09.08.25 Your Retirement Plan On Auto Pilot / Subscription Creep

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clark Howard Podcast

Episode: 09.08.25 — “Your Retirement Plan On Auto Pilot / Subscription Creep”
Date: September 8, 2025
Host: Clark Howard
Main Theme: Automating your financial future—for better (retirement savings) or worse (subscription creep)—with actionable, down-to-earth consumer advice to save more and spend less.

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Overview

This episode focuses on two powerful forces in personal finance: the benefits of making your retirement savings automatic and the dangers of “subscription creep”— recurring fees that drain your wallet, often unnoticed. Clark draws on personal experience and recent research, offering practical ways to automate the right things (like savings) and rein in the wrong (forgotten subscriptions). Listener questions cover everything from government bond buying to dental tourism and modern pitfalls of virtual credit cards.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Retirement Savings on Autopilot (00:52 – 09:37)

• Financial Navigation Metaphor: Clark compares lack of a retirement plan to driving without a map—most Americans have no clear path or plan for retirement.
• Retirement Crisis: Over half of older Americans expect they’ll have to work until they physically can’t, largely due to lack of employer retirement plans.
• Power of Automatic Enrollment:
  • Clark describes his company’s policy of automatically enrolling employees in the 401(k) at 6%, matching another 6%. Almost no one opts out.
  • “Automatic enrollment works. And so you've got a lot of people who are now approaching retirement who grew up in an era where their family, their parents had a pension... Pensions are almost non-existent now.” (Clark, 02:19)
• State-Level Retirement Plans:
  • Five states now require automatic retirement plan enrollment at workplaces without plans—leading to $2 billion saved by over a million people who otherwise wouldn’t have saved.
  • Clark pushes for a simple, national retirement plan.
• Takeaway:
  • If you don’t have access to an employer plan, set up your own “automatic” retirement savings (Clark loves the Roth IRA).
  • “Best of intentions don’t get things done. Automatic gets things done.” (Clark, 06:14)
• Financial Autonomy & Privilege: Clark reflects on his good fortune and early “retirement”, underscoring the goal: working by choice, not necessity.
  • “Wouldn't it be great if you went to work because it's something you love... instead of something you had to do because you had to have money.” (Clark, 08:29)

2. Listener Q&A: Smart Money Moves (09:37 – 15:59)

• Buying US Treasuries Direct vs. Brokerage (09:37):
  • TreasuryDirect is fine if you don't mind the extra hassle; reputable discounters like Fidelity and Schwab are good too (avoid bank brokerages).
  • Prefer index/ETF options if you want ease and low cost.
• Cell Phone Perk Savings Accounts (10:58):
  • Clark confirms the online bank partnered with Verizon is legitimate (FDIC insured), but suggests bigger savings come from switching to Verizon-owned discount brands.
• Comparing Dental Implant Costs & Dental Tourism (12:26):
  • Acknowledge the popularity of dental tourism (Mexico, Costa Rica).
  • Warns of potential follow-up and repair difficulties back home if work is subpar.
  • Use free second opinions locally and be wary of repeated X-rays or upselling.
  • “If you have a problem with a dental surgery or a dental treatment, then you've got a real problem… if you come back to Minnesota and then you're having to go to a dentist there to repair what may have been done wrong outside the United States...” (Clark, 13:38)

3. The Hidden Cost of ‘Bad Automatics’—Subscription Creep (19:31 – 22:42)

• Subscription Shock Statistics:
  • On average, Americans spend nearly $1,100/year on subscriptions—many forgotten or little used.
  • About 25% of subscriptions are “accidental”—people don’t recall signing up.
• Clark’s Prescription:
  • Go through statements this month and challenge every “What’s that?” charge.
  • Cancel what you don’t need: “Money is coming back into your life tax free.” (Clark, 22:26)
• Memorable Moment:
  • Clark recounts his wife being billed by Yahoo $50/year for a service linked to a 2011 account she no longer used— “It was hard to get Yahoo to acknowledge that they were charging this and get it removed... But we eventually did.” (Clark, 20:58)

