Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 02.25.26 Buying & Selling Gold / Why Simple Appliances Win About this episode The frenzy surrounding gold and silver has dominated recent financial headlines. Clark explains the role of these commodities as hedges vs. investments and discusses how much (or little) you should own, and the best way to buy & sell. Also today - do big price tags equal great quality when it comes to appliances? Clark breaks down why "designer" features often mean more points of failure and why the most effective tools are simply made to last, and do one job well. Buying/Selling Gold: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 No-Frills Appliances: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: How To Value and Sell Coins, Jewelry and Silver - Clark Howard Should I Buy Gold? Is It a Good Investment? - Clark Howard Look Out for These Gold Bar Scams as Prices Surge Submit a complaint | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Here's Your Estimated 2026 Tax Refund Schedule - Clark Howard The Best Time and Place To Buy Small Kitchen Appliances Here's How Long Your Home Appliances Should Last - Clark Howard Dacia History - Dacia Cars T-Mobile 5G Home Internet: 5 Things To Know Before You Sign Up Subscription Services: Why Canceling Is So Hard (and a Solution) Mint Mobile Introduces 5G Home Internet From $30/Month How Many Credit Cards Should I Have? - Clark Howard What Can I Safely Use for Peer-to-Peer Payments? - Clark Howard Clark.com resources: Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
0:31 Speaker 01 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100 degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
1:04 Speaker 02 I'm so glad 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 on today's show, I'm going to talk about something our team's asked me to address because, man, are we getting questions about it. When and where should you sell gold and silver? Another question I often hear, do big price tags equal better quality on appliances? I got some surprising info for you, and I'm going to tell you the difference between
1:44 Speaker 02 brand name and quality when it comes to just buying and getting the price quotient in there as well. That's later. So, gosh, every time gold and silver is kind of an afterthought in this, but every time gold and silver start having very large price movements up, people are all about it. And then it'll go kind of quiet for a while, as does people's interest. And gold and silver having had a big run up and then, then kind of a climb back down and all that. It's a question that when I'm asked it, I gotta tell you, there's a certain amount of
2:26 Speaker 02 broken record to me on this because I'm asked repeatedly when gold gets hot and actually this last time silver as well, you know, should I be buying it? How much should I buy? What should I do? Let's talk about what role they play in life. Gold and silver and other commodities operate as a hedge in times of uncertainty or worry about the world or the value of currency. By currency, I mean US dollar, other developed world currencies like the euro, that kind of thing, Japanese yen. And so having a hedge, which is something
3:11 Speaker 02 that the idea of a hedge is that it provides some downside protection when the world gets uncertain, which in some extent, the world's always a certain amount uncertain. Having some hedge in gold, silver commodities is a valuable strategy. It is not investing. Why? Because with gold and silver, other than some amount used for jewelry or in rare industrial uses, it doesn't create wealth the way investing in an enterprise does. It
3:54 Speaker 02 serves a different purpose. And that's why you will hear me say over the years that the amount you should buy and own should represent somewhere, if you want hedges, five to 10% of your investable assets. And again, remember, I don't refer to them as an investment. The time not to be excited about buying gold or silver is when they're in the news. Cause when they're in the news means they've had a big run up. And then you stand the risk that it overshoots to the high end. You've bought when it's way on its way up and then you ride it back down. And that's happened to some people lately.
4:39 Speaker 02 How would I buy precious metal? So this is something that I differ a lot with a lot of people who buy particularly gold, want the actual physical gold. When you do that, you've got a lot of costs involved on the buy, on the sell. And that's why we get so many questions about it when people want to get rid of stuff. There's one thing when you buy, I mean, that's why Costco has become the go-to when people want to buy physical gold, because they don't mark it up like other people. And every time Costco puts gold up for sale, bam, it sells out in minutes many times.
