Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 07.21.25 SAVE MORE: On Food And On Shipping Packages About this episode We all have to eat, but these days, eating out can eat up your wallet. Many Americans are adjusting their food spending habits, and Clark has some tips for you. Also, for those who regularly mail out packages, Clark discusses options for reliable, affordable shipping. Food Savings: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Clark Smart Shipping: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Axios: 1 big thing: Home cooking Costco vs. Sam's Club vs. BJ's Wholesale: Which Is Best? Warehouse Clubs Archives - Clark Howard USPS Rate Change July 2025 | Pirate Ship Support Pirate Ship Review: Pros & Cons of This Cheap Shipping Service Why You Should Keep Old Credit Card Accounts Open What Is a Fiduciary Financial Advisor and Do I Need One? 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 At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.
0:15 Speaker 01 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.
0:50 Speaker 02 It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And one thing we all got to do is eat. And many Americans have been so buffeted by inflation on food. We now spend, the average American family spends almost nine cents of each dollar that a family spends on food. And it's a bigger percent of our family budget than it used to be. So we're changing. And I want to talk about
1:32 Speaker 02 how we're rethinking our food dollar for you. Also, I often have to ship things around the country. And I love to save money. I've talked about some of the ways to save money. But what will I not do to ship something around the country? I'll tell you. But right now, I want to talk about eating out is eating up your wallet. Clear as could be. And people in the food business, they're just getting clobbered.
2:10 Speaker 02 Understand that fast food places, uh, sit down places, mid-priced chains, quick serve restaurants, they're not trying to cheat you. They're not trying to rip you off. They are just getting eaten alive, oh, bad pun, by labor costs, rent, and food costs. Utilities have been going up as well, and insurance and credit card processing fees. It goes on and on and on. If you're a restaurateur, anywhere from the corner fast food, all the way up to a fancy dancy restaurant. Now, the fancy restaurants
2:52 Speaker 02 deal with not as price sensitive of a customer, and they also, through their specials that the servers are taught to pitch, are able to eke out more net profit than they could otherwise. And I talked a couple of weeks ago about the big push now at every type of place from fast food all the way up, trying to get you to eat chicken or pork. What are they trying to get you not to eat? Anything that's red meat, from a hamburger to a steak, whatever it is.
3:32 Speaker 02 Red meat right now is so expensive that everybody's trying to get you to shift away. So supermarkets, you know how supermarkets are starting to play a role here and directly impacting fast food and quick serve, where supermarkets are offering a variety of food bars, meals ready to eat, things that are ready to just heat up and eat, things that are all ready, ready to eat just as they are in the container. And so, any and all strategies that will save you money.
4:11 Speaker 02 Matter. And so the people that are doing well right now generally are places that had a much tougher time coming out of COVID. And that is what's known as the casual dining segment. Those are places that are not where you go order at a counter, like a quick serve kind of thing. Like, think of Chipotle, which is one of the biggest quick serves. They're not fast food. They're places that you sit at a table, you order there, food's brought to you, but they're really affordable. You know who's doing better than anybody else is Chili's. They've gotten the price points right that make people feel like they're getting
4:56 Speaker 02 value for their food dollar. And they have had just booming sales as a result. But it is a very, very tough time. My wife and I, when we eat out, I don't drink, but more and more, we're going to places that have a happy hour menu at the bar at a restaurant and getting amazing deals. We ate at a restaurant just a couple of days ago, where we got a pizza for two, and she got some kind of wine. Krista, what's the one called that's kind of pinkish looking?
5:37 Speaker 03 Rosé.
5:38 Speaker 02 Okay, yeah, she got rosé. And I just had tap water. And our bill in total, and this was a nice restaurant. You want to guess what our bill was?
5:52 Speaker 03 Before tip? Before tip. A nice restaurant.
5:56 Speaker 02 A nice restaurant.
5:57 Speaker 03 Thirty bucks.
5:58 Speaker 02 Twenty-one.
5:59 Speaker 03 Hmm. That's really good. Especially with a, because alcohol costs a lot.
6:04 Speaker 02 Well, it was happy hour.
6:05 Speaker 03 Oh.
6:06 Speaker 02 So, the wine was cheap.
6:08 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
6:08 Speaker 02 And the pizza that is normally $21 was 12. So, 12, 7. I wonder how we got to 21. I guess taxes.
