The Clark Howard Podcast

Snow skiing is a very expensive hobby. There are many bargains available for getting to the slopes and skiing. CO and UT are the 2 biggest ski zones. Because of extreme airfare competition in the Denver hub, it's ultra inexpensive to fly to CO. Plus there's been a massive expansion of limited service interstate hotels in CO. So skip the fancy lodges to save. If you stay along a freeway in close pr...

If you have a need to call customer service, be aware they have a great deal of info on their callers. They may know everything you ever purchased from them, how profitable you are, complaint history etc. Your profitability index score determines how much customer service you'll get. Ultimately the big data that companies keep and buy, means we know nothing about them but they know plenty about us...

Historically, 1 in 5 Americans move each year. But the Census Bureau finds we are relocating at a much lower rate today, closer to 1 in 10 moving each year. People are staying put, primarily because dual incomes make it more difficult to move. This save people money over time. There's enormous cost in both selling and buying a home - generally 10% in and 10% out. One important exception: It's bett...

Coming next year: the electric Ford Mustang SUV - faster than any Mustang muscle car before. Electric vehicles will get steadily cheaper with longer range. The baseline Mustang SUV will cost what any average SUV costs in the U.S. - around $36K. In the next few years, hundreds of electric vehicles will be introduced. They cost almost nothing to operate and maintain, They typical electric vehicle wi...

People have become comfortable subscribing to most anything. But cars is a new frontier. The first efforts at car subscription services appeared in 2017, all aimed at the luxury market. $1 - $2K a month bought a rotating fleet of vehicles as desired. Current services limit changeouts. There are now subscription services competitive with typical vehicle costs. The cost of having a vehicle all in av...

One Minnesota senior living center is renting out vacancies to nearby college students. Students in residence volunteer hours to senior citizens for discounted food and lodging. Winona State students and seniors benefit alike - Win - win! The mutual benefits of this cross generational opportunity are immeasurable. Meanwhile the predicted demand for senior housing could be exaggerated, as more seni...

Google has the most sophisticated search tool for finding travel bargains because they acquired a key industry database. That combined with Google's data capabilities yields up-to-the-second info. They've added a feature allowing you to shop flights to adjacent airports while shopping flights between selected airports. Google.com/flights is able to shop all fares for months at a time for selected...

Retailers now use third party data services to determine whether you get to return an item, regardless of their return policy. "Machine learning" big data companies are crunching data on us all different ways and issuing secret scores, very different from credit scores. The NYT reports on these outfits including Retail Equation, and one called Sift which analyzes 16,000 different factors on an ind...

In Clark's almost 33 years on the air, an unmistakable trend has emerged. In his first 15 years, there weren't questions about saving and spending in retirement. Since then, retirement questions have increasingly arisen. Why no questions early on? In the 1980s and 90s, people retired with pensions. Today almost nobody has a pension. People know it's up to them to make retirement possible. There ar...

A week out from Christmas, many have put themselves in a financial bind. Clark felt that those who used budgeting apps were the type who really didn't need them. But research shows a clear benefit to these apps for problem spenders. People who employ spending apps immediately cut back on food and beverage costs by almost 20%. Overall spending drops 15% for app users tracking spending. There is an...

2020 will bring deals on breakfast. More people eat breakfast away from home. McDonalds and Starbucks account for almost half of breakfast buys, and other fast food chains want a piece of that market. Wendy's is giving breakfast another go. In the new year, there will be more competition for your breakfast dollar, expect discounts galore through 2020. Pay attention to discounts from your favorite...

So many are languishing in low paying jobs, unable to get ahead. See the Clark.com story on jobs that don't require college degrees and pay at least $70k per year. The Bureau of Labor statistics provides the data. The number one job - Air traffic controller - does require 2 years of training and retirement at age 55 - $125k per year. That may be too stressful for many. Job number 2 - Logistics (tr...

