Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 04.24.26 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / PROM Pummels Purse! About this episode Friday - Clark Stinks day! Christa shares Clark Stinks posts with Clark. Submit yours at Clark.com/ClarkStinks. Also today - it’s prom season, and so many kids and parents are breaking the bank to pay for it! Prom has officially turned into a high-pressure, "red-carpet" event driven more by social media likes than actual memories. Clark is here to tell you that you don't have to go into debt to have a great time. Clark Stinks: Segments 1 & 2 Prom Spending: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: The Best Car-Buying Services - Clark Howard These Credit Cards Are America’s Favorites on Latest Consumer Survey These Are the Most and Least Expensive States for Home Insurance 9 Ways To Pay for College Without Student Loans - Clark Howard My Tax Preparer Made a Mistake: What Can I Do? Best Sites to Start an LLC - We Ranked Them All 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. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:00 Speaker 02 I'm so glad you're with us 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 today is our weekly edition of Clark Stinks. Also, prom season. Oh my goodness, so many kids and parents breaking the bank or credit union to pay for it. And has it gotten out of hand? What do you think? We're going to talk about that ahead. How to say no to your kids' grandiose plans.
1:38 Speaker 03 I have to just say, I know you're going to talk about this later, but a friend's daughter just got her prom ticket for her public high school. Guess how much a ticket is these days for a public?
1:50 Speaker 02 Hundred and twenty-five dollars.
1:51 Speaker 03 Hundred and fifty.
1:52 Speaker 02 That was close, wasn't it?
1:53 Speaker 03 Per person.
1:54 Speaker 02 Well, you know, the jet fuel prices, that's what led that higher, right? But right now, it's time for you to talk about how I stink in this week's Clark Stinks.
2:08 Speaker 04 I should have never encouraged you to speak.
2:10 Speaker 05 You must think I'm pretty stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself. Well, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're right.
2:20 Speaker 03 All right, Gary in Indiana, I'm going to begin with your stinks. Gary says, I love your show, but you've missed the mark on this one, Clark. Someone asked about receiving an old medical bill from a healthcare provider. You advised that if a member trusted that they do owe the debt, they should pay it. Wrong. If everyone should first go through their old explanation of benefits. That's your source of truth when it comes to determining whether you still owe a balance to your healthcare providers. Your EOB will tell you whether a provider is contractually required to write off a certain amount, or whether you may be balance billed. If a patient is skeptical about what they truly still owe, go back to those old EOBs or call your health insurance provider.
3:03 Speaker 03 We're always willing to assist in helping our members guide through these difficult situations. Thank you for all you and your team do, Clark.
3:11 Speaker 02 I appreciate that a lot because, believe it or not, I was thinking about how I talked about that before and how I answered that. And I felt like I get an eye for incomplete to the answer I gave to that. And I appreciate so much you adding some meat to what I said and what great advice you just gave.
3:32 Speaker 03 And I don't remember ever seeing that on an EOB that it says whether they have to contractually write it off. I'll have to look for that.
3:38 Speaker 02 You read the explanation and in legalese, it says that.
3:43 Speaker 03 Okay.
3:44 Speaker 02 But it goes through, it says, you know, charged, disallowed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so a lot of medical providers do balance bill for disallowed, which they may or may not be allowed to do. And that's the whole point.
4:00 Speaker 03 Okay, yeah, well, I learn something new every day on this show. Digler in Tennessee says, Clark, you're beginning to smell like carbon monoxide. Does carbon monoxide smell? I guess it does.
4:10 Speaker 02 I thought it's odorless.
4:11 Speaker 03 I thought it was too. You are becoming too comfortable making recommendations on vehicle purchases. Yes, Carvana and CarMax are still go-to for pricing and return policies. However, the colorless and odorless, there we go, aspect of this. CarMax now charges a documentation fee typically around $699. They've also increased the business tax fee to $180. This is apparently not the case in my state of Georgia because the state law requires the advertised price to be inclusive of fees. Please make sure the audience knows to ask for a PO or buyer's order prior to purchase to ensure they're not being tricked.