5:23 Speaker 02 So the buy-sell spread's a real problem because you have to have a nice run-up in the value in order to just break even when you have coins, gold coins, silver coins, whatever, because of the buy-sell spread in the marketplace. On the other hand, if you buy an ETF or ETN for gold, an exchange traded fund or note, and we have information on how to do that at Clark.com, you can also find it on Investopedia, you're paying teensy tiny buy-sell, and you don't have to physically store it. You don't have to worry about somebody breaking in and stealing your money from your safe
6:06 Speaker 02 in your home or whatever, or hiding it under the mattress or wherever you put it. And then it goes to the question, the heart of all the questions we've been being asked lately, now, how do I sell it? So difficult. In fact, I saw stories when gold hit its peak, that jewelers that buy gold were afraid to buy anymore at that point because they were having to pay at such a high price at that point. So then you're running around trying to find somebody who will buy it from you. And then you got the buy sell spread and the differences in what one place will pay you from another, pretty significant. So to me, I come all the way back to the beginning,
6:50 Speaker 02 which is how you buy it is more important because it helps you avoid the difficulty trying to sell it later and paying that sell spread where you lose some real market value from what you see the value is per ounce versus what you're getting. And that's why funds are your friend because you want to sell them. Bam, you sell them ultra easy. And again, with gold and precious metals, remember the purpose. The purpose for me is simple and clear. Protection. It's almost like an insurance policy against potential
7:33 Speaker 02 bad times. And insurance, the whole idea of insurance, you don't put all your money in insurance. Insurance is to deal with potential calculated risk. That's why you cap how much you put into it to a small percent of your overall money. Do you own any gold or silver?
7:54 Speaker 03 I don't. I don't think I do. It could be in a fund because I do use a fee only fiduciary who buys things inside of my IRA. So, but I don't think so.
8:06 Speaker 02 So I'll tell you something, we got esoteric and exotic for a second. People who are worried about taxes who are in a real high tax rate often will buy gold mining stocks instead of actual physical gold because the gold miners, the tax treatment of owning mining companies is much more favorable than owning actual gold either through a fund or physically owning it.
8:35 Speaker 03 Interesting.
8:36 Speaker 02 But that's really for people who are in extremely high tax brackets.
8:40 Speaker 03 Okay. All right. Well, George in California has a question for you. He says, I paid $1,773 for 60 silver American Eagles in September using my credit card. Upon receiving said coins, right away I knew they were counterfeit.
8:58 Speaker 02 No.
8:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, I made a dispute ASAP with my bank. They settled in favor of the scammers. I then contacted the office of the president of the bank to plead my case, but they did not see it my way.
9:10 Speaker 02 Any information about why they said no?
9:13 Speaker 03 No, it just says, have I exhausted all my avenues of dispute other than small claims court? At the peak of the $115 plus an ounce for silver, I could have quadrupled my money if these coins were real. Who would I submit for the defendant? The bank or the scammers who have taken down their phony spoofed website?
9:33 Speaker 02 Right, so George, this one's really messy. Based on what you've learned, you're dealing with people who scammed you. So small claims court is going to do nothing for you. You could get a judgment, but the judgment is essentially unenforceable that you would have against the silver coin scammers.
9:53 Speaker 03 I wonder if they're even in the United States.
9:55 Speaker 02 They may not be.
9:56 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:57 Speaker 02 But even if they're, if they were in California, maybe a little more help for you. But generally, who knows where they're going to be? So that's not a viable option. And I want to suggest something I used to routinely suggest, and that is you file a complaint against the bank with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Under chargeback rules, failure to receive goods and services is a valid reason for dispute. Now then, this is the gray. Based on your knowledge, the coins are counterfeit. That is the area where the banks say, hey, we're not getting involved in this.
10:40 Speaker 02 But filing a complaint at cfpb.gov may get you results. Now, I want to tell you about some new data. On filing complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Last data two years ago found that when you filed a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, you had a better than 50% shot that the bank was going to help you out where they had not before. The most recent data I saw is that the success rate in filing that complaint is 5% now. It's fallen from more than 50% to just 5%. Why?
11:20 Speaker 02 Because the banks no longer fear the regulatory authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But it is the best strategy I know at this point to try to get another look at this from the bank because you're showing, "I'm not going away. This happened to me." And the particular bank involved has had past regulatory tangles about other things. So they are a little more sensitive to how they might be communicated to by regulators. So I think that's worth a shot. But I'm really, really sorry because I'm sure that's money you could have used in your life.
12:02 Speaker 02 You could have made a big return potentially with that huge spike that happened with silver that's now over. And so I wish I had a better answer, but that's the best I got for you.
