10.26.26 Retirement Challenges / Best Value on Rx Eyewear

Re-Thinking Retirement: A Smarter Way To Phase Down & Best Places To Buy Eyeglasses Retirement is supposed to be the ultimate reward after decades of hard work, but for many, the reality doesn’t match the expectation. Whether it’s financial pressure from inflation and living expenses or simply missing the routine, activity, and social connections of a job, going cold turkey from 40 hours a week to zero isn't working for everyone. Clark breaks down why traditional retirement might need a rethink and explains why he’s a huge fan of "phased retirement." Also, Clark takes on the notoriously overpriced eyewear industry. From $800 price tags at big cartel chains down to $80 options for essentially the same pair, the price gap is staggering. We cover the latest findings on where to get the absolute best value on prescription glasses and contact lenses. Clark shares where you should – and should never – buy your next pair so you can strike the perfect balance between price, quality, and service. Plus, Christa shares your #AskClark questions and Clark gives his take. All this and more on the October 26, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show. Submit your questions: Ask Clark. Tiered Retirement: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Prescription Glasses & Contacts: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Charles Schwab Review: Pros & Cons - Clark Howard SIM Card Swapping: The Dangerous Cell Phone Scam Everyone Needs To Know About How To Freeze Your Credit With Experian, Equifax and TransUnion BBB-File a Complaint Submit a complaint | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The Best Places To Buy Eyeglasses The Cheapest Places To Buy Contact Lenses Report: Top Vehicles Most Likely To Last 250,000 Miles Mortgage Recast: What It Is, How It Works Mortgage Recast Calculator - Clark Howard Is a HELOC a Good Idea? The Simple Answer - Clark Howard Clark.com resources: Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:03Speaker 03

  It's great to be here with you 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. In today's episode, I want to talk about something very important if you're planning to retire early or even at normal retirement age. What happens when retirement isn't what you thought it was going to be? And later, I'm going to talk about something I used to get questions about all the time, where to find inexpensive prescription glasses and contact lenses.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  So there are people who count down the moments till they're going to retire. They cannot wait. And there are people who are able to pull this off. They go from working day after day after day, year after year after year, and they go into retirement and they are happy as could be. They're happy financially, they're happy personally. On the other hand, there are a lot of retirees that have trouble with one of those or both of those. And I want to talk about you thinking about retirement a little bit differently.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  I mean, one of the things you've got to have when you're going to retire is money available to pay your bills, deal with the long trend of inflation, deal with the various expenses you're going to have through the years in retirement. And you also have to have something that you really enjoy, that creates routine, friendships, various things you've got to have. One without the other is not enough, and having neither of those two is not going to make the greatest happy retirement.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  So I'm a huge fan of phased retirement, where you work less than you did. Try to work at something, if work has been drudgery for you, try to work at something that you enjoy when you're phasing down, working less. So you still have some amount of routine, and you get used to more and more leisure time. Doing this gives you money that helps create more financial security, working when you're not working at all anymore, that when you continue to have money coming in, instead

• 3:50Speaker 03

  of having to spend what you have, it creates more long-term financial security. And getting used to going from, let's say, working five days a week to three or two days a week is a great way to get used to the way things are going to feel different, be different. And you may find, you know what? I was nuts thinking I could go cold turkey and just go straight into not working at all. And there are people, particularly those who've been in corporate America, in the big corporate bureaucracies, who the second you leave, you're like, oh my goodness, this

• 4:34Speaker 03

  is the greatest thing ever not being there. I mean, I was just stifled in that environment. Not everybody, but some people are. And then a couple of months go by, and it's like, wow, I don't know what to do with myself. That's why phased retirement is something I believe in so much. And what I don't want you to do is end up in a situation where you're done and you realize, I don't have enough money here to make it through. And then you have to go back to work when you may have already adjusted to not working. So that's why I really love the concept of phasing down.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  And Wes Moss, who does a podcast each week.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Ask an advisor on Tuesdays.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  He's written several books, but he's got a...