4:50 Speaker 02 Thank you. I got a lot to say about this one. First, CarMax is absolutely going through a midlife crisis. Stock's been hammered, company's not been doing well, and they now have a new CEO trying to turn things around. CarMax was such an innovator in a new wonderful way to buy used vehicles. And things like, you know, I hate what are called PACs, junk fees from dealers. And the whole documentation fee or doc fee is just a bunch of hooey. It's just additional dealer markup. They might as well call it what it is.
5:28 Speaker 02 And with the history of CarMax and what they did as a breath of fresh air in the car business, this runs so counter to what they were about and is very disappointing. Now, let's go to the end of what you said. 100% anytime you're shopping for a vehicle, you want to shop from the comfort of your own home first. You want a full detail of all fees, junk fees, government imposed, taxes, everything involved with buying a vehicle, so that there's not a game of bait and switch where you think the price is this, and then you get there and the price is this plus another 1,800 bucks.
6:13 Speaker 02 So that is wonderful advice.
6:16 Speaker 03 Marion South Carolina says Clark doesn't stink too bad, but government enforced monopolies do. When Clark talks about hospital systems consolidating practices, he should mention and explain certificate of need laws. Many states still have these on the books. An entrepreneurial healthcare provider could see a need for a new specialty practice or even Hospital, but they must get a certificate of need from their potential competition first before regulatory approval. Basically, they need to get permission from the big hospitals to potentially compete. And of course, the competition rarely agrees there's a need for a new service provider. That restricts supply, raises prices, and like most government involvement in healthcare, it stinks.
6:57 Speaker 02 Mary, you are completely right. Certificate of Need laws have been used cynically by incumbent medical providers to do just what you said, to prevent competition. And I just saw a new pie chart of where our money goes for healthcare. And this is going to shock you. The largest part of the pie now is hospitals, and it's been going up at a rate many, many times inflation as hospitals have engineered this system of creating regional monopolies, or shared monopolies, usually with one other hospital system. In the largest metro areas, usually two other
7:41 Speaker 02 hospital systems, total of three, squeezing out competition and pushing prices up. And if we want to do something about healthcare costs, one of the things we'll do is we will do some serious trust busting of these hospital monopolies all over America.
8:01 Speaker 03 David in California says, I think there may be a bit of confusion around how credit cards and banks fit into spending decisions, so I want to clarify my perspective. Credit cards don't create desire or tell people what to buy. People already want things, and it's the stores and sellers that actively encourage purchases through advertising and sales. The bank isn't telling anyone to go buy a new TV. What a bank does is simply provide a way to pay. A credit card gives someone the ability to make a purchase, not the instruction or pressure to do so. If someone can't afford something outright, the card allows them to buy now and pay later, but the decision and responsibility still belong to the buyer. That said, I strongly agree that people generally should not purchase
8:43 Speaker 03 things on a credit card and then pay high, often unusurious, interest rates. So I said that the right way, didn't I? Avoiding that kind of debt is usually the wiser choice. Still, it ultimately remains an individual's decision to make. Ultimately, the seller is the party interested in making the sale. The bank's just facilitating the transaction.
9:03 Speaker 02 Okay. True and not so true. You know, the bank's pitch repeatedly has been, hey, yeah, we're charging the world's highest fees for processing Visa and MasterCard at your business, but when people use our product, they buy more from you than they would otherwise. So both parties are in this together. The same reason retailers have so heavily adopted the sleazy pay-in-for business is it gets people that are on the bubble about buying something to buy it. There's something totally different about the way we used to do things,
9:44 Speaker 02 where we carried cash, and now where money seems almost limitless because it's digital, or it's plastic, or whatever. And so, the real problem is psychological. It's the way we, as people, approach money. If we see something in a store, it feels like we got a limitless supply of resources, and we buy things that we impulsively want, but don't necessarily need. So you want to get that under control? Do something really dull. Use cash. And then the funniest thing, think how many businesses now won't accept cash?
10:29 Speaker 03 Yep.