12:15 Speaker 03 All right. Chris in North Carolina says, "Clark, thank you for all that you do on your show and try to make life a little more affordable for the average person. My family of four, including a two-year-old and three-month-old, have benefited tremendously from your advice and analysis. We followed your advice from your newsletter and filed our taxes last week, and I was genuinely shocked to see how large our federal return is slated to be. I used the Cash App to file electronically for free, so I was immediately skeptical and thought there might have been an error. I went back and double-checked my inputs and then had my wife review my work. Sure enough, our federal return should be $6,624. I'm a bit unsure where to put this money to best use."
12:58 Speaker 03 For context, my wife and I are 35 and 33 respectively. We live on $65,000 per year, single income household and have about $260,000 in retirement savings and about half of that is in our Roth accounts. We have a six month emergency fund of $24,000 and an easily accessible money market account.
13:18 Speaker 02 Fantastic.
13:19 Speaker 03 Since our first son was born and my wife quit her paying job as a teacher to be a full-time stay-at-home mom, we have been lucky if we can contribute more than $3,000 into each of our Roth IRAs per year with money being so tight. I know that Roth savings is incredibly valuable, so does it make sense to split this between our two Roth accounts and invest there? For additional context, our monthly expenses are stable, but we have a 17-year-old Honda CR-V that is starting to show its age. Would Roth be best, or should we start building up savings for our eventual need to purchase a new-to-us, used SUV or minivan?
13:54 Speaker 02 Okay, there's so much to unpack in this.
13:56 Speaker 03 I know.
13:57 Speaker 02 First of all, how efficiently you're living, raising two little children.
14:01 Speaker 03 Oh my gosh, yes.
14:02 Speaker 02 Incredible. Okay, number one. Number two, how much you are saving in your trend line on saving for the future. Number three, you're driving a 17-year-old vehicle with a family that's going to need something bigger eventually than the CR-V. And then you have this unusually large refund, and we covered this on the podcast just recently, that there are certain things in the tax bill that Congress passed last year that are going to lead to surprise, larger-than-normal refunds this year. And it's all about trying to give the economy a little bit of a booster shot.
14:46 Speaker 02 Also means with an even larger federal budget deficit, which I've got to talk about soon. Anyway. What would I do? So you're driving a 17-year-old vehicle. You're not people who are frivolous in how you spend money. I would like you to, you've already got your rainy day account, to put this money into the Roth to give that a leg up with years and years and years to grow. And then, when the time comes that you need to replace the CRV with a new-to-you SUV or van, the interest rates on vehicle loans from credit unions have really come down.
15:31 Speaker 02 And so borrowing the money for that purchase will be cheaper than the opportunity cost you would, you would face by not having that money have time to grow for retirement tax-free and be spent tax-free in the Roth. So that's why I would do that, is I would go ahead and pop that money into the Roth, already got the really solid rainy day account, and continue to grow your money for the long term.
16:03 Speaker 03 And the CRV is kind of still a baby, right? Those things can go forever.
16:06 Speaker 02 Seventeen, seventeen is no longer a baby. It's not even an awkward teenager. It's, it's a full adult now. So it, it is something that the clock's ticking on.
16:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:20 Speaker 02 Because you're talking about one from, think about 2009.
16:22 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
16:23 Speaker 02 That's a long, long, long time ago.
16:27 Speaker 03 Joe in Texas says, "It seems like more and more apps are activating Face ID to log in. While I have no problem using it for fun apps, I'm wary to activate it for banking apps. Is Face ID considered safer than inputting a username and password?"
16:41 Speaker 02 Yes. Pass keys are awesome. And that's the term the industry uses for it. And step by step...
16:51 Speaker 02 The big technology companies are cooperating on eliminating future use of passwords because passwords are just nothing but a problem. And so pass keys, it's just an industry term for validating you are who you say you are in a way that seems to be superior, usually involving biometrics. You'll see more and more things where you log in using your phone to log into something on your computer. That is a pass key where you're using your face or using your fingerprint in order to gain access.
17:33 Speaker 02 And so this is safer than passwords. And I would feel good about using it for a banking app or something like that rather than using a traditional password. Coming up ahead, you know how people always say they don't make things like they used to. True. And why did this used to last this long and now it lasts this short? We're going to address that straight ahead. And why simple often is better.
