11.14.25 Batteries Not Included / Multigenerational Living

Summary

The Clark Howard Podcast

Episode: 11.14.25 – "Batteries Not Included / Multigenerational Living"
Date: November 14, 2025
Host: Clark Howard

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Clark Howard dives into two major topics impacting consumers: the trend of “batteries not included” in toys and electronics due to shrinkflation, and the resurgence of multigenerational living, especially adult children moving in with parents. The episode also features the regular Q&A with Team Clark and listeners, covering personal finance topics like buying gold, credit card safety after a spouse’s death, device privacy, using debit cards, investing windfalls for kids, and resolving disputes with retailers.

Clark’s signature blend of practical advice and amicable frankness is on full display, providing listeners both guidance and actionable tips on saving money and navigating evolving consumer trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Shrinkflation Hits Batteries in Toys & Electronics

[00:27–05:23]

• Main insight: More toys and electronics are now sold “batteries not included” as a cost-saving measure for manufacturers and retailers.

• Clark warns about the high markups on batteries at retail chains, especially drugstores like CVS and Walgreens:

  “If you ever did the math to see how much they charge per battery…it’s not like you’re trying to buy the entire Duracell plant.” — Clark Howard [02:18]

• Money-saving advice:

  • Buy batteries in bulk, especially private label/store brands from BJ’s, Sam’s Club, or Costco.
  • Sam’s Club offers broader battery variety (AA, AAA, 9V, C, D).
  • Costco’s Kirkland Signature batteries (AA, AAA) are made by Duracell and are often cheaper than Duracell, even when Duracell is on sale.

  “Even on sale, the Duracells are much more per battery than the KS’s. And guess who makes the KS’s? Duracell.” — Clark Howard [04:31]

• Listener experience:
  A caller describes buying Kirkland (KS) batteries in bulk, only to find them corroded later—emphasizing check the expiration date.

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2. Listener Q&A: Finance, Tech, and Security

[05:57–13:41]

Gold as an “Investment”

• Clark clarifies:

  “Gold is not an investment. Gold is a hedge…. It’s reasonable for that to be a hedge in your portfolio of 5 to 10%. But it’s not an investment, because an investment is when you’re putting money into something that creates value.” [06:12]

• Gold’s rise is linked to “debasement theory” and macroeconomic fears, not inherent value creation.
• Historical reference: “Silver just got back to where it was in what year? 1980. It took 45 years for silver to get back.” — Clark [07:54]

Smart Devices & Two-Factor Authentication Privacy

• Listener asks about privacy when two-factor codes are pushed from phone to watch via the Zepp app.
• Clark: No known breaches with health app transmissions—no need to worry unless evidence arises.

  “I’ve never ever heard of a breach happening with any of the apps that transmit this… I would not worry so much about that.” [09:45]

Credit Card Safety After a Spouse’s Death

• Listener warns: credit cards in a spouse’s name often leave surviving spouses with no credit, even after decades as an authorized user.
• Clark’s rule: Always have two lines of credit, in each adult’s own name, from different institutions, not just different cards.

  “Credit in each person’s name. Noah’s Ark Rule: two different forms of credit in each person’s name, not from the same financial institution.” [11:41]

• Example: Citibank outage left people with multiple cards from one issuer stranded.

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3. Multigenerational Living: Navigating Adult Children Returning Home

[15:30–20:36]

• Context: Surge in adult children living with parents, often driven by unaffordable housing markets.

  “It’s not necessarily that the kids want to live under your roof. It’s that they can’t afford to have their own.” — Clark Howard [15:37]

• Opportunities & Challenges:

  • Can be positive (family togetherness), or negative (parents feeling taken advantage of).
  • Set ground rules for rent, chores, guests, and shared expenses to maintain boundaries.
  • If living rent-free, consider making that conditional on saving toward eventual independence (e.g., down payment for a house).

• Practical tips:

  • Put the agreed-upon rules in writing—avoid unspoken expectations and resentment.
  • Reciprocate with chores if adult child is unemployed.
  • Be fair both to yourself and your child, avoid regressing child to their teenage habits.

  “You don’t want to be run over by your own kid… because your kid may go back into child mode even though they’re an adult.” — Clark [18:36]

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4. More Listener Q&A

[20:36–25:39]

Debit Card Risks and Rewards

• Listener touts PayPal debit card for 5% cash back.
• Clark’s warning: Never use a debit card at the gas pump by swiping—too susceptible to “skimmers."
  • If using tap-to-pay, debit is safe.

