← The Clark Howard Podcast
The Clark Howard Podcast
12.17.24 Airport Car Theft / The Real Consumer Victory At Supermarkets
00:32:58
Airport Car Theft / The Real Consumer Victory At Supermarkets
Loading summary
Transcript30 lines
- [00:00]
Apple Representative
Apple Card is the perfect card for your holiday shopping. You can apply on your iPhone in minutes and start using it right away. You'll earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including products at Apple like a new iPhone 16 or Apple Watch Ultra. Start holiday shopping for your friends and family today with Apple Card subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and.
- [00:23]
Amazon Representative
More@Applecard.Com this episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime.
- [00:28]
Amazon Prime User
There's nothing sweeter than baking cookies during the holidays. With Prime I I get all my ingredients delivered right to my door, fast and free. No last minute store trips needed. And of course I blast my favorite holiday playlist on Amazon Music. It's the ultimate soundtrack for creating unforgettable memories from streaming to shopping. It's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into.
- [00:57]
Clark Howard
It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. And we are right in the middle of the holiday season. I just want to express my gratitude to all the generous souls who have donated for Clark's Christmas Kids this year, prior years or may in the future, even as soon as right now, because Clark's Christmas Kids is near and dear to my heart. It's our 34th year of collecting your donations for children in foster care who generally aren't going to get any gifts Christmas morning unless we step up to do it. These are kids whose parents have personal circumstances that their kids have been taken away from them and they're in the care of the state through either a foster group home or with a foster parent or family. And they feel rejected by their own parents. But it's the parents who've got the issues, not the kids. I want these kids to know that they are cared about and loved by an absolute stranger. So you can help and understand what we do @clarks christmas kids.com and I want to talk about something that is so confusing to people. For months and months and months there's been endless talk about this fight over the merger of Kroger and Albertsons. It was this huge antitrust thing. Court said no. And now Albertsons is suing Kroger and all this stuff. But the thing is, why would it matter to you? I'm going to share that with you later. Right now though, I want to talk about the shocking stats about how many cars are being stolen right now and some of the weird places they are being stolen. Okay, so, gosh, I don't remember if it was in the spring or early summer. I talked about this big uptick in vehicle thefts in Colorado that were centered at DIA Denver Airport. The trend is not, you're my friend. Because now this is spreading from sea to shining sea at airports. You know, people go. And particularly during a holiday period like now, people may go away for many, many days. Business travelers during normal travel cycle, more hit or miss. They may be gone and back the same day or just an overnight. So it's a little riskier for a car thief, but especially during a holiday period. They're running off with cars now. More and more brands, if you have a late model vehicle, will have an app that notifies you if your car is moving. And there was recently a situation with the mom of a friend of my daughter, my oldest daughter, who was robbed at gunpoint in a parking lot, and the thief carjacked her. She was able to track the thief with the police there, and they were able to arrest, catch and arrest the individual who'd stolen the vehicle. How were they able to do that? Well, because the thief stole the woman's purse and steals the car. And what was in the purse but the woman's iPhone. And with Find My iPhone, the police were able to track this woman in the stolen car. And the woman crossed two other jurisdictions, and the police are working, believe it or not, by phone with the other jurisdiction, and they're able to do a roadblock and they capture a woman who had been a multiple, had stolen a lot of stuff, a lot of cars, all this. And police have been looking for. They got her. The tracking in the iPhone. So now we're talking about carjacking is really traumatic. But coming back from a trip and you're like, I thought I parked on level three. I thought I was over there. And your car's not there. And it may be because it's been stolen. And this is like a serious thing. So if you have a car that you can track on an app, great. If you don't, they're so cheap. Now, if your iPhone get air tags, if your Android get the equivalent Samsung or whoever put them, hide them in your car. Because remember, like 20 years ago, there was a big deal about this thing, LoJack, to keep your car from being stolen. It wouldn't keep it from being stolen, but it would be recovered almost 100% of the time because he had this device in the car that would track where it was well, now instead of cost, something like that, you put a $25 airtag in it or Samsung or whatever equivalent, a tile, whatever. Do you use any of those?
