Krista (2:51)

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Clark Howard (2:53)

Well, maybe I'm wrong.

Krista (2:54)

Maybe I'm wrong.

Clark Howard (2:55)

Maybe you're right, pal.

Krista (3:03)

All right, Greg, in Missouri, we're starting with yours. First, I would like to say that I appreciate the work you do to educate people about personal finance and saving toward retirement, but I think your negative comments about Southwest Airlines stink and are not justified when you compare the benefits they offer to frequent Southwest passengers. A list and a list preferred status who carry the Chase Southwest credit card. The other three major airlines can't compete with my ability to one earn a Companion pass for my spouse to travel anytime I book with points or dollars 2 pick a seat with leg room at the front of the plane for myself and my spouse 3 no fee for carry on bags 4 no fee for check bag 5 free Internet and 62 free drinks only if I'm going on vacation. All these benefits at competitive fares to the other three major carriers. If there's another airline offering those benefits, please share with your audience. I appreciate Southwest's ability to get passengers from point A to point B. Be in a timely manner and I don't see an airport lounge as a benefit worth paying for because I'm at the airport to get somewhere else. Next time the subject of Southwest Airlines comes up, try to keep an open mind and remember that there are many travelers that love Southwest and won't be switching airlines just because they're making a few changes to improve profitability.

Clark Howard (4:20)

Well Greg, thank you for that. And Missouri or Missouri, whichever you prefer to be called, depending on what part of Missouri, Missouri and Missouri. You're from the Show Me State, right? So I have now canceled my Southwest credit card and I'm in show me mode. So I'll see over time if my disappointment in a lot of the changes at Southwest are misplaced and I'll want to reengage this next year. 2026 I've already qualified will be the 21st consecutive year of that. My wife has flown free with me all year long on the Companion pass so I I guess I won't qualify for 27 now that I've ditched the card and living in Missouri. Whether you are close to Kansas City or St. Louis, both are key parts of Southwest reimagined route network and you will benefit quite handsomely from being engaged with Southwest. You're a preferred if you get the two free drinks. I've been a preferred the last several years. I'm going to be a list in 2726 and we'll see what I do. Experiencing it next year if I do in fact go back in. All in or not.

Krista (5:48)

Speaking of airlines, George from North Carolina says Clark, your statements on Delta's $10 billion profit from Amex cards was off. As a long term businessman you should know better. The actual projected revenue, not profit for this year is 8 billion. From the 8 billion in revenue delta has to fly all the people with points around the world, not really that much difference than when you pay cash for a ticket. A $300 ticket is not 300 in profit for Delta. Even assuming double the normal profit margin for an airline on points because many go unused, Delta's actually profit off of Amex is likely in the $1.3 billion range this year. Profit and revenue are not the same.

Clark Howard (6:29)

Completely accurate, completely true. And I would differ with you on two things. One is that I have seen again that Delta's total this year is likely to be 10 billion, not 8 billion in fees they receive from American Express. But the Wall street analysis that I've seen is that about half of that will fall directly to net profit for Delta or roughly 5 billion. So I did overstate it. But it is as best I've been able to gather from everything I've read, the tie in that Delta has with American Express is the most successful of any airline credit card tie in in the world for the stockholders of that airline that it has been an enormous benefit to Delta in terms of profits.

Krista (7:28)

Chris in Florida says Clark, your recent comments on subscriptions for services and cars stunk more than the sweaty workout clothes left in a hot frunk. Frunk is a Tesla's front trunk for everyone. Anyone who doesn't know that as a Tesla owner you should know better. Tesla charges for high speed connection but not for individual functions. Almost everything works without the subscription connection except satellite images on maps, navigation and Bluetooth streaming work offline. Other high bandwidth services work if you provide your own WI fi hotspot. Paying $100 a year for a built in unlimited high speed connection is a convenience. Tesla gets enough bashing. Please don't pile on.

Clark Howard (8:09)

Thank you for that. And so the subscription that is the most discussed is the hundred dollars a month for FSD full self driving. And I'll tell you I've been using the next to most advanced version of the full self drive. It's freaky. I can just put in where I'm going, press one button and sit there all the way to the destination. Surface streets, lane changes, left turns, four way stops. It drives better than I can as a human being and is that worth $100 a month? For me it is. But of course it is a form of subscription. And the car business, since vehicles are migrating to being computers on wheels, having the ability with think about with a phone. You buy a phone and you got all these subscriptions tied in with the phone. That's what cars are going to become.