  “This is a never, never, never, not ever rule. You don’t use a debit card, pay at the pump… where you just slide the card.” [21:52]

Treating Kids Fairly With Windfalls (529 Plans vs. UTMA/UGMA)

• Listener wonders if “Trump account” windfall for new baby should be matched for sibling into 529 or UTMA/UGMA.
• Clark’s advice: Stick with 529—better for college savings and more favorable for financial aid. UTMA/UGMA in child’s name counts heavily against them for aid.
  • 529s now can convert up to $35K into Roth IRA if unused for college.

The Power of the Better Business Bureau (BBB)

• Listener Joe shares two stories where BBB complaints quickly resolved months-long customer service battles.

  “Within an hour, the retailer called me directly and credited the full amount that same day.” — Listener Joe [24:36]

• Clark strongly supports the BBB (especially with larger bureaucratic companies), and reminds that state Departments of Consumer Affairs can also help if you’ve been outright defrauded.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On store-brand batteries:

  “Don’t waste your money. Buy the store brand.” — Clark Howard [04:40]

• On credit self-reliance after bereavement:

  “Each party, partner, spouse, whatever—you each need to have your own credit…” — Clark Howard [11:41]

• On raising adult children at home:

  “You got to set rules… because you don’t want to feel unwelcome in your own house, or feel like going home… you don’t want to go home…” — Clark Howard [17:40]

• On helping with consumer disputes:

  “Learning from each other, empowering each other with knowledge is absolutely awesome.” — Clark Howard [25:32]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Shrinkflation/Batteries Not Included: [00:27–05:23]
• Gold as an Investment/Caller Q&A: [05:57–08:30]
• Device Privacy Concerns: [08:30–10:29]
• Credit Card Safety After Loss: [10:29–13:41]
• Multigenerational Living: [15:30–20:36]
• Debit Card Advice: [20:51–22:24]
• 529 vs. UTMA/UGMA for Children: [22:24–24:08]
• BBB Power Stories: [24:08–25:39]

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Tone & Style

Clark’s tone is warm, knowledgeable, and infused with gentle humor and practical consumer wisdom. He consistently encourages empowerment through information, self-advocacy, and shared community learning.

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking actionable consumer advice, family finance tips, and guidance through the modern consumer landscape—all with Clark Howard’s trusted, approachable voice.

Transcript

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Clark Howard]

It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the card show. You know our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And I know it's Friday, but we're skipping Clark Stinks this week. Blame Krista. No, I explained the other day. We've ended up with an imbalance of way too many questions waiting to be answered versus the number of Clark Stinks posts. So Clark Stinks will be back next Friday. But we're going to do a normal Q and A today. And I'm going to talk about Shrinkflation, something affecting toys and electronics this Christmas holiday season. And I'm going to tell you what to do about it. And later, multiple generations living under one roof, common around the world used to be common in the US but it's back here. How do you navigate having an adult child or children living under your roof? We're going to talk that through. So manufacturers of small electrical and electronics items and toys where batteries used to be included more often than not, really, very, very often, no batteries included anymore. It's a way of manufacturers and retailers trying to hold down the price point of an item, but at the same time giving you less with it to try to get back some margin. So this is just a thing. And you know, we're under pricing pressures, obviously. And so what's the worst thing you can do is be in Best Buy or Target or Walmart or any local store and they say, would you know that's going to need batteries? Need to buy batteries for that, the battery price markup. Oh, I love to pick on cvs. Right? CVS and Walgreens. Oh man. If you ever did the math to see how much they charge per battery when you buy them at one of the drugstore chains. I mean, it's not like you're trying to buy the entire Duracell plant. You were just trying to buy some batteries. So what I want you to do is understand this is what's going on, that the cost of batteries is something that you want to prepare to hold down since so many items are coming, batteries not included. So if you buy them. You could buy. If you're a big Amazon shopper, you could buy their Amazon Basics batteries. But the best place to buy batteries is by the private labels from BJ's Wholesale, Sam's Club or Costco. Now Sam's Club in particular Costco does private label only. Double A, triple A. Sam's Club sells them in a wider variety battery types. So if you got something that's going to run on 9 volt, you can buy those members, mark, whatever it Is, pretty much Cs, Ds, whatever. They will tend to have them in the Sam's Club, not in Costco and BJ's more like Sam's on that. But buy the batteries in bulk. Buy private label and you're going to save money. Now want to talk about Costco for a second? They had Duracells on sale recently and I was standing there watching people because they had the Duracells end cap on sale for the double A's and AAA's. If you calculate what people are paying per battery on sale and then just to the side of them in the aisle, not at the end cap, they had the Kirkland Signature, the KS Double A's and AAA's. Even on sale, the Duracells are much more per battery than the Ks's. And guess who makes the KS's Duracell. It's one of the few items at Costco that it's leaked out who actually makes the product for them. Don't waste your money by the store brand.