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Right, the Retire Sooner Method.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Retire Sooner, which is about how you do get to retirement, and that you may, you may actually need less money than you thought. And this is geared towards people who've been big-time savers.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Well, he's got tons of research, but one of the big things about is like, what makes people happy in retirement? And so he talks about those, you know, habits on steroids and how many you really need to have, the core pursuits, as he says. And there's a lot to retirement, for sure, in his research. I find it very interesting.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  It's kind of like people who win a big lottery, and you ask them, well, what are you going to do? Well, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to quit my job. I'm never working again. And the shock is how much you may miss purpose, you may feel loneliness, not being around people like you were before. I think about during COVID, there were people who did really well with the remote work. There were people who were lonely as all get out from doing remote work. Think of being completely retired, the isolation you may feel if you don't have a good network of friends and family you're being with.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  So retirement is this dream people have of being able to tell work to, eh, get lost. But I want you to think through both sides of it, and think about the idea of tapering off instead of cold turkey.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  Okay. Let's go to questions. Building in Georgia says, how is estate planning with Vanguard? I'm looking into a trust because I have had a recent windfall, and I want to plan to set up my children and hopefully grandchildren with some stability. I trust Vanguard and feel it may be a better company to go with than a smaller trust company or a local attorney who specializes in trusts. What are your thoughts?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Okay. This is such an interesting question because Vanguard has different levels of their personal advisory service. And if you have enough money that has come into your life, you qualify for estate planning attorneys who are staffers at Vanguard, who will sit down with you and integrate with a Vanguard planner, both having the proper, if you need trusts, what those trusts would be, and all that. But most often what I find is that what happens is that if you have enough assets, you have

• 8:07Speaker 03

  access to their attorneys who will look at what you have, an outside attorney prepare who specializes in wills, estates, and trusts, and suggest things that would be more appropriate in the low-cost Vanguard world. A lot of the trust work done ends up leading to a lot of expenses at high-fee kind of organizations, and that's completely backwards from what Vanguard is all about. So using Vanguard as the sole source for legal information on doing trusts and doing

• 8:50Speaker 03

  the estate work, I'm not sure I would recommend that. But doing it in tandem, I like that idea quite a lot.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  Cindy in South Carolina says, what do you think about travel notices on credit cards? This kind of creeped me out. Citi advised me that they had created a travel notice on my MasterCard from info they gathered from my credit card activity. Is that a good thing? Should I create a travel notice every time I leave town? The notice only has dates, no reference as to where I'm traveling. Is that helpful or giving another organization information that is personal?

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Okay. So, used to be Cindy is someone who travels a lot outside the United States. If I didn't file a manual travel alert with whoever the issuer was, I would get the unpleasant surprise that I'd go to use my card and it would not work because I hadn't given them a proper travel alert upfront. Today, the card companies have so much data on us that generally a travel alert is no longer necessary because they're looking and seeing, oh, here's a booking for a hotel and blah, blah, blah. Here's an airline ticket to so-and-so or wherever.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  So they know more than about you than you can remember, at least me in my own head. So...

• 10:18Speaker 04

  But if you use multiple cards from different issuers, they may not know. I mean, I think it's better safe than sorry to put travel notices on.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, because a lot of issuers now say, we don't need a travel alert, while others still want you to do a travel alert. And you'll know if you sign into your account, or some of them are okay on the app, others you have to sign in at a laptop. And you add that travel alert, and then you're not going to have to worry, probably not, about having your card declined when you go to use it.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  And if you plan on getting cash at an ATM somewhere?

• 10:55Speaker 03

  You have to do that with the ATM. And fair warning to anyone who has the Schwab debit card and you use that for cash, by my own experience, even with a travel alert in place, repeatedly I get declined on the Schwab at an ATM on their card. So just know you have to have Plan B, whatever that is.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  If you're relying on Schwab's debit card for your use outside the United States. Do you use a Schwab one?

• 11:28Speaker 04

  I do.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Have you ever been?

• 11:30Speaker 04

  Years ago, but lately, no, since I've done the travel notices.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Okay, Barbara in Missouri says, please warn people to lock down their SIM cards on their cell phones. Ours was stolen electronically almost 11 months ago. Immediately, they got into our bank account and took a few thousand dollars, as well as made purchases using many of my credit cards. They did this late on a Friday afternoon. We immediately called our bank's after hours number and reported it, but had to go to the bank Saturday morning and cancel our checking and savings accounts and open a new one. The bank would not even put a dispute for the money taken from our checking and savings accounts because it was transferred to an online account called Chime in our names.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  All right, I gotta stop you right there. The bank doesn't get to choose whether you have the right to dispute an item. And the fact that money was stolen through Chime makes it no less a fraudulent activity, and you are not liable for that. How many months ago was this?