10:29 Speaker 02 And then you're not going to spend a penny with them.
10:32 Speaker 03 Richard in Florida says, Clark and Krista both are smelling pretty stinky on this one. I live in Jacksonville and just bought my first home. My car insurer, USAA, told me they wouldn't directly insure a home in Florida and would farm me out to a third party. Since I have heard both of you guys talk about Amica Mutual Insurance many times on the show, I decided to get a quote from them, only to be told Amica is also not taking any new homeowners insurance clients in the state of Florida. Jacksonville isn't even hit by hurricanes often. What gives?
11:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, so...
11:03 Speaker 03 You're familiar with this one, Clark?
11:05 Speaker 02 I am familiar with this. So, the Florida insurance market is brutal, and it's because Florida is on the ocean and does not have rigid or good building standards. I've talked before about how the state of Alabama imposed really strict building standards.
11:28 Speaker 02 In coastal Alabama and insurers are happy to be there. So you have to build a property in coastal Alabama on the Gulf. You have to buy a home, build a home that meets very strict standards to deal with wind and water. Florida has chosen not to do that. And if I were an insurer, would I insure a home in Florida? No, I wouldn't. And yes, northeast Florida historically has not been hit by hurricanes and went without any serious hurricane for 40 years and now has been hit with three in 12 years.
12:13 Speaker 02 So the conditions are different for an insurer looking at Jacksonville than they would have been in the past. And I'm telling you, building standards, getting it right up front would be what the state of Florida and every other state that has coastline should require in coastal counties, very strict hurricane standards in building. And then an insurer would be willing to insure. Think how many Clark stinks that's going to generate.
12:47 Speaker 03 Bob in Washington says, if there was an odor that an incomplete answer gave off, I would have been able to smell you from across the country. Parents wrote in about their child who found the college that they wanted to go to and it looks like a great fit. The cost out of pocket for the year was $30,000 and they wondered if they should take out a loan or remove money from retirement accounts. Mr. Howard.
13:07 Speaker 02 Oh, come on.
13:08 Speaker 03 You did talk about those two options, but you missed one that would have helped the most. How did you pay for your schooling? The same way our three children paid for their college. They got jobs and worked their way through school. Granted, they did get some small government loans, but they paid for their schooling mostly by working in college and summer jobs as well as saving money their last two years of high school. They graduated with small government loans when they all have successful careers now, in part because they invested in themselves and worked hard to get the education they wanted. I was so surprised that you didn't mention a student worked to pay for the majority of their costs.
13:41 Speaker 02 So I have found that people have not always accepted when I talk about how I had to pay my way through college after my dad lost his job. One of the key differences when I went to college was how relatively cheap college was. I was at a private college, an undergraduate school, and my tuition was $2,400 a year. And even if you inflation adjust it, which we did last time this came up, it was like $8,000 a year in today's dollars, I think it was. And so I was able to work full time and go to college at night and pay all my expenses.
14:24 Speaker 02 There were times I couldn't afford to buy a book for a class, that kind of thing. But I was able to get through on my own. Today, that's much harder. Tuitions are much higher, even at many state schools. So it does require more work, but I don't want to ever make somebody feel shamed by, "Well, your kids should be working." That, you know, families have their own culture. And yes, I agree with what you said, and I did it for me. And then when I went to get a master's, I went to work for IBM because they would reimburse my tuition. And so I worked at IBM during the day as a bill collector and went to grad school at night.
15:07 Speaker 02 And so I didn't have to pay for school unless I got a C in a course, and then they didn't reimburse. I had to lay out the money and then they reimbursed. I got the best grades of my life when I was working for IBM because I was terrified I was gonna have to not get reimbursed for a class.
15:27 Speaker 03 That's motivation.
15:27 Speaker 02 But yes, so your point is well taken. And I will tell you that what happened to me that seemed like, uh-oh, at the time, turned out to be one of the greatest things that could have happened to me. It was really easy for me to launch into a career life out of grad school because I already had three years of work experience by the time I was finished with education. Big leg up.