[Caller/Listener]

I have to say I did buy a lot of Ks batteries a while ago and I hadn't used them on. I just recently went to look for one and I have them in a bin. They were all like. Yeah, like had white stuff on them and it was gross mold.

[Clark Howard]

I don't know. Well, I mean their Ks, if they were still in date, you know they have a date on them, you can walk them right back.

[Caller/Listener]

I didn't know they had a date on them. They're probably not in date. That's probably the problem. If you don't need that many batteries, it might not be worth it. Oh boy. Don't look at me like that. All right?

[Sponsor Announcer]

What?

[Caller/Listener]

I'm starting out with a question that's really a Clark stinks just to make everyone happy. It didn't come in the Clarkston form, so I threw it in here. This is from Paul in Illinois. We invested in gold three years ago. Can you admit your mistake on this investment?

[Clark Howard]

So gold is not an investment. Gold is a hedge. And Gold, as I've said in the past, having money in precious metals or commodities, it's reasonable for that to be a hedge in your portfolio of 5 to 10%. But it's not an investment, because an investment is when you're putting money into something that creates value based on somebody having a new product, a new service, an invention, whatever. Gold is a store of value. And gold, you're betting against bad times. In this case, gold has gone way up because of what's known as debasement theory. That the way we're running budget deficits in the United States and things that the government might do to try to reduce the obligations of the country by debasing the value of the dollar gives people. It's another reason, yet another reason to go for safe harbor and hedge against potential trouble out there. And so gold has had a big run up. Did I make a mistake? So I would say you said you used the word investing. Investment.

[Caller/Listener]

That's what you. Yeah, that's what Paul said. Paul.

[Clark Howard]

So, Paul. I don't see it as an investment to this moment. Yes, it's had an incredible return. Does it stay up there? As we know with silver and gold in the past, it can go way up when there's times of unrest, uncertainty, anxiety out there, and then it can come back down. Silver just got back to where it was in what year? 1980. It took 45 years for silver to get back to where it was before. Am I going to say something like that it's going to happen with gold? No, but I'm saying that's why it's a small part of what you do as like a defensive measure against uncertainty or anxiety, not an investment.

[Caller/Listener]

Mark in California says after hearing Clark talk about his smart devices, I decided to get the. I'm not even sure if how you.

[Clark Howard]

Say the Amaze fit.

[Caller/Listener]

Amaze Fit is how you say it.

[Clark Howard]

They get that from usually from Amazon. They're very affordable.

[Caller/Listener]

I don't know if the measurements are accurate, but I really like the features of the Zepp app that works with this watch. It has helped me track my exercise routines, my diet and my sleep. One of the features of the watch is that it receives text messages that are sent to my phone. Very convenient when my phone is out of reach. However, I'm concerned about the privacy of the text messages sent to my watch, including the two factor codes. Whenever I'm accessing my financial accounts from my computer, the app is just forwarding the information from the phone to my watch. But can I trust the app? Should I disable the receipt of text messages to protect who can see my codes? The codes are usually only good for a few minutes, but it still makes me nervous that they're being forwarded by a third party app.

[Clark Howard]

So first of all, I'm glad you you're enjoying the amaze fit. It is quite a deal for somebody who wants to tiptoe into being obsessive like I am with all my trackers.

[Caller/Listener]

I've got a Samsung watch and I do receive text messages on it and I never even thought about that. I'm like, oh good, I can get my car.

[Clark Howard]

I have never. It doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, but I've never ever heard of a breach happening with any of the apps that transmit this. Like you get to your Samsung watch in addition to your phone and you're not on a Samsung phone, you're on a Pixel phone. Right. I've never heard of any problem with that. So I would not worry so much about that until and unless we hear. Clark, why'd you say that this could happen? That happened. This did happen. But I've never heard of a problem involving the two factor authentications coming to a health app watch or anything like that.

[Caller/Listener]

Linda in Florida says, Clark, please do all women and some men a service. My friend's husband died recently. They had a joint credit card and she had paid the bills on it for 25 years. But when she called the credit card company to report his death and get the card transferred to her name, you guessed it, the they closed the card immediately and told her she would have to reapply for a new card. Even though she had been the main user and bill payer, the card was apparently in his name and she was an authorized user. Fortunately, she did have another card in her name, but that may not have been the case. Can you please discuss this and warn everyone that they should have a credit card in their own name only?