• 12:32Speaker 04

  Eleven.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  It's getting late to fight that. Please go on. I just get so annoyed when you have your information compromised, no fault of your own, and the bank says, oh, well, we're not helping you with that. We don't care what the law says.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  I never even heard of Chime. We then went to Xfinity to find out why my phone wouldn't work, keeping me from making and getting calls and texts. They told me it was stolen electronically, and I spent four hours getting a new one. Later that night, my husband's card was stolen, and we spent another four hours in their store again and never got it back. So, we switched to another mobile company. I then did what Clark said and froze all our credit. Here's the biggest kicker. After nine months, we got an email from a collection agency, which turned out to be Xfinity. I always paid my bills for them automatically through our checking account. I even went further and paid an extra month with my new account, so there would not be any problem owing them money. I've talked to them on the phone and gone to the store, and they will not help me with this. They

• 13:32Speaker 04

  say since it went to a collection agency, they can't see my record after all this time. I just have to pay the agency. My 800-plus score went down to 700 because of all of this. I try to tell everyone to lock their SIM and freeze their credit, and I share your YouTube channel to try to warn others. Thanks for listening to this and sharing it.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Barbara, thank you for sharing your story. And I'm going to come back to the SIM lock. I'm just really annoyed by the way you were treated by your bank, the way Comcast treated you. With your bank, it's been 11 months. Go ahead and file a complaint at consumerfinance.gov. I don't know how that's going to help this far out, but please try that. Also, file a complaint about your bank with the Better Business Bureau and against Comcast with the Better Business Bureau at BBB.org. Keep the details simple, but the

• 14:32Speaker 03

  reality is, Xfinity is, wrong as could be, Comcast, to tell you, oh, well, not our problem. We're not going to help you. You're just our customer. We're not going to help you. Just annoys me no end. Okay, so I have this to say to Comcast. You keep having to tell Wall Street your subscriber numbers are going down, down, down. Could there be an if then between customer no service and now that you face competition, the loss of customers? That's all I gotta say about that. Now I'm going to go back to SIM lock. SIM lock is

• 15:16Speaker 03

  really easy. My wife got a new overpriced iPhone, because to me, they're overpriced. Anyway, so she gets her new iPhone. She's really excited about it.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  I'm just going to stick up for Lain for one second. Was it more expensive than your most recent phone?

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 15:33Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Way, way, it's even better. It was a hand-me-down within the family.

• 15:38Speaker 04

  What? Lain's was?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Lain, she got it used.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  How dare you, sir.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  No, I'm saying, I'm just telling the whole story. Anyway.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Totally sending her this.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  So, anyway, she can't get the phone working on, we're on Google Fi, can't get the phone working because we have the SIM lock in place. So, I had to help her, and then I couldn't figure it out. So then I do a call with tech support, and eventually, now she can use the phone, then immediately put the SIM lock back in place. Because criminals know so much about us, and they're just waiting to pounce. And since two-factor authentication is so much how you get into people's accounts, and they already know with the information that's out there about us, they already know where your accounts are and all that. So

• 16:37Speaker 03

  the two-factor authentication of stealing your cell phone service is the key to making the thefts work, which is why it's very simple. You set up a SIM lock through your cell phone carrier, either on their app or on their website. And then, when a criminal tries to do a theft of your number, it's blocked because you have your SIM locked. And, gosh, I feel so bad for you, Barbara. Your credit affected, money of yours stolen, organizations, corporations that should have helped you, not doing their job as they

• 17:19Speaker 03

  should, and leaving you holding the bag. I just hate this all the way around. And so thank you for letting people know how important the SIM lock is. And best to you going forward. Please, do the BBB.org complaints. Let's see if it gets the Comcast Collection Agency out of your life, and gets the bank that told you, oh, well, we're not going to do anything about getting money back from Chime. That happened in the 24-hour period you figured out things were going wrong, and the bank still told you to go get lost? Uh-uh, that's

• 17:59Speaker 03

  not okay. Coming up ahead, I'm going to tell you what else is not okay. Getting ripped off, if you're four eyes like me, on glasses or contact lenses. It's so easy now to save on both.