- [06:37]
Co-host or Caller
No, I need to.
- [06:39]
Clark Howard
No, I wasn't asking that. I just mean because my family, again, being all Apple. Yeah, they all love their air tag either.
- [06:48]
Co-host or Caller
Yeah, my family members who are Apple have air tags for sure. Okay, we'll go to questions now. Alex in California says, I received a letter from my state controller notifying me of some unclaimed money from a class action lawsuit regarding a previous employer. The letter looks legitimate and even provides a.gov site for me to look up and verify the amount. In this case, around $150. My only concern is I need to provide them my Social Security number. Is this a normal procedure for them to do for $150? I'm not sure if that's enough to risk my Social Security number falling into the wrong hands.
- [07:22]
Clark Howard
Alex, it is. So, okay, you know that you fill out the paperwork, you're going to get $150 and then there's the remote chance that someone will take that Social Security information and do harm to you. Hopefully you already have your credit frozen because your Social Security number and data breaches has already been leaked again and again and again. So that's why credit freeze is so important. But I feel comfortable doing it. And you were lucky that you were informed by the controller of the state of California this money was there for you. Most of us aren't going to have our state reaching out to and say, hey, we got some money for you. So know about unclaimed.org which is a clearinghouse site that's legitimate that tells you in most states, money that may be hanging out there for you or a loved one that you didn't know about.
- [08:17]
Co-host or Caller
Okay, this one's from Christopher in Oregon. I have been a loyal Costco traveler for many years using the Costco Visa card and travel website. They seem to add value to trips and the packaging is nice. However, in 2025, my wife and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary and would like to take a special vacation this summer. We are considering getting the Chase Sapphire reserve card with the points bonus and upgrades like lounges. We thought it might be worth a try, basically for one big trip. I know the fees are high, but we should get our money's worth and could cancel the card. Our credit score is in the 800s and we have no debt except our mortgage. We don't anticipate any other debt or major purchases. So the hit of canceling the card would be okay. What are your thoughts?
- [09:00]
Clark Howard
I think it's great Christopher. And compare the benefits of the three bigs of the independent travel cards and your circumstance. And congratulations on your 25th wedding anniversary. It was a big splurge, doing a big trip and getting either the Sapphire Reserve, the Capital One Venture X or the American Express Platinum all with their huge fees, you get such great sign up bonuses and so the first year is kind of a no brainer. And then the benefits you get, it could really pay off for you on this very special vacation you're taking. And no harm, no foul, this is a great thing. But compare all three to see which one's best. The Capital One is 395, the Chase as I recall is 550 and the American Express is 700 annual fee each have their own separate benefit packages. See which one looks like it has the best return for your money. Now I want to say something about the Costco thing. If you're booking something with Costco Travel, there is a problem with the Costco Visa. Now that didn't used to exist. Citi ripped away from Costco members the trip cancellation, trip interruption coverage that came with using the card to book travel. And now it makes sense to have another card that does come with rock solid trip insurance coverage. Although any trip insurance policy, the insurer seems to try to find a way not to want to pay. But the Sapphire Reserve, one of the benefits people don't recognize with that card that's great is the trip coverage you have with it and the car rental coverage you have with it. That makes it for a regular traveler, potentially a really good card to carry.
- [10:59]
Co-host or Caller
Jim in Missouri says when shopping for homeowners and auto insurance, would I need to unfreeze my credit first? I thought you mentioned that many insurance companies would base a quote on credit score, but so far no companies have said anything about credit score. When I've applied I have a very good score and want to make sure I'm going to get the best price quotes.
