← The Clark Howard Podcast
The Clark Howard Podcast
08.20.25 Where The Jobs Are / The More Versatile 529 Plan
00:37:21
Where The Jobs Are / The More Versatile 529 Plan
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- [00:00]
A
Support for this podcast and the following message comes from America's Navy the Navy offers new graduates hands on training and experience in careers like computer science, aviation and medicine, plus education and sign on bonuses. Parents help your grads start their career today@navy.com.
- [00:25]
B
It'S my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show. You know our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. I want to remind you that our Team Clark Consumer Action center is here to serve you by answering your questions one on one. It's free. You can find out how to reach them@clark.com cac today I'm going to begin by talking about the job market. There's something that is a trend that may be your friend in a time that the job market is not being your friend at all. Also, there are new ways that the 529 plan has become a universal option for parents to put money in. Where before it was just college, college, college. Not anymore. I'm going to fill you in on what you need to know why 529s are so valuable for your children. So the job market is frozen. There are any of a number of factors, but the job market is not horrible. When you look at the headline unemployment number, but the job market is not healthy. There's something that economists look at closely and that's something known as labor force participation. And gosh, it's crazy. More than 1/3 of Americans and prime working age are not working right now. Many have given up trying to find work. So the headline unemployment number right now is 4 point something percent changes a little bit month by month. But the reality is employers are not as a general rule doing hiring. There's too much economic uncertainty trying to figure out planning at a company with how weird it's been with all the tariff stuff, things are kind of in a freeze and so people may lose a job and have historical experience that finding a new job is really quick and right now it may not be. And so this is a time that you think about different things. I talked about why a cycle like this is actually a promising time for you to start your own business. If it's something you never were willing to take the risk of. Right now may be the time that you take that leap of faith of starting a business using the accumulated experience, training and knowledge you have and knowing where the market's underserved with your skill levels and experience levels to start something. I just want to mention that again, but also Other things. This may be a time in your life that you reassess that you've been doing what you do, even though it's not really what you love. So now go get the training or education for what you do. Love what you just hanker to spend your time doing. I remember forever ago there was a really bad recession and a friend of mine was working at a bank and was a clock watcher, hated every single minute of every day working at that bank. But what he loved was he loved bank managing real estate. That was his love. And he lost his job at the bank. The bank got into financial trouble and was seized by the feds. What he did instead was he went to work for a property management company and did that for the rest of his career. He found what he loved, doing that, and that's what he did. And it was only because his bank failed that he worked at that it pushed him into something that it turned out he thrived at and loved instead of where he was. And then there's something else as well, and that's geography. The job trends in the US are pushing in a direction where the biggest metros in the country are in a slump. And the job growth right now is, is in what economists refer to as mid sized metros, smaller metro areas. More often there'll be half a million to two and a half million people. And what would be considered to be, that's what I think of as a mid sized metro demographer might say, no, Clark, you got that wrong, it's more this and that. But the idea is that those areas are growing at a faster pace than the large metros which for so often sucked up so much of the economic growth and vitality and population growth of the country. Well, people have been overwhelmed by housing affordability, which tends to be better in mid sized metros. They hate the traffic that you have in the largest metro areas and the cost of living overall. As you get into more and more compact metro areas, the cost of living tends to rise as well. So one possibility is this is also a time for a change of geography in your life and you go to an area that is doing well while the country is sluggish and may find an opportunity there. So these are all things I'd love for you to think about at a time that it does feel rough out there. If suddenly you do find yourself unemployed right now, that it may require a shift in your mentality, a shift in what you do and a shift in where you live. Any of those or a combination of those.
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C
Krista, all right, I have a few questions related to electric cars for you, Clark. Oh, and I know you.
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B
I've been getting so many questions about.
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C
Electric cars because there's a lot going on in that industry, as of course you've told me. Susie in Oregon says my question is about buying a 2025 electric Honda Prologue.
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B
Those have been selling generally pretty well.
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C
We've never owned an electric car but have driven Hondas for years. I've heard it's not a good idea to buy electric an electric car because manufacturers quickly improving the battery range, which can negatively affect the resale value. We're wondering if it'd be better to lease an electric car and pay it off at the end of the lease so we can then trade it or sell it for a newer, more advanced model. We've always purchased our cars in the past and keep our cars for a long time. We currently have a 2012 Honda Odyssey that we would like to trade in for the prologue, which I assume we could still do if we chose to.
