05.18.26 Saving: Take It Up A Notch / Furniture Sales Traps

Recent financial statistics reveal something highly disturbing: The average American saves just 4% of their pay. Saving just four cents of every dollar earned is inadequate to provide long-term security and leaves the majority of the country living on the edge of a financial cliff. If you find yourself stuck in this cycle, it is time to embrace the "penny-at-a-time" strategy. Also, the upcoming Memorial Day weekend brings massive sales events at furniture stores. The industry is flat on its back due to a frozen housing market, with many retailers in acute financial distress. If you’re in the market for furniture, know how to play the pay game strategically to avoid getting burned. Average Saving Doesn’t Cut It: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Warning: Furniture Sales: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: 4 simple ways to start saving Save Money Archives - Clark Howard Simple Trick To Pay Down Credit Card Debt Quicker - Clark Howard What Brokerage Do You Recommend for First-Time Investors or Kids? 4 Types of Term Life Insurance Companies Explained - Clark Howard Why You Need To Check Your Credit Report Today - Clark Howard NYTimes: America’s Furniture Stores Struggle to Survive a Frozen Housing Market 5 Things to Know About New Settlement That Could Change Credit Card Rewards SIM Card Swapping: The Dangerous Cell Phone Scam Everyone Needs To Know About This Simple iPhone Update Stops Dangerous Spyware From Stealing Your Data What Is a Passkey and How Do Passkeys Work? 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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• 1:20Speaker 02

  It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. I'm going to begin today's show with some financial stats on the average American. And we're going to talk about where you fit on this list. Later, you thinking of buying any furniture right now? Oh, boy. Oh, boy, I got special warnings for you if you're hankering to buy some furniture.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Right, so four cents, that's the number I want you thinking about. Four cents. That's how much the average American saves right now of every dollar they make. So that includes people who save huge amounts of every dollar to people who are what's known as negative net spenders. A negative net spender is someone who spends more than a dollar for every dollar they earn. You ask, how is that possible? Well, credit card debt is an all time record high and various borrowing is how we end up with negative net spenders.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  But you take everybody, throw them all in the mix, and the average American of every dollar spends 96 cents, keeps four. Now, in Asia, a lot of Asian countries, people in the equivalent currency that they use save about, let's just call it dollars and cents, just to keep it simple. For every equivalent of a dollar that people make in a variety of Asian countries, it's normal that they save about 30 cents. Completely different than how we live. And some of it is historically cultural in a number of Asian countries.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Some of it is living in countries that have no safety net at all. If you're broke, you're broke. Where in the United States, we do have some amount of safety net. Not a great one, not one that would lead to, hey, I don't need to work. Look, I can just have money from the government. That doesn't work here. And to be really honest with you, saving four cents of every dollar isn't going to give you security and comfort in your life. And it's also going to mean that unless you work somewhere that you have an employer

• 4:07Speaker 02

  provided pension that provides essentially for your needs later in your life, you're going to have a really hard time later because you'll likely have to work indefinitely.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  So here's how I want you to think about it. Wherever you are right now, unless you're already a mega saver. And if you are, close your ears to what I'm about to talk about. Cause I don't want you to deprive yourself if you're already saving like a maniac. That's not most people. I want you to think about baby steps. The whole idea of it's kind of like when somebody knows they need to exercise. And you can see it anywhere in the country that has a cold winter. That when weather starts getting a little warmer, you'll see people suddenly have decided, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna exercise.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  I'm gonna start running or whatever. You've seen them. I mean, they, they look like they're gonna pass out as they're trying to run. Instead, somebody who wants to build new habits of exercise, you start slow and you do the thing where you pace yourself running. You know about this where you run for a minute and then walk for two, three or four, and then run for another minute, walk two, three, four. And you build up to where maybe if you started running a minute and walking four, you get to the point where you're doing better and you're running a minute and you're walking three. And then on like that.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Baby steps with money, same thing. If you're like feeling like, well, it's terrible. I'm not saving money. You start somewhere. Again, going back to the penny kind of thing. If you're saving 1% of your pay right now, penny on every dollar, every six months, I want you to step it up another penny. If it's through a retirement plan at work, or it's through a Roth IRA, or even just putting money through a payroll deduction where money is diverted straight into a savings account. It's all about building habits, creating space in your life.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  And the goal of if you're not into historically into saving money, you've been living a deficit kind of lifestyle. Is my goal is in five years to get you to saving a dime of every dollar you make. Every six months, another penny up. If you're living a big deficit lifestyle, I want to think about some of the things I've talked about, about resolving to live on less than what you make so you can start paying down that credit card debt and have a plan that for it, yeah, if you're carrying a lot of credit card debt, it's a five-year plan to pay off debt.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  So the, the idea is to create less anxiety in your life, to create more freedom in your life, to build up a cushion. So when the inevitable rainy day comes, you're prepared. And with the ultimate goal being for you to decide based on how you've saved, when you decide to bag work and you don't want to work anymore. It is the greatest power to work because I want to and not because I have to. I want that for you, Krista.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  I want that for you too.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Thank you. Well, I do want to work. I want to work and I have to work. I've got both.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  You want to and you have to?