• 18:16Speaker 05

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• 18:39Speaker 05

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• 18:46Speaker 06

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  This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song like All I Want. Right, okay, we can't afford that. You know what, forget the music budget, we're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.

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• 21:15Speaker 03

  So repeatedly, I'll be out and about and somebody will come up to me in an airport or wherever I am and say, "Look at these, look at these." And they take off their glasses and they're showing me and they're waving them and they say, "Zinnies, I got Zinnies here." And they're so excited, or wherever they get their discount glasses. And it's such a crazy industry, right? Because you have the same thing, it could even be the same frames, and one place will be $800 and another will be $80 for pretty much the identical pair of glasses.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  The price differences are unreal. And I want to draw a distinction here. There still are, there aren't a lot in terms of market share, but there still are locally owned eyeglass places that aren't going to show up in national surveys. They're not going to be as cheap as the bargain places I talk about, but they're going to be a lot cheaper than the chains that are part of the worldwide cartel on the sale of frames and lenses that have driven up this price gap in the purchase of eyeglasses and contact lenses

• 22:44Speaker 03

  that is beyond shocking how different the prices are at a cartel operation and a consumer-oriented operation. Now, we updated in August our research on where are the best places to buy glasses for people that are into price and into having customer service as well. And this isn't because of me. Costco came in first this year as the best place to buy glasses for the combination of service, quality, and price.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  And I think this is the first time somebody else I'm going to mention is in second place this year. Warby Parker, it's made our list most years, but now the second on the list. And for glasses, it tends to be more expensive than any of the other choices of our bargain list here, but still much, much, much cheaper than going to one of the cartel-owned shops for glasses and contact lenses. And Sam's Club had its best ranking ever on our list, as best I can recall, third place. So there's some difference here. Zinni came in fourth.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  You can see it when you're looking to get glasses. And I'm talking about glasses here, but also there's big difference with contact lenses, depending on where you buy them. From a mail-order contact lens place to buying them at one of the warehouse clubs, you can save huge money on contact lenses as well. And it's really all about you, what you want to do to save money. And where is that balance for you? That combination of service, customer service, quality, price,

• 24:53Speaker 03

  how those four things work for you picks for you what's your favorite place to buy glasses. But I'll tell you where I would never buy from one of these chains, multinational chains that all look like, like they're local chains, but somehow magically have prices that are like what you're going to pay at one of the discounters in about the year 2435. You're still alive and 410 years. We have these people that are into longevity, 409 years, people that are really into longevity.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  I don't think they're expecting to live 400 more years, right? So don't go to one of the crazy overpriced chains. Don't throw your money away. Watch your money and get the best deal.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  All right, we'll go to questions. Tim in South Carolina sent this one in. "I read the article about vehicles most likely to reach 250,000 miles on Clark.com, and I was surprised to see that Subaru only had one vehicle on the list, an SUV. We bought a Subaru in 2024 and thought they were in the top tier for lasting forever after hearing stories of how they typically get 300,000 miles. Were we bamboozled?"

• 26:15Speaker 03

  No, no, no. Okay, so Tim, there's a couple of things that go on with these lists of vehicles that last an ultra-long time. And part of it is the buyer and part of it is the vehicle. Because, all right, so what brand usually is there on the list of vehicles that people drive a zillion miles? Do you know what it is?

• 26:38Speaker 04

  Honda or Toyota.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Toyota, it's Toyota. And the reason is, there's something that people inside the automotive business, they all hate Toyota. And there's something they've always said, they said, "Toyotas are for people who hate cars." Meaning that they're not the most style and they're just an appliance that gets you somewhere. That's the knock in the industry. So you tend to have people who buy a Toyota who just want it to work and get them from point A to point B. And so Toyotas tend to be at the top of these lists for how many miles they're driven