4. Listener Q&A: Subscription and Card Issues (22:42 – 27:44)

• Virtual Credit Card Pitfall (22:42):
  • Virtual cards don’t always protect you from recurring annual charges, as one listener learned the hard way with a $99.99 subscription.
  • “Yeah, because yeah, we've recommended virtual card numbers for trial subscriptions assuming that they would not be able to charge on them again because they don't have the number...” (Clark, 23:34)
• Unauthorized Credit Card Charges via Google Pay (23:55):
  • Standard protocol is to issue a new card after fraud. Clark notes this is a pain, but industry standard.
  • “What you did not say... did you get credit for the unauthorized charges?” (Clark, 24:25)
• Small Landlord Credit Checks (25:58):
  • Multiple online services now provide easy credit checks for mom-and-pop landlords; fees can be passed to applicants.
  • Discussion on using bureaus directly vs. landlord services (most use the latter for ease).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Automatic Savings:
  • “Best of intentions don’t get things done. Automatic gets things done.” (Clark Howard, 06:14)
• On Working in Retirement:
  • “Wouldn't it be great if you went to work because it's something you love and you look forward to instead of something you had to go to because you had to have money.” (Clark Howard, 08:29)
• On Forgotten Subscriptions:
  • “Spending money on something you don't even remember you have...is crazy.” (Clark Howard, 20:01)
  • “[My wife] doesn't have a Yahoo account. We went through so much to figure out what it was...It was something she had signed up for...back in 2011.” (Clark, 21:13)
• On Virtual Cards:
  • “We’ve recommended virtual card numbers for trial subscriptions assuming that they would not be able to charge on them again because they don’t have the number. And this says...you got to go back to...using the stored value card for those trials.” (Clark, 23:34)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Time | Details | |----------------------------|-------------------|------------------------------------------------------| | Retirement autopilot intro | 00:52 – 09:37 | The case for automating savings | | Listener: TreasuryDirect | 09:37 – 10:58 | Buying bonds direct vs. brokerage | | Listener: Verizon bank | 10:58 – 12:26 | Partnership savings accounts & cheaper phone plans | | Listener: Dental Tourism | 12:26 – 15:59 | Price, safety, and risk tradeoffs | | Segment: Subscription Creep| 19:31 – 22:42 | Statistics, warning stories, and action steps | | Listener: Virtual Card Sub | 22:42 – 23:55 | Virtual cards & recurring charges | | Listener: Card Fraud | 23:55 – 25:58 | Fraud, recovery, and card replacement annoyance | | Listener: Credit checks | 25:58 – 27:44 | Landlord solutions for tenant screening |

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Tone & Final Takeaway

Clark’s message is upbeat, direct, and laced with anecdotes and humor. He returns frequently to his core philosophy: automate wise financial habits, scrutinize your statements, and keep your money working for you—not leaking away in the background.

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“You control your destiny. You control whether you go to work. You decide if you want to go to work. That's what I want for you—living on less than what you make, so you create those opportunities for yourself.”
— Clark Howard (09:18)

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For more detailed advice or links mentioned, visit Clark.com and submit your questions at www.clark.com/askclark.

Transcript

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[Clark Howard]

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 decision your life. And I want to ask you something today. What is your plan for retirement? You know, if you're driving somewhere, how do you get there? You use navigation, right? If you haven't been there before, use whatever thing you're going to use. Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, whatever you're going to use. But do you know most of us have no map, no guidance on how we're getting to retirement, which means it's always something we put off again and again and again. I want you working on it and I'll tell you why that's important. And later I want you to look over your credit card bills and your checking account statement for something specific you may have forgotten about that's throwing your money away. That's coming later. But right now I want to talk about something that distresses me so much. Over half of older Americans in surveys say they are going to have to work till they die or are physically unable to to go to work. Over half. Now this is a real problem because roughly half of us work at places that don't offer retirement plans. And when you don't work at a place that from when you're young automatically enrolls you. And like we automatically enroll people in our 401k that I have for my company, we enroll them at 6%, we match it with another 6% because I want people saving more than 10% from the first day they start working. What's cool is that when somebody's automatically enrolled. They virtually never, virtually never choose not to participate when they're automatically enrolled. In the history of my company, there's only been one employee who ever contacted HR and said, I want to change my 401k contribution to zero. It's the only time it ever happened because automatic enrollment works. And so you've got a lot of people who are now approaching retirement who grew up in an era where their family, their parents had a pension, where they worked, lived a very smooth, comfortable retirement from an employer provided pension. Pensions are almost non existent now. So people that are older went through this awkward period where the 401k was kind of starting up and people weren't really participating and never were able to get around the to saving money. So who's it up to now? Me, myself and I. That's it. It's who you see in the mirror. I want to tell you the power though of automatic enrollment. For years I've been so ecstatic about a number of states that have set up retirement plans that are mandatory for people who work for businesses that don't offer retirement plans. So these are set up generally where they don't cost the employer any money, but all employees have to be enrolled. And what works out kind of like an ira, but it's mandatory and the money comes out of your paycheck. And already a million people have saved over 2 billion bucks. And there's only five states that have these in operation yet. But Pew Research Project has found that it's already led to a million people who wouldn't have had any money for retirement. Now collectively having this 2 billion. And these are new programs. Now there are more states that came in this year and there should be a simple national retirement plan. What a wish. Instead of all our crazy Alphabet soup with rules that change all the time. But in your situation, if I'm talking to you, you're working somewhere, you're working for yourself and you have no automatic retirement plan you're being pushed into. You do it yourself. You do it yourself where you automatically have money come out of your paycheck and go into a retirement plan. Of course, my favorite is the Roth ira. I'd marry it if that was legal. Love the Roth ira.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Wow.