Krista (9:18)

Greg in California says Clark, you stink worse than a broken New York City sewer main. I keep hearing you rail about the USA not having a national building code and I need to set you straight for context. I'm a Southern California Civil Engineer. First, there's a national building code. It's called the IBC, formerly UBC. IBC and UBC joined forces back in the 90s. Second, we have local standards because the safety requirements in SoCal are very different from Florida. For instance. Many of these local requirements can be traced back to some tragedy that we learned from. Oftentimes loss of life was involved. If we tried to do one code that worked in every area. Buildings and structures would be so over designed they would be financially enviable and those local building codes are there to make you safer. Please do your research and if I'm wrong, Greg stinks Episode Please Tell me why.

Clark Howard (10:12)

Boy, I have gotten a lot of an earful out and about from engineers about what I've said about wanting us to have a streamlined ability for people to do production building that is uniform in factories as a replacement for local building codes. And I lack the expertise as an licensed engineer as you are. I hear you, I hear the others. Because the passion that I sparked on this Krista would blow your mind.

Krista (10:51)

All right. Keith in Oregon says you stink like my 10 year old square wet cleats after football practice. Okay, maybe you don't stink, but I took your advice and applied for the One Pay credit card through Walmart to take advantage of the 5% cash back on Walmart plus purchases immediately after applying and getting the credit card, which I do love the cash back benefits, I start to receive multiple spam phone calls a day. Question Is the card worth it with all the bothersome spam calls? Thanks for your advice over the years. I'm 35 and has listened to you since I was a young child. Begrudgingly with my dad and our rides to town. Now I get to return the favor and torture my my three kids.

Clark Howard (11:28)

Keith, Keith, why are you abusing your three children? As to the spam calls, I've not heard that before. Is that Walmart trying to pitch new things all the time? Share more if you could what it is that's happening from when you get the card.

Krista (11:47)

Or maybe he thinks it's related to when he did the application, that he's just getting more spam calls right now. That's possible too. I'm not sure which it is.

Clark Howard (11:55)

I don't know because I haven't. That's the first I've heard of that complaint from someone.

Krista (12:00)

Okay. Patrick in New York says, clark, you stink worse than a durian fruit on an international flight. One of your viewers was trying to plan an early passport renewal. You stated for passport renewals the State Department has no early deadline and that you cannot renew before. I just got my passport renewed and the state.gov site states a passport must be expiring within one year or have expired less than five years ago. My wife and I love the show. Thank you for all you do.

Clark Howard (12:26)

So why would somebody want to renew when it's more than a year left? I'm going to have to because of the first world problem I have that I've used up all the pages almost in my passport. I think it's that to do the online renewal instead of the old fashioned method. You're limited in that cycle of having less than a year left till it expires or no more than just under five years after it's expired in order to be able to do so. I'll look at that and see if I gave the wrong advice on that.

Krista (13:03)

Okay, I'm going to finish up with Linda from New Hampshire. Linda says, I love my man Clark, but you left out some important information on HSAs in a recent question. I feel like you often leave this out when discussing them. The ideal situation is to use them once you retire for medical benefits. But don't forget to mention the funds can also be withdrawn at any time for medical payments. If you keep receipts, you can get reimbursed for an expense that happened 10 years ago. Just like it's not ideal to remove your Roth contributions just because you can, it might make people feel more comfortable about contributing to their hsa. Keep up the amazing work. Well, mostly. And go Pats.

Clark Howard (13:42)

How about the Patriots are one of the most exciting teams in the NFL this year and they don't have the grumpy fishermen on the sidelines anymore. They've got this coach that just seems so fun and the players so respond to him. They got a great quarterback, so see there? I did it said something nice about the Patriots and they deserve that nice thing. Okay, so you are so right in what you said that this is something almost nobody knows. And that is with an hsa you can have unreimbursed medical expenses through the years. You keep the records of those, let's say later in life you don't need as much money as you thought in retirement. For unreimbursed medical expenses, you can then submit all those prior receipts, as many as you want to, and grab money at any time. It's not like it has to be in lockdown till retirement. It's great if the money stays in there till retirement so it can continue to grow tax free and be spent tax free through the years, invested through the years. So Linda 100% right. But you got to be a good record keeper in order to use that. Coming up ahead, you don't want to be left high and dry with no wheels, right? Well, it was more than a million cars a year being stolen now, fortunately it's less, but it's still a lot. One of the things you need to know to keep your car from being the next one to be stolen.