• 27:20Speaker 03

  because the profile of the buyer is somebody who just drives a car forever. One of my college roommates drives, only buys Toyota, only considers Toyota, and drives each one for how long? 20 to 25 years.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  And cars, Tim, are just a big bother. So the profile of the buyer is also a factor here, Tim. Don't feel badly about buying a Subaru. Consumer Reports Love Subaru finds that many of their models are an incredibly great buy, new or used, because they just last and people are happy having them.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  Edward in Georgia says, "My wife and I are expecting our second child." Congratulations, our oldest is four. So we purchased a minivan for space. "We also want to have another child after this. I currently drive a 2022 Tesla Model 3. My original purchase was because I used to drive a lot for work, but now I work 100% remote. A Google search stated I have $25,000 estimated in value with no, there's no loan on it. Should I explore purchasing another SUV in the current market? Also, I have the option of taking my deceased father's truck for about $10,000, but it's a gas guzzler and not a big upgrade on space for the family. Based on current market trends, what would you suggest I do?"

• 28:51Speaker 03

  So first of all, Edward, congratulations on your child and my sympathies to you on losing your father.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  So yeah, the truck makes no sense based on what you said. And SUVs is, it's ironic you're asking about this because I did this in one of my TV segments recently, that SUVs have become a better deal of late, particularly the crossover versions, because people are not as interested in buying them because of the run-up in fuel costs. So they have become more of a deal where really fuel-efficient vehicles, dealers can't get enough of those right now. So this would be a good time. And if you don't want to have your back go out on you.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  You can't put a four-year-old and a newborn in a Model 3 because the lean-in with the car seat will just rip your back apart because Model 3 is not designed for running around with kids. So, and right now, electric vehicles, used ones are hot in the marketplace. So this is actually a good time to zig while others are zagging and look for SUV, could be, but preferably a crossover that'll still have okay fuel economy and you can put the kids in without contorting your back.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Lance in Washington says, extremely longtime listener, big fan, and my family may or may not roll their eyes when starting, when I started a sentence with Clark says.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  During one of your episodes a few years ago, I was enlightened to something I'd never heard of, recasting a home loan. It turns out my mortgage is eligible and fortunately, it's something I plan to do in the near future. I never would have known of that possibility if it weren't for your show. My question relates to something I've seen promoted on social media, but I haven't been able to independently find out how it works. The ads discuss paying off one's mortgage using a HELOC. Then it goes on to say, the plan calls for using the HELOC for daily expenses as well. I don't understand how this could ever exceed the benefit of making additional principal payments on the regular home loan. If you can, I'd love to hear whether this could be a scam or a legitimate plan.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Not a scam Lance, just a bit of a snake oil sale here. So, okay, the whole idea is these are pitched as a way for you to get out of mortgage debt a whole lot quicker. I mean, you can keep your long-term fixed rate mortgage, but why would you do that? You could go into a floating rate loan that can go up or down every month. Really? So what they do with these things is all your money from your paycheck goes direct deposited into the loan, the HELOC, lowering your daily interest is the whole pitch. And

• 31:53Speaker 03

  everything they show you is about ignore all your bills, all your loans, just look at paying off on your mortgage earlier. But you do still have other bills. You got to pay those. So this whole pitch that they're doing on the web and on social media is a bunch of hooey. So, not a scam, just a bad deal to take a fixed rate mortgage and take it into a HELOC that unless you can pay it off in three years or less, you're playing with fire going to that HELOC. So, when it made no sense to you, it's because it makes

• 32:38Speaker 03

  no sense. And on the recast, for people who aren't aware of that, let's say you inherit a lump sum, you get a big bonus from work, and you want to reduce your monthly mortgage payment. If you make a big principal prepayment, it will shorten the length of your loan, but keep your monthly payments the same. In a recast, which requires no underwriting and is generally free to do or very low cost with your lender, if your loan permits, you make the lump sum payment against your mortgage, and they recast it, keeping the length of

• 33:18Speaker 03

  the loan the same, but lower what your monthly payment is, having received that lump sum from you. And so that's it for us today. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and YouTube show. And if you are watching us on YouTube, or even if you've not watched us on YouTube, we have wonderful bite-sized pieces of information with YouTube Shorts, which is the fastest-growing part of YouTube watching, where you watch Shorts on the top. You don't have all the time to devote right now to something. You can go watch our YouTube Shorts on our channel.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  And it's just one of the ways that we're there to serve you with knowledge that empowers you so you can save more and spend less and avoid getting ripped off. And we will be at your service on the podcast on Wednesday.

• 34:17Speaker 07

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• 34:52Speaker 03

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