Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 11.14.25 Batteries Not Included / Multigenerational Living About this episode Today - A form of shrinkflation is affecting toys & electronics this holiday season, but there’s something you can do about it, to save money. Also - Multiple generations living together used to be common in our country, but fell out of favor. Well, it’s back. How do you navigate having your adult kids living in your home? Battery Shrinkflation: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 All In The Family: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Gold Is at All-Time Highs. Should You Invest? (Clark.com) My 7 Rules for Using Credit Cards - Clark Howard This Clark Howard Credit Card Rule Could Prevent a Nightmare Scenario 7 Money Mistakes You Might Be Making at the Gas Station UGMA/UTMA 529 Plans: Benefits and Drawbacks Compared to 529s Best 529 College Savings Plans By State Should I Contribute to a 529 Plan Only To Roll It Into a Roth IRA Later? Clark Howard's Simple Steps To Get Better Customer Service Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-527 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript 0:04 Speaker 00 It's my pleasure to welcome you here 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. And I know it's Friday, but we're skipping "Clark Stinks" this week. Blame Chris, no. I explained the other day, we've ended up with an imbalance of way too many questions waiting to be answered versus the number of "Clark Stinks" posts. So "Clark Stinks" will be back next Friday, but we're gonna do a normal Q and A today. And I'm gonna talk about shrinkflation, something affecting toys and electronics this Christmas
0:48 Speaker 00 holiday season, and I'm gonna tell you what to do about it. And later, multiple generations living under one roof, common around the world, used to be common in the US, but it's back here. How do you navigate having an adult, child, or children living under your roof? We're gonna talk that through. So manufacturers of small electrical and electronics items and toys, where batteries
1:26 Speaker 00 used to be included, more often than not, really, very, very often, no batteries included anymore. It's a way of manufacturers and retailers trying to hold down the price point of an item, but at the same time, giving you less with it to try to get back some margin. So this is just a thing, and you know, we're under pricing pressures, obviously. And so what's the worst thing you can do is be in Best Buy, or Target, or Walmart,
2:08 Speaker 00 or any local store, and they say, "You know, that's gonna need batteries."
2:17 Speaker 00 Need to buy batteries for that. The battery price markup. Oh, I love to pick on CVS, right? CVS and Walgreens.
2:30 Speaker 00 Oh, man. If you ever did the math to see how much they charge per battery, when you buy them at one of the drugstore chains. I mean, it's not like you're trying to buy the entire Duracell plant. You were just trying to buy some batteries. So what I want you to do is understand this is what's going on. That the cost of batteries is something that you want to prepare to hold down since so many items are coming, batteries not included.
3:12 Speaker 00 So if you buy them, you could buy, if you're a big Amazon shopper, you could buy their Amazon Basics batteries. But the best place to buy batteries is by the private labels from BJ's Wholesale, Sam's Club, or Costco. Now, Sam's Club in particular, Costco does private label only AA, AAA. Sam's Club sells them in a wider variety of battery types. So if you've got something that's going to run on 9 volt, you can buy those, Members Mark, whatever it is, pretty much Cs, Ds, whatever. They will tend to have them in the Sam's Club, not in Costco.
3:55 Speaker 00 And BJ's more like Sam's on that. But buy the batteries in volt, buy private label, and you're going to save money. Now, I want to talk about Costco for a second. They had Duracells on sale recently. And I was standing there watching people because they had the Duracells end cap on sale, the AA's and AAA's. If you calculate what
4:24 Speaker 00 People are paying per battery on sale. And then just to the side of them in the aisle, not at the end cap. They had the Caracan signature, the KS double As and triple As. Even on sale, the Duracells are much more per battery than the KSs. And guess who makes the KSs? Duracell. It's one of the few items at Costco that it's leaked out who actually makes the product for them. Don't waste your money. Buy the store brand.
5:00 Speaker 01 I have to say, I did buy a lot of KS batteries a while ago and I hadn't used them on. I just recently went to look for one and I have them in a bin. And they were all like, yeah, like had white stuff on them and it was gross. Old, I don't know what it is.
5:15 Speaker 00 I'm sorry. Well, I mean, they're KS if they were still in date, you know, they have a date on them. You can walk them right back to the store.
5:23 Speaker 01 I didn't know they had a date on them. They're probably not in date. That's probably the problem. If you don't need that many batteries, it might not be worth it. Oh, boy. Don't look at me like that. All right.
5:33 Speaker 00 What?
5:34 Speaker 01 All right, I'm starting out with a question that's really a Clark stinks, just to make everyone happy. It didn't come in the Clark stinks form, so I threw it in here. This is from Paul in Illinois. We invested in gold three years ago. Can you admit your mistake on this investment?