[Clark Howard]

I mean really, it is such an empowerment thing available from low cost companies like my favorite children. You put the money in, you don't know anything about investing. Put in the target retirement fund for the year closest to when you'd like to retire and you put that money in automatically. Automatic is key. Best of Intentions don't get things done. Automatic gets things done. On the issue of rainy day accounts, automatically, you know, with your paycheck, you can have a diversion, a part of it go into a savings account. You know, some of it goes into your checking account, most of it. The rest goes into a savings account. You build up money. Habits don't just happen at a thin air. They tend to happen best when they're automatic. And it's funny because in this podcast we're talking about automatics that are good and later automatics that are bad. But it shows that in human nature, that's so key. Let's say you're 28 years old. Do you want to be working when you're 88? Okay, let's think about that. And let me tell you, work. You want to become a choice. I'm one of the most privileged and lucky individuals anyone's ever met. I mean, I feel like, you know how some people feel like they're. They have a black cloud following them. I feel like I have sunshine following me every day of my life. I am the luckiest person I've ever known. You have worked hard, but I've been very lucky, too.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

You have.

[Clark Howard]

There are lots of people who've worked hard. I've been true.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

I know, but you also like. Okay, that's fine, I'll stop.

[Clark Howard]

I mean, I, you know, we saved.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

At least 50 of every dollar made, even when you didn't make a lot of money.

[Clark Howard]

That's true. And then, then I shortcutted to my first retirement when I was 31 because I owned my own company that I opened when I was 25, sold it when I was 31, and I retired. And ever since, I've only worked because I wanted to. I'd say that's incredibly lucky and privileged. And maybe I made that privilege, maybe I made some of my luck. But the reality is I've been very lucky. I'm grateful for that. And so I work now, even as an old guy. I work because I love working. That's why I work. Wouldn't it be great if you went to work because it's something you love and you look forward to instead of something you had to go to because you had to have money. And when I think about that, over half of older Americans are going to have to work because they have to, not because they want to. That's really significant. That's why when you're young or younger, I want you saving, saving, saving so that you control your destiny. You control whether you go to Work. You decide if you want to go to work. That's what I want for you, living on less than what you make. So you create those opportunities for yourself. Krista.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

All right, Logan in California says, what are your thoughts on using treasury direct to buy U. S Government bills and bonds? Is it a better choice than just buying them through fidelity or buying a bond fund etf?

[Clark Howard]

Okay, I love this question because this has come up going back decades. You know, people have brought this question up. As long as you don't find hassle and buying treasury direct. Yeah, use the treasury direct program. You'll lose a little bit of your return. Buying through a discounter like fidelity Schwab, something like that. Or don't buy from a full commission stockbroker. Then you're. You're losing a lot of spread. You can buy, you know, a treasury ETF or a variety of treasury funds and just make sure they're very low cost. But there are people who specifically want to own individual issue bonds and so you can build a portfolio extremely easily. Have one simple statement inside a brokerage account like with Fidelity or Schwab. Again, not with any bank based brokerage. They'll rip you off. Or you can do the treasury direct if you don't mind. A little more steps, a few more steps, a little more paperwork.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Chris in New York says, I listen to your podcast every morning while walking. Thank you for all the information. I've learned so much. Recently I received an email from Verizon, our current cell phone provider, regarding teaming up with open bank offering interest at 4.2% on a new savings account and money off your cell phone bill up to $180 off over 12 months. I've not heard of this bank and would love your opinion. Thanks for all you do.