- [11:16]
Clark Howard
So in almost every state now the number one criteria for setting your auto insurance premiums and potentially homeowners is your credit score. Well, it's not a traditional credit score, it's your credit report that then has an industry formula. So it's insurers in most states are allowed what's known as a soft hit where even if your credit's frozen, they can get a sense of what's going on with your credit. But my recommendation is to do your shopping for homeowners or auto insurance in a concentrated period and thaw your three credit files for, let's say 72 hours or something like that so that you don't have to worry that you're paying discriminatory rates for your auto or homeowners insurance because your credit is frozen and so the temporary thaw is free. It's easy to do, however, if you are turned down for an auto insurance policy or homeowner insurance policy or they charge you higher rates because they didn't have access to your credit report, the insurer is supposed to disclose that to you. I say supposed to and we do have a briefing on this. We actually have an article titled Do I need to Unfreeze my Credit to Shop for car insurance? On clark.com but just take it from me that in the states that allow and you can look online easily find what states allow insurers to set your rates for auto and homeowners based on your credit score or credit report. Set down a time couple days in a shop, auto or homeowners, or both, and thaw your credit for those days. Let them run that on you and then you'll be fine. It goes back frozen after those couple days and you'll get the preferential rates that people may get based on their credit standing. And by the way, it is bonkers. But if you've got bad credit, insurers will in many states charge you more for auto insurance with a perfect driving record than somebody with a great credit score who has a DUI or dwi. That is nuts to me. And coming up next, I want to talk about your grocery dollar. Your grocery dollar became like a grocery 25 cents. It felt like through inflation. But there's been a big fight about your grocery dollar that I want to talk about straight ahead and how you should play the grocery game.
- [14:07]
Apple Representative
Apple Card is the perfect card for your holiday shopping. You can apply on your iPhone in minutes and start using it right away. You'll earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including products at Apple like a new iPhone 16 or Apple Watch Ultra. Start holiday shopping for your friends and family today with Apple Card subject to credit approval Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and more@applecard.com this podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting a little money here, a little there and hoping it all works out well? With the Name youe Price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [15:03]
Amazon Representative
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, and 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 can 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 and situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [15:37]
Apple Representative
When it comes to smart money management, one of the best pieces of advice is to make your money work for you. Well, Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, and you automatically earn cash back on all your purchases. That means there's plenty of opportunities to make that money work. So shop smarter, not harder. Basically, anywhere you go nationwide, it pays to Discover. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com creditcard Sometimes there.
- [16:11]
Clark Howard
Are those ongoing stories that kind of make noise in the news and you're like, how is this relevant to me? So there's been this donnybrook fight going on in the courts in Washington and in the marketplace where Kroger, the nation's second largest supermarket chain, was trying to buy Albertsons, which has been the third, soon going to be the fourth. And the court said this would be an antitrust violation and said no just last week and I talked about this months and months ago, that the problem with government antitrust is it's always looking back instead of forward. Because here's the thing. Shopping at Kroger, any of its brand name stores, which I guess there are dozens of different brands under the Kroger umbrella or with Albertsons, they are high, low retailers, expensive places to fill your grocery list. As a result, their market share keeps going down, down, down. And as is so often the case with mergers, they're done out of weakness, not strength. These two companies are becoming less and less relevant in groceries. It's because particularly magnified by what happened with the inflation cycle and the grocery aisle during the COVID run where we had just crazy increases in grocery prices, people focus much more on where to get the best deal. And three retailers took enormous market share during this cycle from all The Kroger affiliated brands and from Albertsons. And those places were Walmart, the nation's largest grocer that just cleaned up and attracted for the first time a lot of wealthier shoppers who joined Walmart. Plus got grocery delivery for free. I guess it is. Or really, really cheap. I think it's free as part of that. And the grocery aisle market share that moves so stubbornly moved in big amounts away from Kroger and Albertsons because