5:49 Speaker 00 So gold is not an investment. Gold is a hedge. And gold is, I've said in the past, having money in precious metals or commodities. It's reasonable for that to be a hedge in your portfolio of five to 10%. But it's not an investment. Because an investment is when you're putting money into something that creates value based on somebody having a new product, a new service, an invention, whatever. Gold is a store of value. And gold, you're betting against.
6:31 Speaker 00 Bad times. In this case, gold has gone way up because of what's known as debasement theory, that the way we're running budget deficits in the United States and things that the government might do to try to reduce the obligations of the country by debasing the value of the dollar, gives people, it's another reason, yet another reason, to go for safe harbor and hedge against potential trouble out there. And so, gold has had a big run-up. Did I make a mistake? So, I would say, you said, you used the word investing, investment?
7:14 Speaker 01 That's what, yeah, that's what Paul said.
7:16 Speaker 00 Paul, so Paul, I don't see it as an investment to this moment. Yes, it's had an incredible return. Does it stay up there? As we know, with silver and gold in the past, it can go way up when there's times of unrest, uncertainty, anxiety out there, and then it can come back down. Silver just got back to where it was in what year? 1980. It took 45 years for silver to get back to where it was before. Am I going to say something like that's going to happen with gold? No. But I'm saying, that's why it's a small part
7:56 Speaker 00 of what you do as like a defensive measure against uncertainty or anxiety, not an investment.
8:07 Speaker 01 Mark in California says, after hearing Clark talk about his smart devices, I decided to get the, I'm not even sure if how you say it.
8:15 Speaker 00 The Amazfit?
8:16 Speaker 01 Amazfit is how you say it?
8:17 Speaker 00 You get that from, usually from Amazon. They're very affordable.
8:21 Speaker 01 I don't know if the measurements are accurate, but I really like the features of the Zep app that works with this watch. It has helped me track my exercise routines, my diet, and my sleep. One of the features of the watch is that it receives text messages that are sent to my phone, very convenient when my phone is out of reach. However, I'm concerned about the privacy of the text. Messages sent to my watch, including the two factor codes whenever I'm accessing my financial accounts from my computer. The app is just forwarding the information from the phone to my watch, but can I trust the app? Should I disable the receipt of text messages to protect who can see my codes? The codes are usually only good for a few minutes, but it still makes me nervous that they're being forwarded by a third-party app.
9:03 Speaker 00 So first of all, I'm glad you're enjoying the Amaze Fit. It is quite a deal for somebody who wants to tiptoe into being obsessive like I am with all my trackers.
9:14 Speaker 01 I've got a Samsung Watch and I do receive text messages on it and I never even thought about that. I'm like, oh, good, I can get my card.
9:22 Speaker 00 I have never, it doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, but I've never, ever heard of a breach happening with any of the apps that transmit this, like you get to your Samsung Watch in addition to your phone. And you're not on a Samsung phone, you're on a Pixel phone, right? I've never heard of any problem with that, so I would not worry so much about that until and unless we hear, Clark, why did you say that? This could happen, that could happen, this did happen. But I've never heard of a problem involving the two-factor authentications coming to a health app, watch, or anything like that.
10:06 Speaker 01 Lyndon, Florida says, Clark, please do all women and some men a service. My friend's husband died recently. They had a joint credit card and she had paid the bills on it for 25 years. But when she called the credit card company to report his death and get the card transferred to her name, you guessed it, they closed the card immediately and told her she would have to reapply for a new card. Even though she had been the main user and bill payer, the card was apparently in his name and she was an authorized user. Fortunately, she did have another card in her name, but that may not have been the case. Can you please discuss this and warn everyone that they should have a credit card in their own name only?
10:46 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I remember when my dad died in the 1980s, that I did this on radio. About what happened to my mom. Because when my dad died, my mom was in the same position. She had never had a credit card in her own name. She had only been a second on a card that my dad had. And so that's something I talked about back then. And my mom said, make sure you tell every woman out there to make sure she has her own credit.
11:29 Speaker 00 So mom, even though you've been deceased a long time, I will say it right now. And this is 100% true, Linda, that each party, partner, spouse, whatever, you each need to have your own credit. Because it doesn't have to be something like a couple splitting, a divorce, whatever. It can be a loved one passes away. And not only are you grieving that, you got no credit. So remember, credit in each person's name, Noah's Ark rule. Two different forms of credit in each person's name. Not from the same financial institution.