18:07 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
18:37 Speaker 04 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade, hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
19:06 Speaker 05 Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.
19:37 Speaker 06 We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com.
19:45 Speaker 04 Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service, from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you.
20:01 Speaker 07 Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.
20:07 Speaker 02 So we had a really fancy dryer. The thing was so trouble prone from the very beginning. And eventually, I was like, enough. I did what I recommend you do when you're looking at buying appliances. Nobody does more research on reliability and dependability of appliances than Consumer Reports. So I go and I look at Consumer Reports and I figure out that actually what's going to work best is to buy just a simple, what people consider to be ugly, dryer.
20:47 Speaker 02 So I buy the ugly dryer and it's just so basic, like something from 15 years ago. Doesn't have all kinds of fancy doodads, doesn't have a fancy color. It's a plain, dull, white dryer. What does it do? It works!
21:05 Speaker 02 The old fancy one that costs so much money never really worked. The one we replaced it with was, gosh, I think it was 400 and something dollars right in there, and it works flawlessly. With appliances, I've talked about this before when we've had questions about refrigerators and things like this. High volume, simpler appliances are superior generally for reliability than the new fancy decorative looking things. You know, what do you want your dishwasher to do? Clean your dishes. What do you want the washer to do? Wash your clothes.
21:50 Speaker 02 What do you want the dryer to do? Dry your clothes. Do you want them to be designer pieces? Well, you go into an appliance store, you go into a Home Depot or Lowe's, everything is about getting these ultra fancy looking appliances that have more controls than they probably needed to launch an Apollo spaceship long ago. I mean, it's crazy. And so, simple works better. I want to give an example of something that has been bugging me a lot. Average cost of a new vehicle in the United States, 50,000 plus dollars.
22:34 Speaker 02 $50,000. And we have such an extreme shortage in the United States of more affordable vehicles. And what happens as the manufacturers of vehicles in order to run up the price, put more and more gadgets on them, more and more frills, they become less reliable. They become far less reliable because it's so hard for all these different gadgets to work, and you're increasing the possibility of them breaking down, and you're making things more expensive. I want to give an example that I haven't talked about in probably seven or eight years.
23:17 Speaker 02 I want to talk about Dacia. Anybody know what Dacia is? Dacia is a discount vehicle brand, and they build vehicles
23:28 Speaker 02 That are simple. They build vehicles that are not state of the art, anything, just vehicles that have proven components on them that are fully depreciated out, meaning that they're cheaper to manufacture, the R and D to develop them already done. They just work. And I pulled up what it costs for these simple Dacia models. So translated into US dollars, here's a 15,000 one, here's a 19,000 one, 23,000. Oh, here's the most
24:07 Speaker 02 expensive, $32,000. I mean, think about that. These are sold all over Europe, very affordable vehicles. And I see them, I have the privilege of traveling frequently to Europe, and I see the Dachas all over the place. And again, they just work. We have gotten away from that with too much pizzazz and not enough just fundamentals of things that do their job.
24:41 Speaker 03 It's so funny. I just saw John Mulaney, the comedian, and he did this whole thing about how he went to like Lowe's or somewhere and he said, give me the most expensive washer dryer you have, like the best one. I just want the best one. And he, and how frustrated he is because the dryer goes for like two hours and the stuff's still wet.
25:03 Speaker 02 Still wet. Yeah.
25:04 Speaker 03 And he's just like annoyed. And he watched it the whole time, one time. He's like, I watched the whole cycle just to see if something was happening. Was it pausing? What was going on? And no, it was just not doing its job.
25:15 Speaker 02 Do you have a fancy dancy one off on a pedestal and all that?
25:19 Speaker 03 I have like the front loaded ones. They're 10 years old, but they work. I don't know. They're not, I don't know if they were fancy back then. I bought them on like Facebook Marketplace.
25:29 Speaker 02 Oh, you bought them used?
25:29 Speaker 03 I did.
25:30 Speaker 02 Oh, I like that.