• 7:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  But you're a great saver.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  I try to, thanks to you. I've listened to you and been with you long enough. Thanks to you. Richard in Connecticut says, my 16-year-old grandson wants to save money in a Roth IRA. He makes money by buying and selling football cards at card shows and online.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  How about that?

• 8:15Speaker 03

  I know, very entrepreneurial. He also makes some money by doing odd jobs for me. Is Schwab a good place for him to start his Roth IRA? Or are there other places that might be better or safer? He's also interested in investing in stocks. I set up a custodial stock account for him and my two other grandsons with Schwab about 10 years ago. All the dividend money is reinvested to purchase more stock. By the way, I tell my grandsons that when you invest in stock, you're gambling at the Wall Street casino and the more knowledgeable you are, the better your odds are at winning.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Wonderful advice, Richard. I love it. And so you already have accounts at Schwab. So that would be an absolutely great choice for your grandson. To have a Roth IRA and at Schwab, he won't have as much freedom. He'll need your help or another adult's help, whoever's custodian to help him with it. Fidelity alone gives teenagers of your grandson's age more freedom in terms of how they handle the account. So since you're at Schwab and your grandson's going to do his Roth at Schwab, I want him

• 9:26Speaker 02

  to understand Chuck Schwab, the founder of Schwab's concepts in how to build a portfolio, which in the simplest terms, and it's the term that Chuck Schwab used, core and explore. So it's fine for your grandson to want to explore with individual stocks, but it starts with core. And in a Roth, the easiest easy button is for most of the money that he puts into that Roth IRA goes into the Schwab version of the target retirement fund for year 16, 50 years. I don't think there is one.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  There probably is.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  2075 fund yet, but that would be about the year that would be the target.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Lyndon Washington says, I have a credit union account that I only use for Venmo. The credit union has offered $1,000 complimentary accidental death and dismemberment insurance coverage. It also offers to increase coverage for a monthly fee that I'm not interested in. If I sign for the complimentary coverage only, am I leaving myself open to being bombarded by other insurance offers?

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Potentially, yes, and push is to try to get you to go past the free coverage to paid coverage. I don't see a problem with you taking the free $1,000 coverage. But in terms of buying an accidental death and dismemberment policy, I'm not into those at all. And I ask at this point for you to think about, do you have, Linda, adequate life insurance? Do you have a really, if there are people who are going to depend on you at the time of your untimely demise, do you have a good level term insurance policy

• 11:17Speaker 02

  to provide for those who might depend on you financially, which is the reason to have coverage for the time when you pass away?

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Donna Missouri says, I just looked at my credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. All of my credit account information appears to be correct, but there are mistakes with-

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Lucky you. That doesn't happen. There's gotta be errors.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  There are mistakes with previous addresses, like misspelled streets, wrong house number, et cetera. There's also a phone number I never had. Additionally, none of them have my current employer correct, and there were misspellings for previous employers. Is there any reason to go through the hassle of trying to get these corrected?

• 12:00Speaker 02

  No. I mean, I don't know that there's a credit report in existence that doesn't have errors on it. The key is if there are errors that would cost you credit you already have, lead to a denial of credit moving forward, or cost you the opportunity for a job that you want to have or insurance you'd like to get. So if the errors are in a category I'd call clerical, like yours are, then don't worry about it. And your energy needs to go to the time at some point in the future. It's more likely a matter of when, not if. There will be significant errors on your credit report that could lead to any of the

• 12:44Speaker 02

  problems I just described. And good for you doing something that very rarely will anybody do. And that's look through a credit report fully, which is available to you for free at annualcreditreport.com. That is the federally approved site for you to get a free annual copy of your credit report. Again, annualcreditreport.com.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  All the others you see advertised are not the real thing. And the feds allow Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian to try to trick you into buying junk from them. When you go there, you don't have to. You can see your report for free. No questions asked. Once a year. Great checkup to do. Come up with the time you do it. When we change our clocks, or at your birthday, or some date that you'll remember, oh, that's when I do that kind of housekeeping stuff. And see that things are as they should be on your report. Coming up, up ahead. Things are not as they should be in the furniture business.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  And it could cost you big time. I'm going to tell you what you need to know.