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B
Lease a 2012 Odyssey. Doesn't it have like another 30 years left to run?
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C
According to Kelly Blue Book, it's worth about $5,000. We still have 30 cash to put toward the car and we could finance the rest because we have excellent credit. There are great financial incentives right now at our local dealer, including $7,500 tax credit that's supposed to end in September. Our dealer is also offering 0% financing up to 60 months through the Honda financial services. In addition, Honda is offering $3,500 credit towards the cost of the car for financing with them. I know you always caution listeners against dealer financing, but is it financing through the manufacturer just as bad? We're hesitant to lease a new car, but we're willing to do it if it makes better financial sense.
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B
Okay, so right now there's an overwhelmingly compelling case to lease an electric vehicle before the end of September. And the reason is regardless of income, you get the $7,500 tax credit that normally you only get if you were below certain income levels. Electric vehicle buyers tend to be, as a general rule, higher income than gas engine buyers and so a lot income out of getting the tax credit. You get it built into a lease even if you wouldn't qualify for it on a purchase. Second, the manufacturers are really worried what's going to happen to the electric vehicle market on October 1st when there's no incentive money out there. Except some of the states still have incentive money so they're trying to move them. The dealers are Trying to get them off their lots. The manufacturer is trying to get them out there. What have I said about leasing all through the years? I've said don't lease with one exception, and that is if the manufacturer is offering a special factory subsidized lease. And right now they pretty much universally are on electric vehicles. Plus, historically, because of the rapid improvement in battery technology, electric vehicles are depreciating much faster than gas engine vehicles. So if you do a lease, Susie, for three years, you wouldn't want to buy it at the end of the lease, you'd want to turn it back into Honda motor. And it's their problem at that point. So you where you've owned your Odyssey. I don't know if you bought it new, but it's a 2012. Let's say you bought it new, you've owned it 13 years. I'm talking about you would lease the prologue for three and then wait to see what offer they make to you to buy it because they may sell it to you for less than the stated buyout or just turn it back into them. But right now it's a real win with the manufacturers offering the really good lease terms and built into it, you do get the 7,500. That's why in this case, leasing makes sense.
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C
Steve in California says, unfortunately my wife's car turned out to be a lemon. According to my attorney, we should be getting a full refund by the end of September.
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B
Lemon law. So now we never hear lemon law questions anymore, do we?
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C
So now we're searching for a replacement vehicle that we hope to keep for the next 15 years. My two part question is, if we go fully electric, can we realistically expect an EV to last that long 15 years, given it will be used primarily for local commuting and errands, but also for one or two long road trips per year. If EVs aren't quite there yet in terms of long term durability or convenience for road trips, we would you recommend going with a hybrid, possibly a Toyota, for the best balance of longevity and reliability.
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B
So, you know, this is a hard one for me because I've been driving electric for 14 years. They're just fun. I just enjoy driving an electric so much more than a gas engine. And as you probably heard me say way too many times, I rent about 30 vehicles a year and they're always gas engine. And I can't wait to get back in an electric because they're just gas engines just are sluggish, they're just not like electrics 15 years, no way to know. I mean, this is the hard part. Batteries have proven to be much more reliable and for the most part had degradation and range lower than people feared. Fifteen years though, that's way out on the curve. And if you go by what's happening in the worldwide market, the US is not a big adoption market for electric vehicles. We're at like 8 to 10% of vehicles being sold or electric around the world, it's 25%. In a lot of countries it's 50% or more. And the changes in them are more like computers, more like technology than traditional automotive. How quickly the efficiency and the range and the cost are all going your wallet's way. So a 15 year purchase intention with an electric vehicle, that's hard for me to get my arms around right now. If you go back to where we were with electric vehicles even five years ago, the changes in them and the range and cost and all that is moving so fast that that if you are a 15 year owner, I would go with a hybrid.
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C
Wes in Georgia says is owning an electric car a good idea when you're a renter and don't plan to own a home anytime soon? Is the cost savings versus using a gas powered vehicle still significant if you're having to pay to use charging stations? On a side note, a job interviewer asked me to name my favorite superhero and why? I said Clark Howard. Because of his years of service to others, both with financial advice and generous support of charities.
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B
Well, that is the nicest thing for you to say, Wes. Very true, very kind. No.
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C
Yes it is. Go ahead.