15:57 Speaker 03 Someone also said you should have mentioned going to a community college for two years and then transferring into the dream school. As an option.
16:04 Speaker 02 And that is a great suggestion that you've heard my obsession with community college. We've had a lot of Clark stinks from people who are unhappy with me that I promote community college. So this is an area, people are very sensitive about the whole college thing.
16:20 Speaker 03 All right, I'm gonna read one more. Jane in Ohio says, Krista, I'm so disappointed in your comments regarding a tax preparer being responsible for an incorrect tax return. Krista made the assumption the tax preparer was the responsible party and bears all the responsibility for the incorrect filing. Being a CPA and preparing tax returns for over 30 years, the client doesn't offer all information regarding their taxes and in a lot of instances, the taxpayer doesn't supply the necessary information to provide a correct return. It can be the fault of the taxpayer. Taxes are very complicated and clients don't always understand their full financial activities. I like to think my clients are capable of answering my questions and providing me with their full tax picture, but I also understand clients are not knowledgeable in tax law and sometimes don't provide all
17:03 Speaker 03 their financial activity, both unintentional as well as intentionally. I don't like to blame, but I would rather determine how to correct the error whoever made it. Baby Clark, keep up the great work and don't let Krista get away with such assumptions. Boo on you, Krista. And Jane, you're so right. I didn't even think that way. When we heard the question, I just assumed that it was the error of the tax preparer. And, and you're totally right. So I apologize.
17:29 Speaker 02 And by the way, I need to also say that I am not setting a good example. Last week, I had to file an extension on my taxes and it will be months till my return is ready. I had to pay in some extra tax with the extension. Did you file on time?
17:51 Speaker 03 I did.
17:52 Speaker 02 So I have a pretty complicated financial life and it takes. A long time to get everything done. And this is my story year after year that my real tax filing date is October 15th, not April 15th. And it's just the way it is. Anyway, thank you for all of your posts on Clark stinks. And I appreciate so much this spirit of community where we all learn from each other. Coming up ahead, talk about a sensitive subject. I'm going to talk about proms and how much money people spend.
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20:33 Speaker 05 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
20:49 Speaker 02 So proms are quite a thing. The promposal made to order for social media. That it's like everything about it is an event. Average amount people are spending on a prom apparently is about $1,100. Now, this is at a time that people really don't have a lot of extra cash laying around. And limos,
21:20 Speaker 02 fancy dinners, fancy dresses, fancy tuxes. I mean, the whole aura of this is so extreme now. It's like everything now is a made-for-social-media event, not just proms. Think how many things go on in people's lives that instead of enjoying the moment, it's all about how it's gonna post on social media. And so this is one that I gotta be careful with. There's a lot of people really sensitive talking about spending on prom. And if you're just loaded with money and you wanna blow it out.
22:05 Speaker 02 I mean, I saw in a Washington Post story about how one mom spent $25,000 on her daughter's prom. $25,000? I mean, that's quite a headline, right? But if you just have money, you know, and you would rather just burn it.
22:25 Speaker 02 Spend a fortune and you know, I could pull the, the Uncle Clark thing and say, well, I remember back when I went to prom. No, no. You know, societies change over time and it's a whole different focus now. But when money's tight, what's wrong with going to get a used dress? Or by, I mean, I bought a used tux once. You can save so much money on all the different elements and having a limo? Okay. So the limo, a lot of parents justify the limo because
23:04 Speaker 02 the DUI problem. And a lot of kids are, even if it's against your house rules, they're going to drink at a prom. And so knowing they're not behind the wheel of a vehicle, get that. But compare the cost of, let's say, an Uber or Lyft to a limo? I mean, there's a lot that, that we do now that we do almost by rote because that's what people do. And it is, it's a cool night for teenagers. Prom's cool. Is it less cool if
23:44 Speaker 02 you spend less money on all the things involved with it? In my opinion, no. In your opinion, maybe yes. And Krista, do you remember what you spent on prom or your parents spent on prom for you?