structurally they're so expensive to buy groceries from. And then who else took a lot of share? Aldi. Aldi. Growing like a weed around the country, but a good, good one. That's because Aldi has the cheapest grocery prices of anybody pretty much by far in the United States. It's an acquired taste. Whole different experience. I love Aldi. Our next dog is going to be named Aldi, if I have anything to say about it. And then the shocker. And third place now in groceries, Costco. Because during COVID with the run up in prices, people who might have done grocery shopping with an emphasis on convenience now focus price, price, price. And nobody can compete with Costco on price. And so the government saying that these two steadily shrinking food retailers, Kroger and Albertsons, couldn't get married to me is lame. It's like that was no consumer victory because the consumer victory is forcing change in the marketplace by the decisions you and me make of where we go to shop each and every day. Now I said twice now, I think high, low. So the business model of a high cost retailer is to charge high prices on most of the things in their store, but get you in with low prices on sale items. So they use the sale flyer to get you in the store lured in. And they're happy if you buy the things they have on sale on rotation. And then as you're in there, you buy this item, that item and the other item that are regular price, which is quite a high price. And that's how a Hilo retailer tries to survive in the marketplace. Their structural cost of operation is so high. And by the way, it's shocking how low the profits are of these high cost operations at Kroger and Albertsons. But if you go in thinking you're saving money because you bought the items that are low that week, you only are saving money if you only cherry pick and buy those items and ignore all the regular stuff that's at regular high prices. The beauty of buying groceries at these players that are taking more and more market share with Aldi and Costco and with Walmart is their whole thing is everyday low prices. And so you go in and you want to buy produce, is everything in there is going to be cheaper. You got to like the quality of the produce, but it's going to be cheaper. And that would be true throughout the grocery items they sell. So the government can do what it's going to do and say, no, these two can't get married. I couldn't have cared less if they got married. And what really matters is what you're paying. And it's up to you to shop for the deals wherever you shop.
- [22:08]
Co-host or Caller
Okay. Leslie says, my friends have a daughter who is turning 12. I love this. By the way, Leslie's question, Listen to this. They have asked some women to be an influencer in their daughter's life for a month in her 12th year.
- [22:20]
Clark Howard
Oh, like a mentor.
- [22:21]
Co-host or Caller
Yeah. The goal is to spend a month building a relationship and passing a knowledge or a skill down to their daughter. At the end of the year, she will have many new skills and a village of women to walk alongside her for the rest of her life. I was lucky enough to be chosen and decided to share about money. My makeup and cooking skills leave much to be desired. But after being a longtime listener of the Clark Howard Show, I feel comfortable sharing basics about living on less than you make than you earn and investing the rest. My question is, what is a realistic goal to accomplish at the end of the month? Can a 12 year old have a checking and or savings account, an investment account? I'm grateful for everything I've learned from you and I'm excited to pass it along.
- [23:03]
Clark Howard
Leslie, this is a case where I get to say, first, it's great that you're taking this on with such enthusiasm. And second, what Fidelity Investments has done, allowing investing by minor children is just great. And I don't know if you got to be 13 or if at 12 you can do the investing account that, that the minor child has control of. But even if you do it at 12, you could be the custodian or have the parent be the custodian. You only need a dollar to open one of these accounts with Fidelity. Because I think for the bad message to me that a checking or savings account, particularly a checking account, everything the banks are about is getting kids to spend, spend, spend, spend, spending, then get into debt, debt, debt, debt, debt. What's different about an investment account or a mutual fund account? It's about investing in the future. And the earlier a kid gets that into his or her, in this case, her head, the Better it is. So I love an investment account at fidelity that the 12 year old can learn and I would say the teaching should be about the value of index funds and Fidelity has the zero funds that you could use as a template to teach to mentor this 12 year old during the month about the advantage of being an owner of little slices of thousands of companies.
- [24:42]
Co-host or Caller
So Fidelity's youth account is for 13 to 17 year olds and a parent has to have an account to open a child's account.
- [24:49]
Clark Howard
Oh, so you'll need to see the parent does. If that's a bus Leslie, then if the investing angle is not going to work, then I would introduce your mentee to a credit union and help them set up an account at a credit union, which would be wonderful for a 12 year old to have. No friend should ever take a friend to a bank.