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• 16:12Speaker 02

  Big sales coming up really soon. Memorial Day is a holiday that we should be remembering those who did the ultimate sacrifice for your and my freedom, serving in the US military. Something that is dear to my heart. But a lot of people just think of it as the unofficial kickoff to summer and a big wave of sales. And one of the industries that has a lot of Memorial Day sales? The furniture business. But right now, it probably feels like sales are a perma feature at any furniture store you walk in every weekend of the year.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  And the reason is the furniture business is flat on its back. Furniture business depends, both the manufacturing of furniture and the retailing of it, depend on the home market being vibrant in the US, which it is not right now. So furniture stores are hurting for certain, and a lot of them are folding. Big ones, small ones, in between are in distress because there just aren't enough customers out there. And most furniture made overseas tariffs have disrupted the business for manufacturers, importers, and retailers.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  So what you need to know is if you go into a furniture store on a sale weekend. And they say, oh yeah, we're out of that, but we're happy to, it's on back order. We're happy to get it for you. And you give them money at that point. So you can get the sale price that they have on the sale flyer or any other time. All right, you gotta know how to play this game. You do not, you do not pay a furniture deposit by debit card. Remember, remember, have this play in your head. The piece of trash fake Visa or MasterCard debit card.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  The debit card provides zero protection, zero. If that furniture store goes bust, your money's gone. You're sitting on the floor. That's number one. Number two, do not pay a deposit to a furniture store in cash. Because if they go bust, same thing as the piece of trash fake Visa or fake MasterCard debit card. The only safe way for you to pay for that back order of that furniture that's on sale is with a credit card. And the credit card protection, the strongest protection is the first 60 days.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  So let's say you put down the deposit on the back ordered furniture and you're checking a month out. Oh, it's still back ordered and you're closing in on two months out. If they say, well, it's still back ordered. At that point, you need to put the charge into dispute with your credit card company. Cause that's how you preserve your rights. The disputes take a while and then they call and say, hey, your furniture's come in. Fine. You tell your credit card issuer, I want to remove this dispute. They have now provided my furniture.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  But if you don't do that, your money likely is gone, just like it is with the people who paid with the piece of trash fake Visa or fake MasterCard. debit card or paid with cash. Now, the banks could, if they wished, not try to con you with the debit card and provide the same protections on a debit card that's provided on a credit card. But not only did the banks not do that, they fought efforts in Congress to provide the same protections on the debit card as the credit card. But did the banks allow that to go through

• 20:24Speaker 02

  the Congress? No, because you gotta know, because all the dirty money that go to the congressmen and senators from the banks, that the congressmen and senators don't even get up to go to the bathroom till the bankers say they can. That's how bad it is. So remember that. Debit card, what is it? The piece of trash, fake Visa and fake MasterCard. Remember. Krista?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  What was that again? You love debit cards?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Okay. No doubt, somebody who cannot handle credit should use a debit card in a variety of situations. But if they're buying furniture, if it ain't there, you ain't buying it.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  All right.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  No ordered furniture. Period.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  And check out Facebook Marketplace. I found so many good furniture pieces on there.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Because furniture goes for nothing secondhand till it's old enough and then it can be called an antique. That's real money. I remember going to look at used furniture for my brother and sister in law who live in Utah. I looked up reviews online and we go to this used furniture store. There was not really a used furniture store. It was ultra-premium furniture store. And we walk in, the first piece we see was 11,000 something dollars.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Wow. Wow.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  And it was a so-and-so, whatever so-and-so.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Was it a table? A sofa?

• 22:03Speaker 02

  It was, it was an oversized chair that was some brand from like the mid-century.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Oh, like Eames or something, maybe?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  It was not an Eames. It was something. So we were in that store.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Seconds?