24:00 Speaker 03 Um, mine was a little different. I went to a few, I went to a prom in my hometown with a friend and I, you wore the same dress that I wore to that at the prom at my school, which was totally different. We didn't have to spend money like this at all. We went out to dinner, but that was it. So it was like nothing. I mean, the dress was the only real cost for me. But that was me. My daughter's prom, I think her ticket was probably $80 maybe for the ticket, maybe 100. And then her dress, we actually bought used on Facebook Marketplace. It was someone's old bridesmaid dress that they had had tailored. It was just a simple
24:41 Speaker 03 dress and it was, it fit her like a glove. So that was really great that we're able to do that.
24:47 Speaker 02 Used dresses are good, right?
24:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, for sure.
24:51 Speaker 02 Yeah. And in spite of rumors that I used a coupon for dinner at the prom, I did not.
24:58 Speaker 03 You would have though. If you could have, you would have.
25:01 Speaker 02 You think I would have? Don't you think that would be, I wonder if you, if you'd been dating your date for a while, they'd be okay with that.
25:13 Speaker 03 I would think that someone you were dating would expect it. Were you not like that in high school?
25:18 Speaker 02 Oh, I was always thrifty.
25:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. I mean, did you not pull out the coupons with Lane until a few months in? Or what? What happened there?
25:26 Speaker 02 Probably immediately.
25:27 Speaker 03 Oh, I mean, no shame in that game.
25:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:32 Speaker 03 It's worked out for you.
25:33 Speaker 02 That rhymes pretty well.
25:35 Speaker 03 Also, the cost that people spend on, on outfitting dorm rooms can be absolutely insane. You see some of these things on social media about people flying in decorators and just doing all this crazy stuff to their dorm rooms.
25:49 Speaker 02 Right. So do you know what's about to happen at college campuses all over the country?
25:54 Speaker 03 What?
25:56 Speaker 02 This is just unbelievable. Every college campus just about in America will have big dumpsters by every dorm.
26:05 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
26:05 Speaker 02 Where people throw away furniture, televisions, decorative, decorative things like drapes and stuff. And they fill dumpster after dumpster with perfectly good stuff.
26:19 Speaker 02 That is just being disposed of at the end of a semester at the dorm.
26:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, I witnessed that last year.
26:26 Speaker 02 Refrigerators, you name it. So I know in some cities now, there are things where the public can come and help themselves to what's in the dumpsters before stuff is hauled away.
26:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, when my daughter moved out in last spring, the school did have, they had some organization that came in that would take donations that were, they were going around to all the different dorms and rooms and stuff. And we were giving them the stuff that was still good, but it was the dumpsters were overflowing everywhere. Okay, let's go to some questions. They all involve children. I mean, not young children. Okay, Betty in Missouri says, three years ago, I wrote an ebook. I grossed about a hundred dollars a month, maybe a little more. Now my son and I have created a partnership where he wrote an app based on my ebook. We've made over $2,000 gross during the first two months of selling the app.
27:19 Speaker 02 What?
27:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. We have an agreement to split the profits after the expenses are paid. He set up the app in an LLC for tax purposes. I'm not part of the LLC. He's in his high earning years and I'm retired. What's the best way, hopefully simple, to set this up if the current sales trend continues and if the income grows? I told my son Clark Howard would be proud of us. Thank you for all you do, Clark.
27:43 Speaker 02 Thank you and congratulations in the success you and your son are having. So he's got the LLC. He's the sole owner of the LLC, but you are due half the income after expenses. So there are two ways to do it. One, your son actually issues you a 1099 and pays you net of expenses, your half of it. The second, in most states and Missouri, right? I don't know the
28:14 Speaker 03 Yes.
28:14 Speaker 02 law in Missouri, but usually it's pretty easy to amend ownership of an LLC. And depending on the state, it's, it can be virtually a self-help kind of thing with your LLC documents. And so if your son wanted to make you a second owner of the LLC, in most states, it can be amended without too much sweat. But otherwise, he can own it and just pay you your half. And you just, on your tax return, you list that 1099 income.