12:12 Speaker 00 So if you think you're okay having a Visa or MasterCard from the same bank or credit unit? No, you want them from different financial institutions. So if one decides they don't like you anymore, you still have the other. If they're both from the same place, they might shut you down for both. Is, I don't know if I mentioned recently, there was a big mess up at Citibank. And people who had multiple credit cards with Citibank, they all went dead at the same time. And people couldn't use them for weeks and weeks and weeks. And Citibank has now finally apologized.
12:50 Speaker 00 But that is another danger of using cards only from one financial institution. Coming up ahead, so many of us, under our roof, having our kids, our aging parents, whatever. Good thing, great thing, bad thing, combination of all of those. We're going to talk about that.
13:17 Speaker 00 So kids moving in with their parents, adult kids. It is a absolute huge spike over the last many years. And there's an easy explanation. It's not necessarily that the kids want to live under your roof. It's that they can't afford to have their own roof over their heads. In a lot of cities, in these large metro areas, not only is it not affordable for your adult children to buy a house, in a lot of cases, they can't even afford rent. So they're under your roof.
14:02 Speaker 00 And a lot of times, you have the room in your house. You've got extra bedrooms, you've got the bedroom they grew up in, maybe. So there are circumstances where this is awesome for the parent, for the adult child. You love being together, you love seeing each other. And then there are other situations where you feel put upon as the parent, as the homeowner, and your adult child's eating your food, leaving messes, and coming and going like they're staying in a hotel.
14:45 Speaker 00 And you're the one taking care of them. So this is such a thing now. I mean, the most number of adult children living under their parents' roof, like, I don't even know how many, if we've got to go back 100 years, how far we have to go back, maybe, maybe 100 years ago, that this was such a common thing. So as a parent, you've got to set rules. You've got to have agreed upon rules. Does your adult child pay rent? Do they pay a portion of utilities? Do they pay a portion of the groceries? I mean, what is it you want it to be?
15:29 Speaker 00 Are they allowed to have overnight guests? Are they allowed to have parties? What rules are there because you don't want to feel unwelcome in your own house? Or feel like going home? Let's say you go home from work and you don't want to go home because of what you're going to find with mess in the sink, you know, the kitchen sink, the refrigerator is empty because your kid ate everything in it. So you said about rules and let's go to the housing thing. If the reason the kid is at home as an adult is because they can't afford to rent a place
16:13 Speaker 00 or they're trying to buy a house. Well, if they're living, let's say you let them live rent free under your roof or you charge them rent as a mandatory form of savings. But a lot of times if somebody doesn't have an automatic bill, they've got to pay that monthly bill, the money just kind of goes into the ether. And they might spend 300 a month at Starbucks. That could have been so little money if they made that cup of coffee in your kitchen before they left in the morning. They might have $300 to save, to put towards savings or to put towards a down payment on a house.
16:58 Speaker 00 So having some kind of guideline of rules that need to be in writing that you both agree to and with, I think is, is something you should do because you don't want to be run over by your own kid by that, I mean, that you're taking advantage of because your kid may go back into child mode even though they're an adult. And they're like, well, I used to just leave my room a mess. I used to just eat whatever. I used to do these things. Why can't I do them now?
17:37 Speaker 00 Because they're an adult and hopefully they're out there working, earning a decent paycheck. And I mean, obviously if you're working and your child who's the adult is living with you because They lost their job. Then you trade out chores and responsibilities for them living under your roof. Cause they're not working. They got the time and instead of you having to do all those things, they do. And I know I'm ignoring a lot of family dynamics right now. I'm just trying to focus on making sure that you are fair to yourself as well as being
18:20 Speaker 00 good to your adult child.
18:23 Speaker 01 All right, let's go to questions.
18:25 Speaker 00 By the way, I know that all sounded like I've had bad experiences with my adult children taking advantage. Thank goodness I didn't, don't, whatever.
18:38 Speaker 01 Okay. Andrew in Iowa says, happy football season, Clark. An easy money saving strategy I've found is the PayPal debit card. It gives 5% cash back on selected category like groceries, gas, or dining. My wife and I use it for groceries as that's where we spend the most, as well as being the safest place to use a debit card. But since there's two of us, we're going to get a second one to take advantage of the second category. I've heard there's some risk in using debit cards for gas or dining. How concerned should we be? Isn't that risk quite minimal with a card separate from our bank? 5% back is hard to pass up.
19:13 Speaker 00 Yeah. So I'd say at the gas pump, it is a disaster to use a debit card because of the scammers that are so present. Now, if the debit card from PayPal comes with Tap to Pay and most pay at the pump now has Tap to Pay, that is safe to use a debit card at. The Tap to Pay system is a modern technology. The, the, the thing where you slide your card that they still have had at so many gas pumps is a technology from the 1960s and not secure or safe at all.