Clark discusses some newer apps that help you shop at local businesses. Christa reads listener posts about how Clark has missed the mark in his advice this week. If you have a "Clark Stinks" to share you can leave it here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

LinkedIn has published a list of the top 10 emerging jobs. The trend is clear: STEM jobs are happening. 7 out of 10 are related to tech, computers and science. Don’t go STEM if you have no aptitude. But if so, the career paths are wide open. Some for profit schools have taken advantage of students, recruiting them with false promises. The University of Phoenix has historically enjoyed a good reput...

Clark NEVER ever settles a personal score in any public forum. But he will share how he’s been able to solve a problem. Last year Clark bought a deal on a new MacBook for his son’s school work from Woot. When the keyboard malfunctioned, Clark took it in for repair and was informed the computer had been refurbished. Customer service at Woot is moot – Clark’s attempts at reaching them ignored. Clark...

The lines for returns start Dec. 26. Often you’ll get a gift card to use at that retailer to shop. The week between Christmas and New Year’s has become one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year, and an expensive one as well. Lines, crowds and higher prices. Better idea: January 6th or later is when to return items, unless that retailer has a tighter window on returns. By January 6th and later,...

Clark discusses the current economic situation. Unemployment is low. Hooray! But pay has not gone up as much as it should have considering the current unemployment numbers. How much should you tip during the Holidays? Clark talks about who you should consider being generous with this time of year and what amounts to a fair tip amount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next year we’ll see many great airfare bargains domestic and international. Allegiant, Frontier and Spirit, the 3 hard discount airlines are having a big impact on airfares all over the country. When they come into a marketplace with a flight even just twice a week, airfares in that market on other airlines decline. According to Hopper, there’s a 17% rate drop when a new flight comes in from a dis...

One recent study reports a record 5.7 billion robocalls were made in Oct. alone, up 25% from the month before. That translates into 182 million robocalls per day, or over 2 thousand per second. Experts predicts by year’s end, Americans will have received about 60 billion for the year. Phone companies make money from robocalls. The FCC is putting heat of telecom to address the problem by the end of...

It’s estimated 1 in 5 U.S. adults has a thin or no file by traditional credit reporting methods. A new regulation was issued yesterday giving the green light to new methods of measuring credit worthiness. Rent and utility payments can now be considered along with other behavioral analyses. Many young adults can benefit from this. What you spend vs what you earn is a new and very valid criteria for...

There’s been a huge increase in the number of fake reviews. Consulting firm Pattern found for an item listed on Amazon, a one star higher rating leads to a 30% increase in sales. The marketplace incentives for fake reviews to boost a score are so enormous, fake reviews have infiltrated the retail landscape. According to Fakespot, in addition to Amazon this is a problem at Walmart.com. There’s no r...

Stores were not crowded on Black Friday this year. Clark visited Costco, Target, Walmart, Microcenter, Ollie’s & Five Below just to get a feel for retail that day. There were no real crowds. Patterns have changed. Around 23% of holiday shopping during Black Friday month will be done online, up significantly from last year. So much of shopping has shifted to click and collect. It’s convenient for s...

We get many calls about online banks. Last December Clark was talking about stock trading app Robinhood launching a 3% checking account. That was shut down in 2 days by regulators because it was non-compliant with insurance rules. Robinhood has just launched a savings account paying 2%+ with a debit MC - this time with FDIC insurance of 1.25M. They followed the playbook of Seedrs (?) - a private p...

Clark promised recently to convey the key components for fixing healthcare in the U.S. He starts by asking how to align free market incentives with more efficiency and less cost. We have by far the highest % of national income going towards healthcare of any country in the world. It's shocking we spend 1/5 of our nation's wealth each year on healthcare. The next highest is 8 or 9% of a nation's ou...

Move.org has published a new survey on the average cost of living in the 75 largest metros in the country. San Francisco is the most expensive city, costing over $4200 a month on average. The cheapest: El Paso at $1100 month - 1/4 the cost! Honolulu: $2600. Of the 75 metros surveyed, more than half require less than $2k a month to live comfortably. See list. Clark names each affordable metro becau...