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Very short period of time.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  Okay. Chris in Georgia says, who is regulating credit card fees companies are charging now? My dry cleaner charges a flat 3.5% on all credit card charges, which is illegal because they cannot charge more than what Visa charges them, which is typically 2.5%. Then yesterday, I was charged a fee at the state tag office on my debit card and at a restaurant with a debit card. It is illegal to charge a processing fee on the bank card, but no one knows the laws and/or they are definitely not following them.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  So Chris, what we have now is we have anarchy. And I support this anarchy feeling opposite you. And this goes back to the prior thing when I was talking about the banks and how they have captured every congressman, it seems, and senator in the United States who think they work for the banks because of all the dirty money and contributions and free rides on the corporate jets that the banks have and all that that's going on. So we have the, we have a cartel going on in the United States with the highest merchant fees in the world. So what we've got is we've got a revolt going on

• 23:34Speaker 02

  that I support by business owners who are being abused by the cartel, and this is a banking cartel, with the merchant fees. And so businesses now find that their third largest expense or what they have to pay the ransom to the banks with the cartel pricing for accepting credit cards. Debit cards, in theory, are supposed to have a much lower fee, which is why a lot of businesses don't charge those fees on debit cards. But you're talking about even your state charges them. So what we need is we need a free and open market

• 24:17Speaker 02

  that will set the rates on these fees. Until we have that, then I support the revolt going on by businesses.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  That are charging, either giving a cash discount or charging more for using credit, because the system is flat out broken.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  What about, and I think with debit cards, aren't they allowed to charge the fee like at the state tag office because it's being used as a Visa or MasterCard in that case?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is a great question Krista just posed. If you say, when you're asked credit or debit, you say debit, it clears at virtually an insignificant number of cents for the retailer. But if you present a debit card and have it processed as credit, which the banks will encourage you to do, it then has the huge fees that restaurants, retailers, businesses, government, everybody faces from accepting the credit card. So the fees behind the curtain to actually process credit card transactions have never been lower. What

• 25:27Speaker 02

  actually costs the banks to do it. But the fees that are passed on to merchants and restaurants are the highest they've ever been. It is a broken cartel.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  You know what makes me mad? When I pay my son's rent for his apartment at college, there's an automatic, I'm paying it, it's debiting the checking account. Okay?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  And they still charge you a 2% junk fee?

• 25:53Speaker 03

  No, it's not 2%, but it's $2.95 transaction fee every time. I mean, okay.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  And you know what I love about this?

• 26:01Speaker 03

  What?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Krista's son and my son go to the same college and they're both out of staters at a state school and it's the third most expensive state school in the country out of state.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Oh, didn't know that.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  We're paying unbelievable costs, like private school kind of tuition for our kids to go to Auburn University, War Eagle.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  War Eagle.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  You're upset about the $2.95 junk fee?

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Wouldn't you be?

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like salt in the wounds of what we're all.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Right. I'm not using a credit card, but $2.95.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Ugly.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  As if the rent isn't already a complete ripoff at these apartments in this small town.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  In a small college town, the housing thing is bad ugly. Let's just call it what it is.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  War Eagle. Will in Florida says, "Love the show and all the great info you share each week. I ran into something I think listeners should know. My Barclays card has a lock feature, but it doesn't fully block charges. I paid it off, locked it, and stopped using it, yet a small charge still went through. Luckily, I caught it. Otherwise, it could have led to a late fee and credit hit. Just a heads up, a locked card isn't always truly locked. Any tips on how to prevent this?"

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Okay, Will, this is a great question. You're the second person who we've heard from about this in months. So here's the thing. You lock a card, it prevents new, let's call them current transactions. Somebody dupes your card and they're trying to use it. If you have it locked, it can't be used. But if you have preauthorized a continuing bill of some kind on that card, from most issuers, even with a lock, those will still go through. The simple example is, I call it the Netflix charge. If you have a subscription with Netflix or anything like that, and they're charging you, went up again. Think the cheapest

• 28:04Speaker 02

  now is $8.95 a month, maybe? Anyway, that charge, even with a card locked, will still post transactions. So any preauthorized, ongoing charges still will typically occur, even if a card is locked. So if you're planning not to use a particular card anymore, but you're not going to close the account, even if you close the account, a charge like that might reopen it temporarily. You want to look through your old statements, either paper statements, or if you look online, and see if there are any recurings that may happen quarterly, or twice a year, or annually, whatever, because you'll forget, "Oh, I put