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B
So people who rent and don't have access to handy charging, that was a deal killer for electric. It's not anymore because the charging infrastructure is improving so fast and it's kind of crept up on us at the time that people have really soured. The political environment has soured people on electric vehicles. So it's funny, something that was such a problem is not anymore. So the charging availability, if you are a renter or you don't have, you live in a multifamily and there's not easy access or there's no charging at the multifamily. It's not a problem today that it was even a year ago because so many chargers have been installed in. The chargers are so much faster. Charging used to be such a problem and now it's crazy. I can go on a 500 mile trip charge one time for eight minutes on the road and I'm good to go. Eight minutes. I mean and it used to be you'd sit there for an hour charging on a road trip. So it's all changed on that front as well. And the thing with electric vehicles is right now they're not hip in the United States. But the reality is the technology is so superior, in my opinion, to gas engine vehicles that we're going to catch up to the rest of the world. We're going to be behind them and the adoption of other countries. And we're not far away from the cost of manufacturing an electric vehicle being significantly cheaper than the cost of manufacturing a gas engine vehicle. And that will be the kiss of death for gas engine vehicles. So it's just going to be slower than some people expected, but it's absolutely going to happen. And I believe that in my heart and my head completely. And right now people think they're not good, promise they're in all of our futures. Just like riding around in autonomous vehicles that won't even have steering wheels. We just sit in like we're sitting in a rolling living room. That one I'm certain is happening. Coming up ahead, I want to talk about the changes in 529 plans that make them your friend as a parent of a young child. Even if you don't intend or don't expect your child to go to traditional college, I'll fill you in.
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D
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- [17:21]
E
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F
You say you'll never join the Navy, that you'd never track storms brewing in the Atlantic and skydiving could never be part of your commute. You'd never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit or fly so fast you.
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C
Break the sound barrier.
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Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Start your journey@navy.com, america's Navy. Forged by the sea I've been to.
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B
Call me obsessed with might be an accurate term. 529 plans for a long, long, long, long time. For people who come from a family culture where kids are overwhelmingly likely to go to college, 529 plans have been a fantastic tool for that. Because you put in money that in many states you get a tax deduction for putting in, then the money grows tax free through the years from whatever tender age of your child. You start the 529 account, and then if the kid goes to an eligible college, the money then is spent tax free. I mean, what a deal. You get an upfront tax benefit, the money grows tax free, you spend it tax free. Awesome, right? But what if a kid didn't go to college? It was terrible because then not only did you pay tax on the earnings, you paid a 10% penalty as well. So it was a big carrot with an even bigger stick. So a lot of people were like, that's not for me. Because what happens if question mark? So now new federal law allows you to use 529 plans for all different kinds of education other than college, and even out of school, getting a certification, doing prep for professional school testing or different kinds of testing. I mean, it's a wide, wide list of things that you can do now with the money. Not to mention the thing that I've been so excited about that to this moment, if you polled, I bet less than 1% of parents even know about this, that you can start funneling money into a 529 plan for a child and then when they reach adulthood, if the money's never needed for education. Because now we call this an education account instead of a college account. You can take up to 35 grand of it and put it into a Roth IRA for a child, and you do that for a kid when they're young. That 35,000 is going to double over and over and over and over again, properly invested in a Roth IRA and create financial security for that child much later in life, in retirement and all tax free. The money grows tax free, it moves into the Roth IRA tax free, and then is spent by your child way down the road tax free. It's awesome. Why do I get so excited about tax free? Because my bias is one of the things that would increase economic growth in the United States is to have the tax code set up to encourage saving and investing, not encourage borrowing or spending. And that's been my bias for forever. That's why you hear me talk over and over again about how excited I am about states that steadily are moving away from income tax as a way to raise money and more move to what are known as by pointy headed people in economics consumption taxes where people are encouraged to save, not spend, to invest, not spend.
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Nobi in Alaska says I'm 49. My wife is 46. Together we make just over $200,000. Since we returned to the US in 2018, our retirement funds are not substantial, around 400k.
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We also have a lot of money saved. Good for you.