6:19 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
6:20 Speaker 02 And then, uh, the server was fantastic. So, we gave a really nice tip on top of that.
6:25 Speaker 03 That's awesome.
6:26 Speaker 02 So, we took 21 to 31.
6:28 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
6:29 Speaker 02 So, that got close to what you said.
6:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:32 Speaker 02 But, the point is, this is a time if you're gonna treat yourself, you gotta be creative. You gotta think of ways that work for you. I gotta tell you a funny thing. I, I love Chick-fil-A.
6:45 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
6:45 Speaker 02 You know that. And I hate it that I can't have a Chick-fil-A sandwich anymore.
6:50 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
6:51 Speaker 02 Because of the sodium in it, because of my aortic valve replacement. It'll just, apparently, high sodium will just destroy the valve.
6:59 Speaker 03 Mm.
7:00 Speaker 02 We don't want that, right?
7:00 Speaker 03 No, definitely not.
7:02 Speaker 02 But it was funny, because I said, "Wow, this is the same price as eating at Chick-fil-A for two people."
7:08 Speaker 03 Yep.
7:08 Speaker 02 And the waiter said, "Two people can eat there for as little as $21?"
7:13 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh, I know.
7:14 Speaker 02 And I think, I think that the perception with fast food, you know, McDonald's reporting really bad sales numbers. Chick-fil-A's privately held, so who knows if their sales have softened at all. I mean, it's a tough time to feel perceived value when you go to a, a Squawk box and order something.
7:33 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
7:33 Speaker 02 And they say it's gonna be the national debt of Botswana or something, you know?
7:38 Speaker 03 It's crazy. I just ate, actually, yesterday. I ate at one of my favorite, like, burrito places. But I go there because on Mondays in the app, they have a BOGO, you know, two for one. And they also had a special thing yesterday where it was like rock and roll day. And if you wore a T-shirt from a band or, or singer, then you got a BOGO as well. So, I had, there were four people, so two teenagers, made them put on like rock band T-shirts. And I wore my own T-shirt. And so, I got four burritos for the price of two. But anyway.
8:07 Speaker 02 And by the way, if you have, you have some great suggestions how you do things. To save money after we've had 25% food inflation over the last six years. What are your techniques?
8:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, number one, cooking at home. I mean, I don't eat out nearly as much as I used to. That's for sure. I cook at home. I do leftovers all the time. My kids used to hate leftovers and now they're adults and they understand the value of leftovers now.
8:38 Speaker 02 And you know what else with Krista? Krista was, I mean, every meal she wanted red meat before, but now because of the cost, you've become a non-meat eater, right?
8:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, no, I do have fish, but yeah, that's not a problem for me. All right, we'll go to questions now. This one came in from Robert in Texas. I have a question concerning BJ's Wholesale Club. One is being built near me in, oh, I can't say it, Waukesha, Haci, Texas. Are you able to give me some insight on it, but not sure if I should get a membership to it as well? I am a member of Sam's Club and my second home is Costco.
9:16 Speaker 02 So, Robert, warehouse club fanatic like me. So, over the years, I've been hot and cold on BJ's Wholesale Club. And BJ's is in a growth mode right now, expanding to new territories, as you said, coming into Texas. They used to be all along the Atlantic seaboard. That's where they were. And they have had a lot of success as both Sam's and Costco have had in the inflationary cycle we've been in through COVID and post-COVID. So BJ's is different. They have a different niche than Sam's and Costco.
10:00 Speaker 02 Both Sam's and Costco, and especially Sam's, have a big emphasis on serving business customers. BJ's Wholesale is much more a consumer-oriented place and the prices are not as low.
10:13 Speaker 02 In the store as they are at Sam's or Costco, but what they offer is they offer much more selection. So if you go into BJ's Wholesale Club, instead of finding three types of toothpaste like you might find in a Sam's or Costco, you might find 15. So they don't sell as narrow or as deep, you know, because what Costco and Sam's do is they get the absolute lowest prices from manufacturers by stocking so few items in the store. And so they're able to say, well, you know, if we buy from you, we're going
10:53 Speaker 02 to buy these many million cases. BJ's Wholesale doesn't have that kind of buying power because they have wider selection. It gives you the ability to buy pretty much your whole shopping list at BJ's Wholesale, which you can't easily do at Costco or at Sam's.