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Krista (17:01)

Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.

Clark Howard (17:04)

There's no Milo here who picked up my son from school.

Narrator/Actor in Ads (17:07)

Streaming only on Peacock.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (17:11)

I'm gonna need the name of everyone.

Clark Howard (17:13)

That could have a connection. You don't understand.

Krista (17:15)

It was just the five of us. So this was all planned? What are you gonna do? I will do whatever it takes to.

Clark Howard (17:22)

Get my son back. I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other. All her fault.

Narrator/Actor in Ads (17:28)

A new series.

Clark Howard (17:28)

Streaming now only on Peacock. How'd you like some good news today? The theft of vehicles in the United States has dropped and dropped the last few years. I mean, we were in a position in the US that try to imagine this. More than a million vehicles were being stolen each year. So auto thefts are down depending on the state, 20 or more percent. Some states a lot more than that. But there are certain things that you need to know. The vehicles that are stolen the most often. I've got the newest list of the most stolen vehicles. None of them are things you might expect would be most stolen. All right, number one, Hyundai Elantra, followed by Hyundai Sonata, followed by Kia Optima. There's a reason for that. Followed by the Chevy Silverado, the Kia Soul, Then the Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Kia Forte, the Ford F150 and the Kia Sportage. So you might think it would be exotic cars or fancy cars or hot rods or whatever for joyrides. No, thieves are targeting specific vehicles. And the Hyundai's and Kias that I talked about, you may remember this from several years ago. These are older ones. The most recent ones were made like five years ago that had a basic way that the keys worked that made it really easy for criminals to steal the vehicles. That's why you'll see so many people with older Hyundai's and Kias have one of those things on the steering wheel, those bar kind of things that make it impossible to steer it if it is stolen. Chevy Silverado and F150, the Honda Accord, Honda Civic, those have been targets for thieves for years for chop shops that buy them, take them apart, sell the parts. Cars, if taken apart, are much more valuable than they are put together because the value of the parts. But outside of this, those vehicles still account for less than half of vehicles stolen each year. What is the number one thing that will get your vehicle stolen? Okay, this drives me crazy, drives me nuts. How many people go to a convenience store or the dry cleaner or something like that and they leave the car running with the key in the ignition or the fob in the center console? Because most of them now are fobs they're just running in for a second. How long does it take for a crime of opportunity? Somebody sees your vehicle running and they're gone with the wind. Drives police crazy when people like on a silver platter hand a crook their vehicle. And so yeah, the odds that your vehicle is going to be stolen reduced from where they were in recent years, but still, why, why leave that to chance? I mean, lock your vehicle. And if I didn't say what I'm going to say next, I would be really doing a lousy job because police officers all over America would be mad at me if I didn't say don't leave things of value visible in your vehicle where a criminal sees it and bam. They may not steal your car, but they're going to mess up your day. Smashing a window, grabbing whatever it is, the merchandise is gone and now you got to replace a window. No fun at all. So just think about what you're doing or not doing that puts you at risk. And thank goodness I've never had a car stolen. You haven't had that?

Krista (21:44)

No. Thank goodness.

Clark Howard (21:46)

And you've never had a car broken into?

Krista (21:48)

I haven't.

Clark Howard (21:49)

I'm at six and holding six car break ins over the years.

Krista (21:54)

Yes. And why is that, Clark?

Clark Howard (21:56)

My own fault really. Because I don't like to pay for parking. And there are times I've used poor judgment, parking in marginal areas and come back to a lot of glass on the ground and in my vehicle. And yeah, paying for parking would have been cheaper in those six cases.