[Clark Howard]

Yeah, they're one of the online banks that are FDIC insured. There's really not a specific problem I'm aware of. Is owned by a big European bank. It's a subsidiary of them and it is from all appearances absolutely a. Okay, so you will save some money, but Verizon is. So if you're trying to save money, Verizon is crazy expensive for cell phone service. And I would look at our cell phone plan guide and see how you can be with one of the Verizon owned discount brands and cut your cell phone bill by easily 50%, more likely 70% and that would put a lot more money in your pocket than staying with name brand Verizon. All the cell phone carriers own their own discount brands and the service is so much cheaper with the discounters.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Bob in Minnesota says I need a dental implant and I'm trying to compare costs from different providers to find the best price. Most offices want me to come in for a consultation and some even charge for it rather than giving me a quote over email. I already have recent X rays and photos from my dentist that I could send, but many places still insist on an in person visit. I have found a few that offer a free second opinion. I've also considered dental tourism overseas. What are your thoughts on dental tourism? Do you have any advice on how I can shop locally for an implant price without having to attend several consultations?

[Clark Howard]

This one's really, really hard because we're talking price reliability, convenience and a major thing being done. Major surgery, major expense. And you're at the Canadian border, I'll tell you that at the Mexican border, people who live in Southern California, Arizona, along the border, all the way through Texas is very common that Americans go to what are referred to as dental cities in border towns along the various US state borders with Mexico and get dental care when they're getting major dental care across the border. Now whenever I've said that I know nothing about dentistry other than I sit in the chair and the hygienist will ask me a question and I try to answer, you know, as I've got all that junk in my mouth. But I know nothing about dentistry as a profession. I can only tell you that price wise people do vote with their wallets very heavily. Now elsewhere in America, people in large numbers fly to San Jose, Costa Rica for dental care. In fact, it's kind of stunning when you walk through central San Jose and you see in English dental practice after dental practice, after dental practice. And so people do go regularly dental tourism because the cost of care here is so expensive. If you have a problem with a dental surgery or a dental treatment, then you've got a real problem. If you had care there, wherever there is, and you come back to Minnesota and then you're having to go to a dentist there to repair what may have been done wrong outside the United States or just no fault of the care, but you have a follow up problem with the care that was provided. So that's a decision you're going to have to make. You can read a lot online about it. Be careful, some of it will be touts rather than real information and local. I would say if you go to dentists that offer free second consultations, do that to redo the things again and say they got to do the x rays again and all that. That sounds like trying to run up a bill on you. So I understand your suspicion of that. A dentist may be able to explain why I'm wrong on that. That's why we have Clark Stinks coming up ahead. I said earlier that I was talking about good automatics. Now straight ahead, I'm going to talk about bad automatics.

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[Clark Howard]

Not talking about a transmission in a car. I'm talking about automatic subscription fees that bill us over and over and over again of all different types. CNET did a survey recently that found that on average, we're spending just under 1100 bucks a year on subscriptions. That's a lot, by the way. The funny thing is, different surveys find that somewhere around a quarter of the subscriptions people sign up for or that they're being billed for, they don't even remember they had them. People don't look at their bills. People do not check their credit card statements when they come in. People don't check their checking account statements when they come in. And ignorance is not bliss. That's your money. That's your money going out the window. You know, who among us doesn't wish they had a little more money in their life for the bills you must pay, the expenses you must have, and then other things you'd like to do? So spending money on something you don't even remember you have that you signed up for is Crazy subscriptions of all different kinds of. And so here's my challenge for you. Even if you won't do it regularly when your statements come in because over the next week you'll have most of your August statements will have shown up for various things. Checking account, any, you know, credit card statements will come in various points through the month of September. But I want you to this month at least go through them and when you see stuff that you're like, what's that? Okay, gotta tell you a crazy one. Told this story last year and if you already heard it, I'm gonna tell it really short right now. My wife was being billed by Yahoo $50 a year. So here's the kicker. She doesn't have a Yahoo account. We went through so much to figure out what it was. It was something she had signed up for when she still used yahoo back in 2011. And man, it was hard to get Yahoo to acknowledge that they were charging this and get it removed. Hard to even reach somebody at Yahoo. It was. It's a tough thing. But we eventually did. So that was 50 bucks a year that was going down a toilet when she wasn't even their customer. Go through your bills and if you find a surprising number of things you're spending money on that you don't want to spend money on and you stopped them, I want you to think about that. Think about that. Money is coming back into your life tax free.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Krista Tim in Florida says virtual credit card warning. We got hit with a surprise subscription fee on one of our cards. It turns out it was for a service we tried but didn't use to watch our six year old granddaughter's T ball game streamed on the web. Good news is we got that resolved and refunded. However, we used a virtual credit card. We set a $20 maximum daily spend on the virtual account number. We were charged 99.99 for an annual subscription.

[Clark Howard]

A hundred bucks. Watch Grandkids T ball game.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

I called customer service. They explained that the daily limit does not apply to subscriptions. I've used this card many times with subscriptions, thinking I was protected. I have two other cards I could have used for online purchases that would give me a slightly higher cashback reward.