[Clark Howard]

Yeah, I mean, I remember when my dad died in the 1980s that I did this on radio about what happened to my mom, because when my dad died, my mom was in the same position. She had never had a credit card in her own name. She had only been a second on a card that my dad had. And so that's something I talked about back then. And my mom said, make sure you tell every woman out there to make sure she has her own credit. So, mom, even though you've been deceased a long time, I will say it right now, and this is a hundred percent true, Linda, that each party partner, spouse, whatever. You each need to have your own credit because it doesn't have to be something like a couple splitting, a divorce, whatever it can be, a loved one passes away and not only you're grieving that you got no credit. So remember, credit in each person's name. Noah's Ark Rule two different forms of credit in each person's name, not from the same financial institution. So if you think you're okay having a visa or MasterCard from the same bank or credit union, no, you want them from different financial institutions. So if one decides they don't like you anymore, you still have the other. If they're both from the same place, they might shut you down from both. As I don't know if I mentioned recently, there was a big mess up at Citibank and people had multiple credit cards with Citibank. They all went dead at the same time and people couldn't use them for weeks and weeks and weeks. And Citibank has now finally apologized. But that is another danger of using cards only from one financial institution. Coming up ahead, so many of us under our roof, having our kids, our aging parents, whatever. Good thing, great thing, bad thing, combination of all those. We're going to talk about that.

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[Clark Howard]

So kids moving in with their parents, adult kids. It is a absolute huge spike over the last many years. And there's an easy explanation. It's not necessarily that the kids want to live under your roof. It's that they can't afford to have their own roof over their heads. In a lot of cities in these large metro areas, not only is it not affordable for your adult children to buy a house, in a lot of cases they can't even afford rent. So they're under your roof. And a lot of times you have the room in your house. You got extra bedrooms, you got the bedroom they grew up in. Maybe. So there are circumstances where this is awesome for the parent, for the adult child. You love being together, you love seeing each other. And then there are other situations where you feel put upon as the parent, as the homeowner and your adult child's eating your food, leaving messes and coming and going like they're staying in a hotel and you're the one taking care of them. So this is such a thing now. I mean, the most number of adult children living under their parents roof, like I don't even know how many, if we've got to go back a hundred years, how far we have to go back maybe, maybe 100 years ago that this was such a common thing. So as a parent you got to set rules, you got to have agreed upon rules. Does your adult child pay rent? Do they pay a portion of utilities? Do they pay a portion of the groceries? I mean, what is it you want it to be? Are they allowed to have overnight guests? They allowed to have parties? What rules are there because you don't want to feel unwelcome in your own house or feel like going home. Let's say you go home from work and you don't want to go home because of what you're going to find with mess in the sink, you know, the kitchen sink, the refrigerator is empty because your kid ate everything in it. So you said about rules and let's go to the housing thing. If the reason the kid is at Home as an adult is because they can't afford to rent a place or they're trying to buy a house. Well, if they're living, let's say you let them live rent free under your roof or you charge them rent is a mandatory form of savings. But a lot of times if somebody doesn't have an automatic bill, they've got to pay that monthly bill. The money just kind of goes into the Ethereum. And they might spend 300amonth at Starbucks. That could have been so little money. If they made that cup of coffee in your kitchen before they left in the morning, they might have $300 to save to put towards savings or to put towards a down payment on a house. So having some kind of guideline of rules that need to be in writing that you both agree to and with, I think is, is something you should do because you don't want to be run over by your own kid. By that I mean that you're taken advantage of because your kid may go back into child mode even though they're an adult and they're like, well, I used to just leave my room a mess. I used to just eat whatever. I used to do these things. Why can't I do them now? Because they're an adult and hopefully they're out there working, earning a decent paycheck. And I mean, obviously if you're working and your child who's the adult is living with you because they lost their job, then you trade out chores and responsibilities for them living under your roof because they're not working, they got the time. And instead of you having to do all those things, they do. And I know I'm ignoring a lot of family dynamics right now. I'm just trying to focus on making sure that you are fair to yourself as well as being good to your adult child.

[Caller/Listener]

All right, let's go to questions.

[Clark Howard]

By the way, I know that all sounded like I've had bad experiences with my adult children taking advantage. Thank goodness I didn't. Don't. Whatever.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay. Andrew in Iowa says, happy football season. Clark. An easy money saving strategy I've found is the PayPal debit card. It gives 5% cash back on selected category like groceries, gas, or dining. My wife and I use it for groceries as that's where we spend the most as well as being the safest place to use a debit card. But since there's two of us, we're going to get a second one to take advantage of the second category. I've heard there's some risk in using debit cards for gas or dining, how concerned should we be? Isn't that risk quite minimal with a card separate from our bank? 5% back is hard to pass up.