25:31 Speaker 03 Okay, questions for you. This one's from Clint in New York. "We just moved our internet service from the cable company to T-Mobile. I learned about their plan from your newsletter. We were thrilled our internet bill went from $90 to $50 per month, so thank you, Clark, for the advice. What I did not anticipate was the difficulty in canceling our cable service, the cable internet service."
25:54 Speaker 02 This is one of the bigs. So go ahead and name them.
25:56 Speaker 03 Spectrum. "This cannot be done online and only by calling and speaking with a live representative. I was asked question after question and finally told her I was only going to give her one more minute. She said it would take at least five more minutes. I hung up. In my opinion, this was completely unprofessional, and there's no way I would ever do business with this company again. Any idea on how I can expedite the canceling of my service?"
26:19 Speaker 02 Right, so the two cable monsters, which are Comcast and Charter, they both use these different names. Comcast calls theirs Xfinity now, and Charter calls theirs Spectrum, because their brand names have become so negative in the marketplace that they came up with new names. They're both losing subscribers, and they are facing something they never were wired for, and that's competition. And by the way, the T-Mobile thing is 50 a month if you're a non-T-Mobile subscriber, 35 if you have certain voice line plans with them, and it's a deal.
27:03 Speaker 02 The other one is they own Mint Mobile, and if you're not a subscriber for T-Mobile for cellphone service, getting the home internet from Mint Mobile is cheaper than getting the same service from their parent, T-Mobile.
27:17 Speaker 03 And that's M-I-N-T Mobile.
27:20 Speaker 02 Because my enunciation is so poor, right?
27:23 Speaker 03 Well, you say it. Some people think you're saying M E N T, but it's M I N T.
27:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, sorry.
27:29 Speaker 03 So it's okay. I just wanted to clarify.
27:31 Speaker 02 All right. So online and on YouTube, there is post after post and video after video on YouTube, how to cancel your charter service. I mean, this is the craziest thing, but they go to war with you when you try to cancel. You have got to put up with the endless retention specialist stall to get done with them. Otherwise, they're just gonna keep billing you and then you're double paying for internet. So there's even, I'm trying to remember this was a post or a YouTube video,
28:12 Speaker 02 how to cancel Charter Spectrum in 14 minutes or less. I mean, really? Really? So understand the game. They are gonna slow walk you. They're gonna offer you all kinds of things that they didn't offer you before to try to get you not to dump their uneconomic, non-economic, their overpriced monopoly-minded internet service in an era that now has more and more emerging competition. And you've just gotta put up with the hassle and make sure you have recorded the name of who
28:53 Speaker 02 the retention specialist was, the date and time you spoke to them, so that if they don't cancel, even though you've gone through the whole shebang to cancel, you've got documentation of when you did it and who you talked to.
29:10 Speaker 03 My friend just called his internet company and got it down to $50 and they swapped it out for a newer, better tower. And we had to go return the old equipment and he had never like done this before. And I was like, you don't understand. Like, we have got to make sure we're taking pictures of returning the equipment, the whole thing. I mean, I went crazy. And we got a receipt that listed the equipment that was returned and I questioned the guy like I was a detective. And they're starting, trying to charge for not returning the equipment. So we have all this stuff, but I was just like, I knew it.
29:44 Speaker 02 All right, so. And we're not talking about Charter.
29:48 Speaker 03 No, no.
29:48 Speaker 02 All right, so I had returned equipment. I was given, I asked for a receipt at the store, took a picture of the receipt because I lose everything. So I had it in my phone. Sure enough, I got a bill in the mail from collections for $400 for failing to return equipment.
30:07 Speaker 03 Ah.
30:08 Speaker 02 Then I had to go through the whole thing and thank goodness I had the receipt
30:13 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
30:13 Speaker 02 that I had turned the equipment in. It is war.
30:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:18 Speaker 02 Customer no service war.
30:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:21 Speaker 02 When you deal with the cable monster and you got to be prepared. And as I always say, when I pick on Comcast or Charter, either of you are welcome to come on the podcast and state why I'm wrong.
30:38 Speaker 03 Okay, Robert in Texas says, I recently paid off my balance, which was over $8,000 on my credit card. The next day I received an email from the bank saying they have reduced my credit limit to $640.
30:50 Speaker 02 Ugh.
30:51 Speaker 03 I've never been late with a payment. Their email says, our decision was based in whole or in part on information obtained by one of the credit bureaus. Why would they reduce my credit limit so drastically?
