn't cover that. So there are now all these what are known as monoline insurance things that they cover very, very specific circumstances that are rare to occur but if they happen, they could be a big hit to your wallet. So these things are so heavily pitched by utilities and municipalities now because these are ultra profitable policies and they're getting giant commissions for sending out the the fear letters or putting the notice in your monthly bill of this could happen to you and it would cost you so much money. We cannot insure against every possibility in life. And I don't recommend these things just as I don't recommend you buy the supposed protection plan to protect your investment in your new television. Yuck. By the way, a lot of electronics companies lose money selling the electronics they sell you and make all their profit from selling you those protection plans. So what it means is this is why you have a rainy day account in your life. You have your savings account to pay for the unexpecteds in your life. Don't pay for one of these fees that the scare letters are trying to convince you that you need to pay for because you add them all up from. Everybody would say this could happen to you and all of a sudden what you know has happened to you is you're paying all this money to others that could be in your life in a savings account you have earning interest coming up ahead. Speaking of something I don't want to happen to you. That's buying a timeshare. And they're back.

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Clark Howard (22:29)

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Clark Howard (22:45)

We need to have a talk because an industry that had fallen onto hard times is suddenly hot again. It's the timeshare industry by another name. 10 million Americans own a timeshare. Last year people spent $10 billion according to Barron's, buying into timeshare communities. But don't dare use the word because now they do things like mambi pamby terms like vacation ownership or something like that. Because the term timeshare is so spoiled in people's minds because of all the horror stories they've heard over the years. But people crave time off and the pitches are so strong. And now so many of the. Do we call them timeshares? So many of the vacation programs are owned under subsidiaries or under license to use the names of well known and recognized big hotel chains. And people who stay in hotels regularly, or people who stay in hotels a lot feel a comfort with the modern relaunch of what is essentially a contract you enter into where you are obligated, open ended to pay amounts that can change at the whim of the organization you buy your vacation plan from. Why do I call them vacation plans? Because you're obligated. You have to pay year after year. You don't know what fees there are going to be, how they're going to go up. You don't know any of those things. But what they pitch is you can have the dream of travel anywhere pretty much at any time. And that is a change from how timesharing worked for so many decades, where you bought a specific week at a specific place and that's what you bought. And then over the years the promoters morphed into trying different things where you bought color coded weeks, meaning that you could go at any time in your color band. A lot of areas in the mountains with ski resorts still use modified systems like that where you're buying the right to a property at the peak of the ski season, or the shoulder of the ski season, or buying time just to be in the mountains off season. Obviously the prices vary a lot, but now the more common thing is you're just buying the right to try to book a vacation at a property that the sponsor has access to. And you heard me say try to book. Because one of the problems with the modern system is you bought this right to use a place a week or two, whatever a year, and to go different places. But what happens when all those fancy colorful places they showed you that you could dream of aren't available when you try to book? Big problem. But that's not even the big problem. And obviously I'm swimming against a tide right now because the modern version of timeshare is hot right now for sure. I mean, $10 billion in revenue coming in last year, 10 million people. That's a meaningful percent of American adults feel differently than I do about this. But here's the problem when you go to sell, because even though it may work in your life right now, even if the fees keep going up and they still work in your budget, what happens is eventually you decide, you know, this isn't working for me anymore. Selling is so very difficult. And my thing. If these big hotel brands think this is such a great idea, there should be guaranteed buybacks under a formula when it no longer works in your life anymore. Almost like people who like to lease cars, you have the ability to turn them in at the end of the lease as long as you didn't beat up the car and you have the miles within the mile band you bought. But that's not really how the game is played with these things. So I have not changed my tune. The industry has changed its pitch. But as far as I'm concerned, it's not a beautiful song.

Krista (27:55)

Okay, let's go to questions and I have some travel ones. Terry in Pennsylvania says I'm 73 and have never traveled much. I believe in seeing the US First. But if I took the trip of my lifetime overseas, what would you suggest? I like to do adult things as I am single and play like that. Wink, wink, in all caps P. S. I did make it to Hawaii once. Thanks.

Clark Howard (28:19)

So I guess that means nightlife is really important.

Krista (28:23)

Yep, I would think that.