11:14 Speaker 03 Maybe when they open, often warehouse clubs will give you a deal on membership. Maybe you could try it and then cancel, right?
11:20 Speaker 02 And BJ's Wholesale has always offered exceptional deals to people who are current or prior military with extra low membership fees for you if you do have prior service or currently do serve our nation.
11:39 Speaker 03 So I know this is kind of the warehouse club. Like, we've been like a little heavy on warehouse clubs, but I do have a couple more questions. Tom in Oklahoma says, are you aware of a workaround to allow international Costco members to use the USA website and benefits? I have a Spanish Costco membership from when my wife was stationed in Spain, and I keep renewing it because it's almost half the cost of an American membership and, as you know, is valid worldwide. The only minor hiccup is the gas station attendant has to assist at the fuel station. I'm unable to create a Costco.com account with my Spanish membership number and haven't been able to use things like Costco Travel, online ordering, etc. Are you aware of a workaround? I asked my local Costco, but the employee very quickly said there is no workaround, and I'm not entirely sure if she heard.
12:23 Speaker 03 Or understood the question. If not, can do you feel it's worth switching to US membership at almost twice the cost to access the travel benefit? Or just maintain the cheaper Spanish one? Thanks for the years of advice and guidance.
12:36 Speaker 02 So it's funny you ask this because you're spilling the beans on a secret that is very rarely known, and that is people who join a Costco in another country because the membership fee may well be lower. And I keep adding countries that I've been to Costco in, in France, Iceland, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, there's other countries I've been. And I'm always looking to see what the basic membership is and their equivalent of executive and almost
13:17 Speaker 02 always is cheaper overseas. So yes, you can do it. I think the answer, and I didn't and haven't, is because I shop so much at Costco. Like the person who said that it was their second home, I think that's my first home. Right? So for me, I want everything that comes with is Costco.com gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Got the travel stuff and all the rest. If you want to do more and more with Costco, you give up the deal you have on the Spanish membership and you spend the money for a US membership. $65 base, 130 for executive. Executive members, you know, now get to go in
14:01 Speaker 02 early. One hour early every day except Saturday, I think, which is 30 minutes earlier.
14:08 Speaker 03 All right, we're going to round this out with Jeff in Georgia. I'm a relatively
14:11 Speaker 02 Another Costco?
14:12 Speaker 03 A relatively new listener, but now count your podcasts and emails as daily must consume content. I'm getting the feeling that you are a little partial toward Costco. I don't know. I don't know, Jeff. You had a dog named Costco.
14:25 Speaker 02 And now we have Kirkland Signature.
14:27 Speaker 03 Yes. I'm a member and considering really going all in with Costco's offerings. Are there any Costco products, services, or programs that you do not recommend or suggest I leave alone? The Kirkland Signature toilet paper would be mine.
14:42 Speaker 02 Definitely KS toilet paper. Yeah.
14:48 Speaker 02 Services and products.
14:50 Speaker 03 I mean, you don't use all their services. Like you do stuff to price things out, like when you're.
14:54 Speaker 02 Yeah. So I've never used any, you know how they're independent selling services through them? I've not used them. Costco Next is one the jury's still out on. Costco Next is where they have this like affiliate relationship with major product manufacturers and also premium, more boutique product manufacturers. But Costco kind of is hands off with that. The delivery and customer service and all that is handled by whoever the next retailer or manufacturer is instead of Costco. I'm not sure about that yet, but why do I love Costco so much?
15:38 Speaker 02 Because everything about the company from when it was founded was about the employees first, the members second, and the markups being the lowest there are out there in retail, with the maximum markup being 14%, except on Kirkland Signature, which is 15%. So that's my obsession with Costco is it's a deal. And by the way, going back to the question about Spain, I was thinking about when I was at the pump filling up my rental car in Iceland last month, how much trouble I had figuring out how to run the pump.
16:21 Speaker 03 At Costco?
16:22 Speaker 02 Yes. Is there anywhere else you buy gas?
16:25 Speaker 03 I didn't know if they had gas pumps at the Iceland Costco.
16:28 Speaker 02 It's the cheapest place in Iceland to fill up your vehicle. 60% or 70% of people in Iceland have a Costco membership.
