Krista (Caller/Listener) (6:12)

Wow.

Clark Howard (6:14)

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) (7:56)

You have.

Clark Howard (7:57)

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

Krista (Caller/Listener) (8:01)

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

Clark Howard (8:04)

I mean, I, you know, we saved.

Krista (Caller/Listener) (8:05)

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

Clark Howard (8:09)

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) (9:37)

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 (9:50)

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) (10:58)

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 (11:23)

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) (12:26)

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 (13:02)

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.

Commercial Announcer (15:59)

Did you know that nearly half of Americans say they would suffer financial hardship if they lost their main source of income? If something were to happen to you, would your family suffer financial hardship? If so, you can fix that today with policygenius. Policygenius makes finding and buying life insurance simple, ensuring that your loved ones have a financial safety net that they can use in case something happens to you, whether to cover debts and routine expenses or even to invest the money and earn interest over time. With Policygenius you can find life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future. Policygenius helps you compare your options by getting quotes from America's top insurers in just a few clicks. To find your lowest price, you can talk to a team of licensed agents who will walk you through the process step by step. They answer questions, handle all the paperwork and advocate for you throughout the process. PolicyGenius lays out all your options clearly. Coverage, amounts, prices and terms. No guesswork, just clarity. Life insurance is a secure form of financial planning and policygenius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace. Policygenius has thousands of five star reviews on Google and trustpilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs. Smart people shop around and Policygenius makes it easier than ever. Go to Policygenius.com to compare quotes from top insurers, get unbiased advice and lock in coverage that fits your budget. Save time, save money, protect your family. That's policygenius.com did you know the term.

Don McDonald (17:32)

Financial advisor is utterly meaningless? Anyone can pretend to be one, including commissioned stockbrokers and insurance agents. Are you aware that even professionals trying to beat the market by picking stocks or timing have been shown on average to return less over time time than index funds. Are you looking for a podcast that will give you sane, simple, consumer centric advice about managing your Money? I'm Don McDonald and my co host Tom and I invite you to listen to Talking Real Money on this and every podcast service. We promise to tell you the hard truths about money and investing because the truth will set you free to build a better future. We advocate for investors, not the financial industry. Plus, we think you'll be entertained in the process. Make Talking Real Money your source of fiscal truth when you're finished with this podcast, just search for Talking Real Money. You have almost nothing to lose and a secure financial future to possibly gain. Visit talkingrealmoney.com or search for Talking Real Money.

Commercial Announcer (18:30)

This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies so you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions? And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on creditworthiness rates as of July 1, 2025 terms and more@applecard.com what's a bad automatic?

Clark Howard (19:31)

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) (22:42)

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 (23:10)

A hundred bucks. Watch Grandkids T ball game.

Krista (Caller/Listener) (23:14)

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 (23:29)

Wow. Wow.

Krista (Caller/Listener) (23:31)

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

Clark Howard (23:34)

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) (23:55)

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 (24:25)

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) (24:34)

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

Clark Howard (24:38)

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) (25:00)

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

Clark Howard (25:03)

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) (25:48)

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 (25:55)

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

Krista (Caller/Listener) (25:58)

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 (26:20)

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) (27:23)

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

Clark Howard (27:28)

Right.

Krista (Caller/Listener) (27:29)

But you can directly pull. Like if you just.

Clark Howard (27:31)

You think that's easier?

Krista (Caller/Listener) (27:33)

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

Clark Howard (27:35)

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

Krista (Caller/Listener) (27:40)

I can't believe you. Convenience over price.

Clark Howard (27:43)

I don't think it's cheaper.

Krista (Caller/Listener) (27:44)

Okay.

Clark Howard (27:45)

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

Krista (Caller/Listener) (27:51)

Okay.

Clark Howard (27:51)

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.

Audi Commercial Announcer (29:59)

Listen. That's the sound of the fully electric Audi Q6E Tron. The sound of captivating electric performance, dynamic drive and the quiet confidence of ultra smooth handling. The elevated interior reminds you this is more than an EV. This is electric performance. Redefined. The fully electric Audi Q6 etron.