Clark Howard (28:25)

Okay. So I mean, Terry, that puts a lot of fun in the sun kind of places. I would think initially, Bali. I would think a lot of communities in Phuket, Thailand. Phuket Island, Thailand. I would think Mallorca, off the coast of Spain. I would think a lot of Greek isles would be where you go. You hear how immediately I went to places they have fun in the sun culture of partying. A lot of Ibiza. Yeah, I've never been to Ibiza neither.

Krista (29:04)

No.

Clark Howard (29:05)

So I. I would think more places that are culturally like that. And also, you didn't ask about this, but I would say that a lot of cruise lines have a lot of theme cruises and a lot of them are very much about mix and mingle and have fun.

Krista (29:26)

For sure. Kirk in Wisconsin says this is a Clark stinks add on and a credit card question. Our son was traveling from Greece to Rome and had his wallet stolen. He's an authorized user on our USAA credit card. We canceled his card and a new one was issued instantaneously. The new card appeared and became active in his Apple wallet. For Apple Pay. No waiting required. He could use it again immediately. Yep.

Clark Howard (29:50)

I mean this is, this is the third person we've heard from who after a while it was stolen, was able to activate things on Apple Pay or Google Wallet.

Krista (30:01)

Okay. Our other credit card issue was not as favorable. You stated to always complete credit card transactions in local currency. Recently when traveling to Grand Cayman, we were forced to clear transactions in US Dollars. I asked to clear in Cayman dollars and they would show me the terminal which would say currency mismatch. When we requested to clear in local currency. Is this some sort of I asking the wrong questions? And how do we avoid having this issue in the future?

Clark Howard (30:29)

Okay, I'm so glad you asked this and I'm aware of this fully. From trips to Grand Cayman, there are a number of locations that have a fixed currency exchange rate. The Caymanian dollar is fixed to the US dollar dollar twenty, dollar twenty five, something like that. And so there is no game or gimmick like I've talked about with floating rate currencies around the world. And it's not just Cayman. A number of countries have essentially dollarized economies. Gosh, they might resent me saying that where their currency is at a fixed not floating exchange rate against the dollar, they are basically dollarized economies. And when you use a credit card, it will clear in US dollars without the 10% junk fees that tend to be popping up around the world when they try to trick you to clearing in dollars instead of local currency.

Krista (31:33)

Jim and George says, thankfully I do not get annoying calls. With one exception, there's some financial entity that I can't get rid of. They start by referencing my loan quote unquote application. There is no such thing. Of course. I am almost approved for $47,000 and I don't need a loan. I don't want a loan. I just want them to go away. I have tried everything they say. They even say press 9 now to be removed. I've spoken to them and begged. I have acted like a crazy insane individual and nothing works. Now I'm getting calls and texts. The do not call list worked very well for years, but no longer in this case. What can I do?

Clark Howard (32:15)

So let me tell you about this. When you pressed 9 to talk to be removed, that actually created a known valid number for them. That's why the amount of activity you're getting is expanded. Nobody who's not legit respects the do not call system anymore, the do not call law. So you are on your own. And because I own multiple businesses, I get these every single day and I'll block the number. You know, I don't answer them, but I block the number. And Google offers me the ability to block the number on my Samsung phone. And so I'll block the number and then the next day they call from a different number, and then the next day another different number and on like that. So these solicitations are just a flawning of the law, my rule, and I suggest that you follow it to Jim, if you don't recognize who's calling, do not answer your phone. Just don't answer it. There's nothing that if something's legit, somebody's going to leave a message and then you decide if you're going to call back and you take back control of your number. I wish I had an easy system for you to do so. A lot of people now, though, only allow their phone to ring if it's from a number in your contacts. And that way, even though somebody may go straight to voicemail and they'll leave a message, you're not annoyed or aggravated by the phone ringing. And I think that's a great idea, too. And I want to thank you so much for being with us today, which to me is a great idea that you have been with us for empowerment. And this is our last podcast and YouTube show of April. And we will be back with you on Mayday, Mayday for an edition of Clark Stinks, where you get to hear this Friday and see this Friday where I failed to serve you well. But I want to thank you so much for being with us. Hope you learned something that empowers you so that you can save more and spend less and don't let anybody ever rip you off.