• 28:49Speaker 02

  those on that card." And then you change what card is assigned to be charged by whatever that recurring bill is.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Steve in Georgia says, Clark, I'm becoming increasingly concerned about online security. I've diligently used two-factor authentication for years on all my accounts where it's available. Now I read that two-factor authentication is being compromised via the relatively new phenomenon of SIM hacking. And since I have long given up on maintaining any serious privacy and assume that all of my info is out there and available, I feel vulnerable. I've read and tried to learn about pass keys, but all of the information I've seen provides an explanation of the plumbing of how these work, but no one has written about how you actually use them. The what, but not the how. I want to know what time it is, not how to build a watch. Can you do a deep dive into pass keys, password

• 29:41Speaker 03

  managers, and authenticator apps with an emphasis on how to actually use them? Is a pass key unique to a website, my device, both? Can you use pass keys on all websites? Or does the website have to offer it? How do I use a password manager, free or paid versions? Are password managers a form of authenticator app? I'm relatively technology proficient, but this stuff confuses me and cybersecurity is too important to make a mistake.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  All right, we're going to do this tag team, I think, because you've talked so much about pass keys. I want to talk first about the SIM. It is not a new hack, what's known as SIM swapping, or SIM theft. And it's such a problem because a two-factor authentication, so often being tied into a text to your phone, that the cellphone carriers, big ones and small ones, offer what's known as SIM lock, where you can put in place that they just don't make it really easy for somebody to swipe your cellphone number. So putting SIM lock in, some of the cellphone providers make it relatively simple, others, it's a

• 30:51Speaker 02

  bit of a hassle. But Steve, whoever you have your cellphone service with, you contact them and ask them the procedure for putting a SIM lock in place on your cellphone service to shut down a criminal doing that. Now, I'm using pass keys more and more. And I'm kind of a passive player. I'm being offered the option at more and more sites because a lot of big technology companies went together to develop the pass key system. And you wanted to talk about what you've

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Well, I just, I have a basic understanding and I'm going to actually, our team at Clark.com just published an article, it was out in the newsletter saying it's in this, we're linking it in the show notes, a detailed write-up about pass keys. I haven't read through our own content yet, but I'm going to go do that after we record today. But what I understand is the pass key is like a specific, I guess you could think of it as code for you and your password to a specific site to get into that site. That code can then be stored either on an individual device, so device specific, or it can be stored across a platform, a third-party like Google, LastPass, Bitwarden, any of those third-party applications can

• 32:04Speaker 03

  store as well. But then to get into your, to use the pass key, you have to use a biometric, a PIN number, whatever it happens to be on your device to then allow that unique pass key to be used for you to sign into that website. That's my understanding.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  And the dream of the big technology consortium that developed the pass key system is to eliminate passwords because passwords don't work. And obviously, two-factor to a phone is vulnerable to attack. So the idea is to use your biometrics as your friend and as the way that you validate who you are is part of the underlying architecture of pass keys. It's one of those things that when it's new, sounds really confusing, but the whole idea of it is to make it to the point where for you and me as end-users, it's

• 33:00Speaker 02

  ultra-easy to use and it protects us as best it can from people pretending to be us.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  So I may have just sounded like an idiot, please don't write in a Krista stinks, but go read what our intelligent, our intelligent team members of Clark.com have written and I'm about to go do that right now.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Krista, there was no reason for you to throw yourself under the bus.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  It's okay. I just don't wanna, I don't wanna hear it.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  I am an idiot.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  You are not an idiot. You are not an idiot. I mean, you got a degree that's one of the degrees that's hard to make a living from.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  An English degree.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  And you've done great with it.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Well, I speak English on this podcast.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but Krista repeatedly cringes when she hears how bad my grammar might be.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  It's true. You can never get the, the English degree out of.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  I was, it was a literature, really more of a literature degree, but.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Okay, of things that I would have been a disaster, literature, but particularly poetry. I am such a literal person.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Oh, I love poetry. Do you like music? Music's poetry. I mean, not the actual music, but lyrics.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  I never listened to lyrics.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  When I did, I have a minor in secondary education, so I could have been a teacher. When I taught my high schoolers at Boston.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Teacher.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Boston Latin. Well, you're a teacher. I'm your teacher's assistant. At Boston Latin, I had the seniors grumbled when, I know there were juniors grumbled when I said we were doing a poetry unit. And so I started out by saying, you know, bring in the lyrics to your favorite song. And they did, and we analyzed the lyrics and they were so into it. And I was like, you like poetry?