[Clark Howard]

Wow. Wow.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

That's good to know with the virtual card numbers.

[Clark Howard]

Yeah, because yeah, we've recommended virtual card numbers for trial subscriptions assuming that they would not be able to charge on them again because they don't have the number. And this says we got to go back to at least with this issuer you got to go back to using the stored value card for those trials.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Len in New York says I have been a user of the Fidelity Visa 2% reward card since it was announced and it's a good credit card. But today I found out it's not all positive. My card received two unauthorized charges from a Google Pay option. When I called the services company that issues the Fidelity card, the only option they gave me was to close my account and send me a new card. Because I use this card everywhere, including PayPal. This is not a good option. Now I'm using a different 2% reward card. What are your thoughts?

[Clark Howard]

Okay, first of all, what you did not say and what you said, Lynn, did you get credit for the unauthorized charges?

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

I can't imagine that Lynn, Len wouldn't have told us if he didn't get credit for.

[Clark Howard]

Okay, so hopefully you did. And that's a freak occurrence because with Apple Pay and with Google Wallet in theory that should not happen. So I have no clue how somebody was able to do unauthorized charges with Google Wallet or somehow manually may have.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Had the credit card number entered it into their own Google Wallet as a.

[Clark Howard]

Pay card that would be on a computer, that would be Google Pay. Google Pay 1, just as Lynn said, that is a mystery. The most important thing is that you looked at your statement, you saw the unauthorized charges and hopefully they were properly removed by Fidelity's processor of their cards or manager of their cards or whatever you call them. And if you don't see any occurrence reoccurrence or anything like that, I would feel comfortable using the Fidelity card again as long as they have properly credited you. I found from hearing from other people changing numbers doesn't necessarily solve the problem with the fraud that's happening with cards.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

But I don't think this is exclusive to Fidelity. Like whenever card number stolen they issue a new card. It's a pain but it always. That's how they.

[Clark Howard]

In this case the card wasn't stolen, right?

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Well, the number, somebody must have the number, right? Okay. Craig in Utah says my wife and I are going to start renting out our mother in law apartment adu that's part of our house. How do we check the credit history of those applying? I hear over and over again how to freeze our own credit and view our own credit history. But how does a creditor review the credit history of another person like a renter?

[Clark Howard]

This is a great question Craig, and very easy. Now so many people are renting out garage apartments or renting out basement in their home. If you Have a basement renting out an ADU accessory dwelling unit. And there are now mom and pop services for mom and pop landlords like you and me that you can check somebody's credit just like you were one of the huge apartment complexes checking people's credit. Nolo has a briefing on it. You can read noo.com they also recommend some services. If you do any kind of Google search or anything like that. You'll find a lot of different small landlord credit check services you can hire. And in your application for somebody renting your adu just like an apartment complex as long as your application comes with a fee. The fee can be for whatever it costs you to check that individual's credit.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

And you can do it with the individual credit bureaus as well. You have to get permission from the tenants.

[Clark Howard]

Right.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

But you can directly pull. Like if you just.

[Clark Howard]

You think that's easier?

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

I don't know. I mean probably not easier but it may be.

[Clark Howard]

Most, most landlords I know use these I know services. There are some.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

I can't believe you. Convenience over price.

[Clark Howard]

I don't think it's cheaper.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Okay.

[Clark Howard]

Going direct to. I think it's free Equifax Transunion. No no no. You're doing a trade line.

[Krista (Caller/Listener)]

Okay.

[Clark Howard]

Request you're paying for that when you are are working. That's how Equifax TransUnion Experian make their money is on fees they charge businesses for access to credit reports if they're doing something free. Somebody there really didn't get enough oxygen one day. That's not what the credit bureaus do. So. But I stand corrected if they do those searches or small landlords for free. Although I would be stunned beyond measure. Anyway, you know what else would be shocking beyond measure? I have a relative who's been trying to reach a human at one of the credit bureaus about a problem with their credit report. It's so amazingly difficult and there's no pressure on them anymore because the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is basically non functional right now. And so the credit bureaus are just unbelievable to deal with as a consumer. Just crazy bad. Even though the law requires that you should be able to speak to a human. The credit bureaus are like who cares what the law is Anyway, enough about that. Have an absolutely wonderful day today and know that we serve you so many different ways including with one on one free advice, something we've been doing since 1993. And you can see how to get that free one on one advice by going to clark.com cac or consumer action center. And we actually talk to you, unlike the credit bureaus, everything we do, every way we serve you, it's all about your empowerment with knowledge. So you can save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. And we'll see you on Wednesday.

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