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C
We also have about $150,000 in investment in savings. Since both my wife and I work for the state, we're not eligible to contribute to the Social Security system. We also do not have a pension. Therefore, we want to beef up our retirement fund as much as possible. Our only son is going to eighth grade this fall. Since we lived abroad before 2018 and were uncertain about our continued stay in Alaska, we do not have a 529 plan for him. Although our state universities offer good programs at low costs, we may consider sending him to an out of state private university to provide him with exposure to the outside world. We also believe if he stays with us during his undergraduate program program it will be challenging for him to become independent. We may cash flow his college fees. Like everyone, we would like him to be eligible for as many scholarships as possible. I realized that when calculating need based scholarships, universities consider parents savings and investments balance but do not take into account retirement funds. Is it a good idea to invest our monthly balance of approximately $2,500 in a retirement account such as a Roth 403 or 457 to increase our son's chances of receiving financial assistance? Currently we put it in our investment account. My concern is if we continue to invest in our brokerage and if it continues to grow, it may negatively impact his prospects of receiving a scholarship due to our higher bank balance. Since we will not have a fixed income at retirement, we need a larger retirement balance anyway. I understand the risk of lack of access to retirement funds before we retire.
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B
Okay. Gosh, that's a lot. Unpack.
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Big question.
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All right, let's Talk about the 403B versus 457. More often than not, the expenses that you have to pay in a 457 are lower than they are in a 403B. And so before you make a decision to boost what you're putting into either the 403B that's available to you or the 457, you want to see what the expense ratios are in it, the management fees and expenses you pay on investments. If you were Talking about a 401k, it's very common that people are able to put money into a plan, including administrative and fund fees of less than half a point per year. It's common in a 403B to have to pay six times that easily and all the junk fees and commissions and all that you pay. So before you would make a decision to put this money into the 430B or the 457, find out. Dig deep on the expenses of each, if the expenses are reasonable on either, and usually it'll be the 457 that'll be reasonable. Yes, I want you putting that 2500amonth into it every month. Because you need to beef up based on your income. You need to beef up how much money you have for retirement, going to education for your eighth grader. There are multiple ways to pay for college work, scholarships, grants, whatever, going in state, whatever it is. The only person who can pay for your retirement is you. And so that's why, particularly going into a Roth version of an account where the money grows tax free and it's spent tax free is really key. You are completely correct. With a child staring down college in five years, you don't want more money in investment accounts because that counts against qualifying for financial aid that might be available to your child. But it's an interesting thing. You state that there is no retirement plan, that you get no pension plan from the state. At the same time, you're ineligible for Social Security. That has been something that was based on. It had been common in the past that people who worked for state government had a state pension. Now more and more don't have a state pension but are still ineligible for Social Security. Which is, in my mind and opinion, an unfairness. And we should fix this in the country.
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C
David in California says, what do you think if I purchase a second SIM chip for my phone as a reserve? Is this even possible? The purpose is not for myself, but for my spouse or children who survived me. The issue is that my cell phone is now used for nearly all of our secondary verification for most of our website, logins, etc. I cannot imagine my family trying to handle everything if I pass without my phone. The other problem I'm trying to Prevent is if I die tragically or my phone is lost or destroyed, I want my family to be able to take that backup SIM chip and be able to insert it into another phone. I know this sounds morbid, but I often think about the future and what's best for my family. I do understand the danger if this other chip is lost or stolen, but we plan to store it locked away to keep it safe again. Is this possible and if so, is it a good idea?
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B
First of all, David, you are an extreme planner here and unless there's some reason you feel you're in imminent danger, I'd say this is almost gosh, almost the category of over planning getting a second sim. Now most providers will not give a second SIM and ESIM or physical for the same number. They're trying to prevent something known as cloning which used to be a problem with cell phone technology. So what you can do with many financial institutions now is you can have more than one phone number listed in your account for two factor authentication. So you would have all the accounts you have with your phone number for two factor you can have another family member also listed as a second or as most provide. You can select either sent to an email or sent the one time use code as a text to a phone so you can build in backups anyway with most financial institutions beyond just one two factor authentication phone number and I know that with a lot of them now we have two email addresses and two phone numbers so that for whatever reason if we can't 2 Factor 1 method we have 3 others we can do.
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C
You can also he could also give his wife financial power of attorney, couldn't he? And that way if you was incapacitating, right? Yeah.
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In the event of your death if you have account set up with beneficiary designation your spouse would or whoever it is would immediately gain control of the accounts in your will. Whatever you don't have set up with beneficiary designations you can account for and your will who gets what Jim in.
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C
California says Dear Clark, HBO Max makes it extremely difficult to delete your credit card info from their database. I like to subscribe to various streaming services and unsubscribe. Once I've watched the shows that interest me, I play that game.