16:36 Speaker 03 Wow.
16:36 Speaker 02 Something like that. It's one of the highest.
16:38 Speaker 03 It's like Hawaiians.
16:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah. Hawaii. I mean, you can't get Hawaiian residency unless you prove you have a Costco membership first. Okay, enough about Costco.
16:53 Speaker 03 Okay, we're done with Costco for today.
16:55 Speaker 02 Let's talk Sam's.
17:01 Speaker 02 All right. Every time I talk about the postal service, the Clark Stinks file fills up. Get ready again.
17:12 Speaker 00 At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.
17:41 Speaker 01 UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management, built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.
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19:10 Speaker 02 The postal service is in a brutal way. I mean, it's just terrible. I feel so terribly bad for the hardworking people who sort our mail, sort our packages, deliver our mail, deliver our packages. The postal service is suffering mightily from a history of erratic or incompetent management all the way to the highest levels and a failure to devote resources to technology.
19:46 Speaker 02 I can go on my phone right now and see how late my package is from FedEx or UPS, or if it's on time, if it's coming up as a delivery. And then Amazon, if you are an Amazonian Prime member, you're really into it, on the Amazon app, when it's coming to your home, starting at the 10th delivery from your home, you can watch this little icon showing you what street it's on, inches towards you.
20:26 Speaker 02 And then when the package shows up on your doorstep, you can meet the Amazon driver in the driveway. A lot of people do that because they're excited about whatever's coming. Postal service technology, forget about it. I mean, it's just crazy. And it has nothing to do with the workers. Those workers are working ultra-long days, mandatory overtime. It is rough for them. The problems at the postal service are so extreme that if you're sending something and it really, really matters, that it get to where it's going.
21:11 Speaker 02 You can't rely on the postal service to do it right now, and they're going up on prices again. If you disagree, if you use the postal service, if you use another shipping service, and you're sending packages, you gotta know about Pirate Ship and its competitors. There are now a variety of these that offer you significantly lower costs on shipping things as a co-op, as group buying power. And as a general rule, you don't pay to be a member
21:49 Speaker 02 of these organizations. All you do is save money. And it's unreal, and we use Pirate Ship to do this, but when one of my brothers moved across the country, they didn't have enough stuff to hire a moving company or anything like that. We shipped up to 70 pound boxes UPS ground, and through Pirate Ship, paid crazy little money compared to retail to ship the packages, the big boxes, across the country. I mean, it was amazing how much money we saved. So, the reason I mentioned Pirate Ship and others, Pirate
22:34 Speaker 02 Ship's the only one I've used, and there are several others that do this co-op kind of discounting now, and you may know one that's better. I just don't have experience with any others. But know that the postal service, it hurts me to say this, because I know so many people who work so hard, working for the postal service. It is a dysfunction junction right now, and not the workers' fault.
23:04 Speaker 03 All right, here we go with questions. This one came in from John in Arizona. What are your thoughts on replacing older but currently working appliances now with the uncertainty with tariffs? I have several major appliances that are now pushing 20 years old.
23:17 Speaker 02 Wow.
23:19 Speaker 03 Washer and dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher, and even my AC units. I've been successful in self repairing them over the years, but I've noticed that replacement parts are becoming scarce and much more expensive. I'm afraid the longer I wait, the more expensive they will be to replace, negating any advantage of waiting and starting the clock on new units. I've been burned by this before during COVID when I didn't replace my aging water heater. And when it did go out, it would cost nearly twice the price it did when we replaced my parents heater a year earlier. I can afford to pay for any purchase and I wouldn't need financing.
23:53 Speaker 02 So John, okay, let's talk about things you're talking about that you have them going a generation. That's fantastic. This is incredible. You got washer and dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher, AC units, I've been going that long. So what would be different if you replace them? One, today's units aren't likely to last anywhere near as long as the ones you've got. But the other thing is everything you mentioned, the washer, the dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher, your AC units, the ones today are all much more energy efficient or efficient using water like dishwashers today, washing machines today.
24:38 Speaker 02 So do you replace something that's working but old because of tariffs? I would say not necessarily because if you have something that you know, a particular one of your appliances, it's ready to just die. You can tell it's done. Go ahead and replace that. But the others, just because they're old and maybe a little cranky, I wouldn't necessarily replace them. What is the actual practical effect?