28:48 Speaker 03 Michael in Michigan says, my son has graduated from college and will soon have his own income. I'm curious what the pros and cons are of putting the car he's been using in his name and having him get his own insurance policy, especially whether he will pay more on his own. Any advice, Clark? I love the show.
29:04 Speaker 02 Well, thank you so much, Michael, and congratulations on your son finishing college this spring. And when he has a job, then that's a great time because he'll be financially emancipated at that point, will not be your dependent. And that would be the right moment to transfer ownership of the vehicle to him. Then he's insured. And the advantage is, once he's not financially dependent, your assets are protected. If he did have an accident at some point, he's going to be in his, maybe 22, 23 years old at this point, I guess. And so insurance stays elevated till age 25,
29:46 Speaker 02 but is already better than it would have been for your son as a teenager, Michael. So I think it's fine to cast him loose. But the best answer is if he is interested in potentially staying with the same insurer you're with, they'll be able to give you a quote. What is it with him being on our policy? What's it going to be him on his own? And then you can make that decision.
30:10 Speaker 03 Gary in Florida says, my 16-year-old stepson wants to start a car detailing business. If he's not incorporated, is there any liability that could come back to my wife or me and our assets, like if he damages a car? He lives with us full-time. It would be a challenge convincing him to establish an LLC. He's not the best at listening or accepting advice.
30:32 Speaker 02 Wait, wait, wait. A teenager not wanting to listen to advice? Never heard that before.
30:37 Speaker 03 Oh, no.
30:39 Speaker 02 Okay. But isn't it great that he's starting a business and doing it? So you are technically correct that...
30:47 Speaker 02 He would want to have an LLC and again, this is from a non-lawyer, but he'd want to have an LLC and do business as the LLC. So very important that, that the cards he hands out, any invoice he gives someone, that it has the name of the LLC. Because he must be doing business as that. So there's always risk for a parent, going back to the prior thing about the car insurance. There's always a risk for a parent when a child or stepchild living under your roof is a financial dependent, that someone, if there is, let's say, damage to their car,
31:32 Speaker 02 they allege and it's big money and your stepson's not going to have it, that they're going to try to allege liability on you, even if there's the LLC. The LLC is just a layer of protection against it. Now, what are the odds that someone doing detailing is going to damage somebody's vehicle? Very unlikely unless, let's say, he's moving the car to a position to do the detailing and he runs into a pole or something like that. I mean, it would have to be something more out there as a potential problem. He could be using a cleaner that could damage somebody's leather
32:17 Speaker 02 and the leather could be really expensive, possibly damaging the paint with a cleaner he's using. So there are some potentials for liability, but not enormous. And I think it's great to encourage a kid to be entrepreneurial, to be earning money, to learn how a business operates. And learning just, you learn almost by rote in a business like this, how to control expenses, how to make sure you're charging enough to make it a decent hourly wage and the rest. So technically, you're right. The LLC in which you do it very easily online.
33:01 Speaker 02 Don't need a lawyer to set up an LLC. Stepson can do that. If he doesn't want to, I don't think the liability risk is likely large enough that I would worry too much. Now, remember that's said by a non-lawyer. We may have a very clear Clark stinks from a lawyer saying that I'm an idiot about this. And I appreciate that. And you would post that at Clark.com/ClarkStinks. So I appreciate all the stuff that we've talked about today that you've taken time to write in about, to ask questions or give advice to me about how you felt like I could have given a more complete answer, a better answer.
33:46 Speaker 02 My answer was incorrect, whatever. I appreciate it very much because none of us have the final word and all of us learn together and all of us have the power to empower those around us that we care about, that we love, that are our family members, our friends, our work colleagues. And so we as people are not an island. And the more we can do to assist each other, the better their lives become, the better our lives ultimately are, and the better society is. And with that having been said, I want to wish you a wonderful weekend and know what
34:28 Speaker 02 we're about and everything we do here on Team Clark is knowledge leading to empowerment. So you can save more, spend less, and don't let anyone ever rip you off. Now go have fun this weekend.
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