Krista (22:19)

Sophie in Pennsylvania has a question for you for the man who did that. I'm a 17 year old high school student. I'm planning on going to college next year. I've never had a job, but I have about $300 in cash at my house. I do have a bank account, but my parents run that and I don't have access to it. What do you recommend I do with my money and how can I go about doing this?

Clark Howard (22:40)

So Sophie, the question is, you've got this 300 bucks, you may well be working some in college. 17. So you go in college next year. What I'd like you to do is when you're looking at schools, find out what credit union the campus offers. Most campuses offer credit unions to their faculty, staff and students, but they only tell the faculty and staff that the credit union is available that is also available to the students. I'd like you to open one there. I mean right now. You could open an account if you wanted to, but I wouldn't put a big emphasis on it. But when you are at school you definitely want to have an account. You could also open when you turn 18. You could open an online account with one of the online banks or you could wait till you get to campus as I suggested. Open one with the credit union. Either would be good answers Buddy in.

Krista (23:41)

Wisconsin says Clark, I've been listening to you for years and I value your opinion whether I always agree or not. My wife is 41 and I'm 44. We're basically debt free outside of our mortgage payment and I've been that fantastic awesome. I've been adding to my principal payment every month and I'm about seven years ahead of my 30 year mortgage. My question pertains to the escrow payment I need to make each month and it bothers me how the mortgage company needs to have a specific overage amount each year. That seems a bit excessive. I've been thinking about pulling the escrow from my house payment and setting up a specific savings account to pay my insurance and taxes each year which will allow me to gather the dividends interest for those not using a credit union rather than my mortgage company. What are your thoughts on that approach?

Clark Howard (24:25)

So buddy, great, but you may not be allowed to A lot of mortgage contracts what you signed when you originally took out this loan require that you do the escrow. It's a profit center for the mortgage company and in order to remove it, many will then require you to accept paying a higher interest rate on your existing loan because it's part of their whole business model is ripping you off on the escrow money and they are allowed to. In fact, before rules went into effect, lenders used to way over escrow as a way of making even more money on you. Now they're allowed to collect an amount in excess of what they estimate you're going to owe for taxes and insurance each year, but only by an amount that's about 17% of the estimated amount for a year. So yes, you can ask them but they may not permit you to waive escrow.

Krista (25:36)

Gary in California says love your show and have learned so much from everyone. I want to share something that I haven't heard mentioned about your HSA contributions. You can do a once in a lifetime contribution from your 401k or IRA directly into your HSA. This would be a great way for people to fully fund their contributions. Start investing. So kind of an add on to the Clark stinks about Clark stinks. Yeah.

Clark Howard (25:59)

So Gary, what you're talking about is it is Obscure, but one time in a lifetime you're allowed to take money. You would never want to do it from a Roth ira. It would only be from a traditional and from a 401k. Unless there's a procedure. I don't know, you have to move the money into an Iraq in order to do this, but you're able to fund that year's, that one year's HSA contributions up to the max. You're allowed to put in to an HSA that year from a traditional ira. Here's the advantage and why it's so good. You mentioned this, Gary. For people that are really trying to maximize what you can earn on every dollar. Traditional Iraq later, when you spend the money, all of it's taxed. But this migration, you're allowed one time from traditional IRA into an hsa. As long as the HSA money later is used for medical expenses, you get all the use of that money tax free. It is again, an obscure provision. You have to jump through every hoop. Right? But thank you so much for mentioning it. I've never mentioned it before because I thought, wow, there's so much complication with it and so many rules that I've not ever mentioned it. So take the time. If this is something that Gary's talked about that interests you, read the rule thoroughly about the right ways to do it so the IRS later doesn't disallow it. Gosh, that was a negative way to end because it's really a positive thing you've said. Just do it. Right. And I hope that you have a fantastic Thanksgiving week in front of you. As Krista mentioned at the beginning of this podcast YouTube show, we will be with you on the podcast on Monday and on Thanksgiving eve. But I know that a lot of us are preparing to travel, go, be with family, spend too much time eating, shopping, whatever. If you're not with us next week for our Monday and Wednesday podcast, I want to tell you I hope that your Thanksgiving is everything you hope it to be. And if you're into football like I am, that you really enjoy the full diet of NFL football Thanksgiving Day and through the holiday period, and hope to see you on Monday.

Krista (28:49)

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