25:08 Speaker 02 Going to be in the appliance market of tariffs. It looks like at retail, the price increases and the answer from the White House seems to be different every day, but I think it's going to settle at somewhere depending on the appliance, 10 to 25% higher. So if today, let's say a dishwasher, it might've been 500, maybe 600. It's not going to be like what happened during COVID with you having to pay double for a water heater. They are going to be more expensive, but it doesn't mean that you get rid of something
25:50 Speaker 02 that is still working because of an increase of that scale 10 to 25%. Yeah, if we were looking at tariffs that were going to make the effective retail cost of things double, then you'd say, okay, these things have given me a good life. Let's get them out of here, but not at the increases we're going to have.
26:11 Speaker 03 Irene in Florida says, I just got the Platinum American Express card through Schwab to replace my hotel and airline credit cards through Chase. I noticed that the Platinum American Express card has no preset spending limit. Once I cancel the other cards with a combined credit limit of over $90,000, how is my credit score impacted? My current FICO score is 805.
26:31 Speaker 02 Well, first of all, 805 is fantastic. I mean, you're in golden territory above 800, really above 780. You're gold. You kill off these credit limits with Chase, you're going to devastate your credit score because the percent of available credit you're using accounts for almost a third of what makes up your credit score. What I would do instead is trade down with Chase on the cards you have to ones with no annual fees. Chase doesn't want to lose you. They'd rather have you in a premium product where they're getting a lot of annual fee,
27:14 Speaker 02 but they've got a bunch of cards at Chase that don't have annual fees that you can use to replace the available credit you have trading to another card.
27:26 Speaker 02 And the American Express to the question you asked that inquiring minds want to know, how do the credit bureaus, how does FICO figure out what to assign as a credit limit? When you have an American Express with no preset spending limit? What they do is over time, they take what you charge on the card and extrapolate a limit from it. So when there's no information there at first, you have no reasonable available credit showing. And as you charge to it, that establishes your reasonable credit. I also wouldn't want you to go 100% in with American Express because what happens if
28:10 Speaker 02 American Express one day says, huh, yeah, we don't like Irene anymore. She's done. We're cutting her off and you've gotten rid of your other credit. I'd like for you to have credit from at least two financial institutions. So lower your risk by converting the chase to ones that don't have annual fees and keep that available credit. And then over time, you'll establish whatever your normal spending pattern creates a credit limit with AMEX.
28:42 Speaker 03 Mike in Ohio says, I've used the same certified financial planners for 10 years and they have done a great job. They recently have changed custodians and I'm being asked to resign my engagement agreement. I noticed that there is a mandatory-
28:55 Speaker 02 Not resign, re-sign.
28:56 Speaker 03 Re-sign, sorry, re-sign. I noticed that there is a mandatory mediation arbitration clause in the agreement. From listening to you for years, that clause makes me worried. Is this common practice and do you think I should or have to agree to this clause?
29:12 Speaker 02 Standard operating procedure in the financial planning, stock brokerage industry, that you have to agree to kangaroo court arbitration that is horribly one-sided and unfair to you as an investor. Mike, you're going to find same story. Almost universally in the investment world. So the core and key is are you signing an engagement agreement where they say in the agreement that they are operating as a fiduciary? That's the thing I really want you looking at.
29:51 Speaker 02 If these CFPs are not engaging you, their engagement agreement does not commit them, require them, bind them to being a fiduciary, that's the risk. Because then they are not saying that they are going to do what is best for you as they must do as a fiduciary. They would be within their rights to sell you an inferior product that makes them more money. So that's what I'm more concerned about than the fact that you have to sign an arbitration agreement because yeah, that's what you're going to find.
30:34 Speaker 02 I'm trying to think who in the financial industry does not require arbitration? And it would be a really, really, really skimpy, short, or nonexistent list. I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast and YouTube show. And I hope you heard something, learned something today that works for you in your life and know that that's what we're about at our websites at Clark.com and Clarkdeals.com and our newsletters, on social media, what you may see in your market of me on TV in the evening news, or you may hear from me on radio if I'm on in a market you're in.
31:18 Speaker 02 The idea of everything we do is to empower you with knowledge so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And I'll be at your service on Wednesday.
31:35 Speaker 00 At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are, with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich, together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.
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