19:56 Speaker 00 So no one should ever, ever use a debit card. This is a never, never, never, not ever rule. You don't use a debit card, pay at the pump at a gas station where you just slide the card.
20:11 Speaker 01 Okay, Niva in North Carolina says, "We have a baby girl due next month, and it looks like she will be receiving an extra baby gift in the form of a Trump account. Thanks, fellow taxpayers. We already have a two-year-old son, and I'd like to keep things as even as possible amongst our kids. Should I simply add a bonus of $1,000 to his 529? Or should I put $1,000 in a brokerage account, UTMA, UGMA, et cetera? I like the idea of a separate, non-529 account, partly to keep things as similar as possible between the kids, and partly because I could definitely see a car being the first major purchase either of them makes."
20:46 Speaker 00 So, the Atma and Agma, the problem with them in a kid's name is that if, in your family culture, college is part of what you're gonna do, the treatment for financial aid is really ugly when a kid has money in an Atma or Agma. So, even though it, on the surface, looks like it's somehow more fair, I've just popped $1,000 in the 529 account. The beauty of the 529 is it is so tax-friendly for accumulating money for college, tax-free growth, tax-free spending,
21:29 Speaker 00 and then ultimately, a conversion to a Roth IRA for money left over, up to, under current law, 35 grand, migrating from the 529 tax-free into the Roth tax-free, which then grows tax-free and ultimately spent tax-free in retirement by the kids. That's what I would do, is just throw that $1,000 in the 529, keep it simple.
21:55 Speaker 01 Okay, and then Joe in New Jersey says, "I'm a longtime listener, and I wanted to share two experiences that may help your audience, both of which I learned from your show. The first involves the power of the Better Business Bureau. My wife ordered a heavy mirror from a large online retailer, and they arranged installation through a third-party handyman service. A few days later, the mirror fell, thankfully without breaking, and the seller told us..."
22:19 Speaker 00 That must have been a well-made mirror. That it didn't break when it fell.
22:23 Speaker 01 I know. The seller told us to deal with the installer for a refund of the $65 installation fee, but the installer kept pointing back to the big company. After three months of back and forth with both companies and no resolution, I filed a Better Business Bureau complaint. Within an hour, the retailer called me directly and credited the full amount that same day. Similarly, my daughter discovered multiple fraudulent charges on her healthcare account, claims for vaccinations in California even though she lives in New Jersey. Despite repeated calls, she made no progress in getting them removed. She then filed a BBB complaint and within two hours, a senior representative called, acknowledged the issue.
23:00 Speaker 00 Two hours?
23:02 Speaker 01 For two weeks to investigate. Two weeks later, the charges were confirmed as fraudulent and removed. These experiences showed us how effective the BBB can be when companies aren't responsive. Another valuable but often overlooked resource is your state's Department of Consumer Affairs. They can step in when small businesses commit fraud, for example, contractors who take your money but don't deliver, saving you the hassle of going through small claims court.
23:26 Speaker 00 Thank you very much for taking the time to write about those things. There are more than a handful, but certainly not a majority, of states have effective state consumer affairs offices, and I fail to mention that often enough, and I want to thank you for mentioning it. And I want to thank you for mentioning the success using the Better Business Bureau. The BBB is something that I find that so many people don't even know it's out there, what it does. And the Better Business Bureau is really kind of libertarian answers. We don't need government to clean up our own house in capitalism. We'll clean it up ourselves.
24:08 Speaker 00 My experience that you'll find again and again is if you're dealing with a corporate bureaucracy, oftentimes, nothing gets done. So you file the complaint through the Better Business Bureau, and if it is a legitimate company that's just not doing a good customer service job. Then the Better Business Bureau can get results. If you're dealing with a crook, filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau is not going to help. But particularly with big bureaucratic companies, BBB complaints tend to work very, very well. All you do is you go to BBB.org. And I want to thank you so much, Joe.
24:50 Speaker 00 You're a perfect example when I talk about all of us being in this together. All of us helping each other, guiding each other, giving feedback to each other. Because it's hard enough fighting these battles alone and not knowing what to do. But learning from each other, empowering each other with knowledge is absolutely awesome. And I thank you so much for that. And my goal for you, have an absolutely fantastic weekend this weekend. And I'll be watching my football, of course. But have a great one. You know what I don't like?
25:34 Speaker 00 It's dark this time of year. So, so early. But you know, I've only got three and a half more months till we get more daylight. So enjoy what daylight we have right now. And thanks for being with us. And we'll be at your service on Monday.
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