- [25:16]
Co-host or Caller
Jill in North Carolina says I rent a storage unit and the storage company provides no insurance to the tenants.
- [25:22]
Clark Howard
That's unusual.
- [25:23]
Co-host or Caller
I'm hoping my homeowner's policy would cover my personal property in the unit in the event of an incident. How specific does the language need to be in the homeowner's policy? Does it need to specify fire, smoke, hail, water damage, theft? My husband's motorcycle is also stored in the unit. If an incident occurred, would that be an auto insurance claim? How do I know if I need an additional policy for self storage tenant insurance?
- [25:46]
Clark Howard
So Jill, you do want want a storage unit policy and do not rely on the homeowner's insurance. You do not want. Even if your homeowner's insurance does cover temporary use of a storage unit and allow you to make a claim under it, you do not want to make a homeowner's claim for things in a storage unit. Your insurer will sell you a separate policy. Pretty much every insurer will four possessions in a storage unit. And I want you to buy that separate policy because you do not want to claim on your record with homeowners insurance for a piddly claim. And the money may not be piddly, but in terms of the homeowner's insurance thing, you don't want to make any smaller claims your homeowners insurance because of insurers quick to pull the trigger and cancel you for your homeowners, you want that only to be for catastrophic things. And that's why you buy the separate policy. You call your insurance company for your husband's motorcycle. He's like most people with a motorcycle, progressive provides the insurance. They're the dominant player and motorcycle insurance but whoever it is, you contact them and find out if the motorcycle insurance covers theft or damage or whatever that would occur in a storage unit facility. You need to know that because otherwise you could think it's covered and it's not. And so you got a little bit of homework here, but it won't be as complicated or as hard as it may sound at first glance.
- [27:28]
Co-host or Caller
Chris in Indiana sent in a question. You're going to love Clark. They're building the first Wawa in the state of Indiana right by my office.
- [27:36]
Clark Howard
Should I move?
- [27:37]
Co-host or Caller
What's, what's so great about them get me excited for the opening. Can their gas prices compete with Costco?
- [27:43]
Clark Howard
All right, let me deal with the last thing first. No, their gas prices at Wawa generally are much higher than what they'll be at Costco, but still lower than they'd be in an oil company branded station. Wawa, according to the American Customers Customer Satisfaction Index, ranks the highest of all the big convenience store chains in customer satisfaction. My wife and my son are obsessed with the Wawa hoagies. For those of you not familiar with the term hoagie, it's like a sub sandwich. Very high quality ingredients. My son also loves their fancy beverage bar that they have in Wawa. So Wawa, although they sell gasoline, it's about a whole lot more. I'm a Wawa fan, but I'm a longtime fan of who ranked number two in the survey. Tulsa, Oklahoma based Quick Trip. And there are two chains in the United States called Quick Trip. One with the Q, that's the one from Oklahoma, the other from the, I guess the upper Midwest is Quick Trip with a K. And these independent chains just do such a great job. They are so much better than the oil company owned gas stations. In fact, I'm looking at the list. The only oil company chain that came on the list with a decent score was BP's own convenience stores. That came in 10th place on the list. Third place went to Bucky's. And if you've never been to Bucky's, wow, you're missing something. They also have great Tesla chargers at a lot of the locations. So that concludes this episode of Clark's obsession with convenience stores. And I hope you have a great, great rest of your day and we will be at your service tomorrow, giving you ways to save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And I want to talk about spend less. Our Clark Deals team. As we are in the final stretch, final week of Christmas shopping, our Clark Deals team is hard at work giving you deals you can trust and great bargains that you can see@clarkdeals.com or get our newsletter where you can see the deals that we vetted that are deals that we know are legit, that we believe are great values for the hard earned dollars that you spend shopping. And we'll see you tomorrow.