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This is part of the war going on is they want your credit card number so they can auto charge you and make it so difficult for you to stop the stream because so many people are playing the hopscotch game where they wait till a full season of shows are loaded of something you really want to see. You sign up for a trial period or a month or two. Bam, you blow through it, and then you want to discontinue the stream. And they've had enough of it at the streaming services and they're fighting back with these automatic renewals.
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C
Each time I unsubscribe, I go back to my account and make sure my credit card info has been deleted. But HBO Max doesn't allow the consumer to delete that info right away. And their customer service states they can't delete it either. They add that if you want to delete the credit card info, you have to completely delete the account. But you can't delete the account until the very end of your current subscription period. At that time, you have to return to their website and formally request that your account is deleted. Next, they send you a confirmation email to verify you really do want to delete the account. And if you don't reply to that email within seven days, they won't delete it. For finally, once you've replied to their verification email, you have to wait four to five weeks before the account is officially deleted. Meanwhile, your credit card info is sitting on their servers just waiting to be hacked in some massive data breach. Why do they have to be so stubborn and belligerent toward consumers? Who knows? I can certainly tell you this. I'll never subscribe to them again. But I would like to nominate them from an award. Let's call it the Most Consumer Unfriendly Policies award. Instead of the golden statue, it could be a big fat polished turd.
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B
Okay, so here's a weapon you have one time use. Credit card numbers is one of the things that tends to work with the streaming services that when you sign up, if you have set up with various credit cards that you can do one time use numbers, they don't have a useful credit card number to do a renewal on you. Or you use a prepaid card or a debit card against a savings account that you only have enough money to initiate the subscription. What you do is you give them a way that you can sign up for an account, but not a way that they can keep taking your money after a period of time. And this is going to be a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And on the positive side, have you noticed that more and more of the streaming services are offering much better deals if you will sign up for long term, like a year, two. Nobody offers three years anymore that I've seen. But if you'll sign up for A longer period of time, they'll offer you, in many cases, a giant discount for buying a year or so up front if it's something you actually want to be a customer of for a good while. Okay, now I gotta say, something happened in our household. So remember quite A while ago, YouTube TV raised their prices again. And I said, that's it, we're done. So I went on YouTube TV to cancel. They then immediately offered me the prior price for six months if I stayed. And I'd already told you on the podcast, we were out of there. And then they offered these six months at the price, free. So I took them. But then as the six months was coming to an end, it was going to go to the new price, which I think is 83amonth. So I canceled our YouTube TV. And time passes, time passes. And I'd forgotten to mention it to Lane that I had gone ahead and canceled YouTube TV. And then she just said to me, over a month later, she said, you canceled our YouTube TV.
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C
Did you really forget? Come on.
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B
No, I didn't. I wasn't trying to pull the wool over ice. But what was funny was she had never tried to watch it in over a month. And so right now we have no streaming service for what I guess you'd call like, live tv, cable kind of live TV stuff. And we'll see what's going to happen. What I talked about before is that we were likely going to go to Sling when football season started, because that is. I think it's 62.99. 63amonth. And. But I haven't done anything yet because football season has not started yet. So there's no reason.
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C
I'm in the same boat. I canceled mine, too, because I was getting charged, like the.83.83amonth. And I was like, I've had it. But, yeah, I'm gonna see what you come up with, because I do want to watch college football. I might just do ESPN plus or whatever. I think you can.
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B
No, it's a new espn. It's not. Plus the new ESPN that. I think you get that. And you have to buy Disney, like the Disney, Paramount, Disney, Hulu, espn.
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C
Okay, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna use. I'm gonna use our tool@clark.com, our streaming tool.
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B
Well, we're gonna do a special write up when it's really clear how that's gonna work.
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C
Great.
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B
Yeah, that's a promise from me, because football is my life. I love football. I gotta have my football.
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C
I'm with you.
- [35:47]
B
Anyway, have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day. Know we're here to serve you all week long so many different ways. And if you've never used our tool for how to get the best deal on video services, you're costing yourself money. It's one of these tools that we spend a lot of time doing that and we have to keep updating them that lets you make quick smart money decisions because it's so hard to figure out what the best deal is. So we do that for you with our tool and you start with your absolute must have video content you want and work your way through 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th till the pain of your wallet gets high enough that you say enough, enough, enough, I'm done.
- [36:43]
C
And that tool is@clark.com streaming because it's.
- [36:46]
B
All part of what we're about which is helping you with ideas to save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. And see you on Friday.