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Krista, see, you would have been a great teacher.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Well.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  You made it engaging and fun.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  But then one of my junior students stood up with his hand raised one day and said, didn't I see you at Mary Ann's this weekend, which was a bar that all the B C students went to, to embarrass me? And I said, that is an inappropriate question. Sit down.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  And let me tell you, when Krista's mad at you and those fiery eyes look at you.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  That kid sat down.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Someday I'll talk about what my poetry teacher said to me.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  What? You can't say it? I mean, if people are still, they could have moved on if they're not listening.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  We're going through a poem. And teacher calls on me and says, teacher never used anybody's first name, Howard. What does, whatever stanza it was, what does it mean? I said, well, they were really having trouble making it across the creek. And they couldn't figure out what was the best place to cross. And they just couldn't see where they could safely get across. And he says, you don't see where this was about the person's life? And trying to make a decision, what they were going to do. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Symbolism.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  And I was like.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Metaphor.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  And I'm looking at the paper and look, I say, I'm sorry, I don't see that, Dr. Roberts.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Oh, man, was I in trouble in that class. Cause I don't understand symbolism at all. It doesn't exist in me.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  You understand stock market symbols?

• 36:31Speaker 02

  I'm not sure that was just a compliment.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  It was a compliment. I mean, oh, my gosh, you're making me sound so mean. No, I mean it. Like, I feel like it's a beautiful thing that all of our brains work in different ways. And with all of our strengths, like, I, the worst class for me in college? Oh, my gosh, economics. I hated it.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Favorite class.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Hated it. It was a giant lecture hall. Yeah. And you, that's your favorite. That's, if we were all the same, then we wouldn't, we'd have such a boring world.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Actually, my favorite was real estate.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Which ironically enough, my son, who's training to be a pilot and is also in college, his favorite course. Is real estate.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Oh, that's neat.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  My wife says he was cloned. She wasn't there.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  That is so true.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Which part?

• 37:19Speaker 03

  That he is so much like you, which is a great thing.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Poor kid. Anyway.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  My son recently said to me, I don't know if anyone's still listening to this podcast. We were at lunch. You'll think this is funny. He, um, he overslept and missed an exam. Like he, he went to the, that he overslept, ran to the place where the exam was being taken. And nobody was there anymore. They had all finished the exam. This is like one of those nightmares you have, but it actually happened to him. And so then he, he told me, I said to myself, what would mom do right now? She's crazy. And so he ran to the professor's office, caught her right as she was coming out, explained what happened, said he was ready for the exam, and she let him take it right there.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  That is a nice professor.

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Very nice professor. But his whole thing was, you're insane. And I channeled that.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  I was like, all right. Thanks, you. Thanks. Okay.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Okay. Are we done now?

• 38:22Speaker 03

  I think we're done for today.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  To anybody who's still watching or listening, this is what we're really like.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. You should hear us in the breaks. We laugh a lot.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  That's what we have to do. What do you call those outtakes?

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Yes. Oh, my gosh. There'd be some funny ones.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  And some of them, we wouldn't be able to play, right?

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Anyway, have a wonderful day. All week long, we're here to serve you in so many different ways with our company, with our newsletters, our websites, Clark.com, Clarkdeals.com, our social media, our availability of one-on-one advice for free. I mean, we are here for your empowerment. If you live in a market where you see me on the news, on television, or you hear me during a morning and evening drive on radio, I'm glad we're able to reach you that way as well. The whole idea is whatever way you best process information.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  No poetry here. However, you best process information. We're here for you.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  And tomorrow, we're here with a new Ask an Advisor episode.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  If you haven't listened to in a while, or you haven't tried Ask an Advisor, check us out. See if you like it. If you don't, we get it.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  It's doing very well. We're getting a lot of listener and viewership for it.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Yes, so.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  And Wes dresses a lot better than I do.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  I feel like I need to step up my game. He brought in a suit coat the other day. I was like, this is too much, too big of a contrast. You gotta.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  He has shirts with his own initials on them.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, you wouldn't want to know what he spends on his. He's like, yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  I spend $8.99 on my shirts.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  That's like the, not even the tax on his shirts.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  You're kidding, aren't you?

• 40:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  You're not kidding?

• 40:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  All right. Well, anyway, that's our deal for you to be empowered so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And we're finally going to say.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Have a great rest of your day.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 40:31Speaker 01

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