[Clark Howard]

Yeah. So I'd say at the gas pump it is a disaster to use a debit card because of the skimmers that are so present now. If the Debit card from PayPal comes with tap to pay and most pay at the pump now has tap to pay that is safe to use a debit card at. The tap to pay system is a modern technology. The, the, the thing where you slide your card that they still have have had at so many gas pumps is a technology from the 1960s and not secure safe at all. So no one should ever, ever use a debit card. This is a never, never, never, not ever rule. You don't use a debit card, pay at the pump at a gas station where you just slide the card.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay. Neva in North Carolina says we have a baby girl due next month and it looks like she'll be receiving an extra baby gift in the form of a trump account. Thanks fellow taxpayers. We already have a two year old son and I'd like to keep things as even as possible among our kids. Amongst our kids. Should I simply add a bonus of $1000 to his 529 or should I put $1000 in a brokerage account, UTMA, UGMA, etc. I like the idea of a separate non 529 account, partly to keep things as similar as possible between the kids and partly because I could definitely see a car being the first major purchase either of them makes.

[Clark Howard]

So the UTMA and ugma, the problem with them in a kid's name is that if in your family culture college is part of what you're going to do, the treatment for financial aid is really ugly when a kid has money in an UTMA or ugma. So even though it on the surface looks like it's somehow more fair, I would just pop the thousand in the 529 account. The beauty of the 529 is it is so tax friendly for accumulating money for college. Tax free growth tax free spending, and then ultimately a conversion to a Roth IRA for money left over up to under current law, 35 grand migrating from the 529 tax free into the Roth tax free, which then grows tax free and ultimately spent tax free in retirement by the kids. That's what I would do is just throw that thousand and the 529. Keep it simple.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay. And then Joe in New Jersey says, I'm a longtime listener and I wanted to share two experiences that may help your audience, both of which I learned from your show. The first involves the power of the Better Business Bureau. My wife ordered a heavy mirror from a large online retailer and they arranged installation through a third party handyman service. A few days later, the mirror fell, thankfully without breaking. And yeah, the seller told us it.

[Clark Howard]

Must have been a well made mirror, that it didn't break when it fell.

[Caller/Listener]

I know the seller told us to deal with the installer for a refund of the $65 installation fee, but. But the installer kept pointing back to the big company. After three months of back and forth with both companies and no resolution, I filed a Better Business Bureau complaint. Within an hour, the retailer called me directly and credited the full amount that same day. Similarly, my daughter discovered multiple fraudulent charges on her health care account claims for vaccinations in California. Even though she lives in New Jersey. Despite repeated calls, she made no progress in getting them removed. She then filed a BBB complaint and within two hours a senior representative called acknowledged the issue. Two hours for two weeks to investigate. Two weeks later, the charges were confirmed as fraudulent and removed. These experiences showed us how effective the BBB can be when companies aren't responsive. Another valuable but often overlooked resource is your state's Department of Consumer Affairs. They can step in when small businesses commit fraud. For example, contractors who take your money but don't deliver, saving you the hassle of going through small claims court.

[Clark Howard]

Thank you very much for taking the time to write about those things. Thank you. There are more than a handful, but certainly not a majority of states have effective state consumer affairs offices. And I fail to mention that often enough. And I want to thank you for mentioning it. And I want to thank you for mentioning the success using the Better Business Bureau. The BBB is something that I find that so many people don't even know it's out there. What it does you and the Better Business Bureau is really kind of a libertarian answer. We don't need government to clean up our own house. In capitalism, we'll clean it up ourselves. My experience that you'll find again and again is if you're dealing with a corporate bureaucracy, oftentimes nothing gets done. So you file the complaint through the Better Business Bureau. And if it is a legitimate company that's just not doing a good customer service job, then the Better Business Bureau can get results. If you're dealing with a crook filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau is not going to help. But particularly with big bureaucratic companies, the BBB complaints tend to work very, very well. All you do is you go to bbb.org and I want to thank you so much, Joe. You're a perfect example. When I talk about all of us being in this together, all of us helping each other, guiding each other, giving feedback to each other, because it's hard enough fighting these battles alone and not knowing what to do, but learning from each other, empowering each other with knowledge is absolutely awesome. And I thank you so much for that. And my goal for you, have an absolutely fantastic weekend this weekend. And I'll be watching my football, of course, but have a great one. You know, I don't like it's dark this time of year, so, so early. But you know, I've only got three and a half more months till we get more daylight. So enjoy what daylight we have right now and thanks for being with us. And we'll be at your service on Monday.