31:03 Speaker 02 Robert, they have to tell you what credit bureau they relied on.
31:07 Speaker 03 They did. I have it here.
31:08 Speaker 02 Okay, so you immediately, Equifax, you immediately need to look at a copy of your Equifax credit report. They should have told you in the notice that that is available to you for free, instant access. You'll be able to see if there's something on there. If you don't have a Credit Karma account set up yet, set up a free Credit Karma account. Look at what they've got there on you with TransUnion and Equifax experience, not a participant there. Look for what it is that may have triggered this. So, couple of possibilities. Lot of banks are terrified right now with delinquencies rising and they could have
31:52 Speaker 02 just used some factor on your credit report because they get to choose if they want to extend you credit or not at the bank. They don't have to give you a valid reason. But there may have been something that had them nervous from your report, or they've made a mistake. If you go through your Equifax credit report, you find nothing there. You then want to contact this bank back and say, hey, you said you did this relying on an Equifax credit report. I've got my report. It's perfect. My credit score is blah, blah, blah. If everything's solid. Or you may find there is a problem there you didn't know about. And then you've got to work on whatever that problem is with your credit report.
32:35 Speaker 02 This is again, why you want to have credit cards from two or more issuers, at least two different issuers. Having two cards with the same company, it doesn't help you. That's no diversification. If they get nervous about you and they cut your limit, they're going to cut it on everything you've got with them. That's why you need to be with more than one issuer.
33:00 Speaker 03 And Jeanette in Iowa says, I'm very hesitant to set up Venmo, but multiple family members are requesting this for payment. I still use checks or cash. Do I give in?
33:10 Speaker 02 If you want to be generous, oh man, last time I said this, we got some real strong negative feedback. If you want to continue to be generous and you're talking about giving to younger family members, they don't even know what to do with a check if you give it to them. You think I'm kidding, maybe? They don't. And cash, they're allergic to cash. It's weird, right? So having a Venmo account or Cash App account is okay. I just would not want you to have it tied in, Jeanette, with your regular bank account because of issues if somebody were to hack into or get into your Venmo account.
33:53 Speaker 02 If it's tied into your principal account, it could cause a real problem for you. What I prefer is that you open an online account that you only put in the money that you're going to generously provide to relatives. It's just, things change over time, the way people do things. Changes over time. Countries are eliminating paper checks. We'll get there. The number of paper checks written in the United States has collapsed and they're very seldom used because there's a lot of fraud risk involved with checks. So I think
34:33 Speaker 02 you could say here's cash or nothing, but giving people checks, I wouldn't do it. It's too risky. Yes, there are risks as I just stated with Venmo or Cash App, but they are much less than what you face with physical checks. Yeah, it's just what it is. My mother-in-law used to give checks to her grandkids. She doesn't anymore because they would go uncashed. She would give them to various of her grandkids and they would just, the kids didn't know what to do with them and they'd go in a drawer. And so she
35:12 Speaker 02 now has a Venmo account and sends them money that way and they're all thrilled to get money that way. And that's it for us today. I hope you have had a really enjoyable time with us on our YouTube show or this podcast today and that you learned something useful to you in your own life that you can act on in your own life. And coming up on Friday is when we have Clark Stinks. If you're new to our YouTube show or podcast, Clark Stinks is something we've done for the last 30 years where I get direct feedback from you if
35:56 Speaker 02 you feel that I'm giving bad advice, bad opinions, incomplete information, or I'm just plain dumb. And it's really useful for me to expand my pool of knowledge and to improve the quality of the information that I give out. So you ever hear something from me, see me say something you're not comfortable with, please take the time to post it on Clark Stinks at Clark.com/ClarkStinks.
36:27 Speaker 02 Everything we do, every way we reach you is all about giving you knowledge that you can act on that empowers you so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. See you Friday.
36:46 Speaker 05 Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.
37:17 Speaker 06 We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com.
37:25 Speaker 04 Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service, from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you.
37:41 Speaker 07 Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.
Previous 02.24.26 Ask An Advisor With Wes Moss Next 02.27.26 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Exposed: Tiny Hotel Rooms Sacrifice Privacy Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated