08.24.26 The U.S. Savings Rate / Home Buyer Warning

The latest financial data shows the U. S. savings rate has dropped to an alarming rate. While many households are struggling just to cover the basics, many middle and upper-middle-class families are falling into the lifestyle trap. Find out what the new rate is and what you should aim for instead. Also today, new commission structures for home buyer agents are proving problematic. Recent lawsuit settlements were supposed to make agent commissions more transparent and negotiable for home buyers. Instead, the law of unintended consequences has created a nightmare for consumers. If you are shopping for a home, know what to watch out for. Plus, Christa shares your #AskClark questions and Clark gives his take. All this and more on the August 24, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show. Submit your opinions or questions: Ask Clark. Automatic Saving Gets It Done: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Home Buyer Warning: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: America’s Savings Rate Has Dropped to an Alarming Low How To Save Money: Spend Less & Build Your Savings Do You Save More Than the Average American? - Clark Howard How Much of Each Paycheck You Should Save or Invest Why You Need To Lock Your Brokerage Account Today 7 Ways To Invest In Real Estate - Clark Howard Should You Pay Extra for Postal Insurance When Mailing Valuable Items? She tried to fire her real estate agent. It turned into a nightmare. New Real Estate Trap: How a Signed Paperwork Loophole Can Cost You Thousands How to Find a Geriatric Care Manager - Clark Howard What Is a Fiduciary Financial Advisor and Do I Need One? Long-Term Care Insurance Is Getting Harder To Buy. Here’s Why You Might Not Need It Anyway Unclaimed Money: How To Find and Claim Missing Funds for Free 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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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 0:42Speaker 02

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• 0:49Speaker 03

  I'm so glad you're with us here on the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. Recently on the show, I mentioned that the US savings rate had collapsed. Well, I have an update on it and it's not good news and what I want you to do about it. Also, if you're thinking of buying a home, there are new rules about buyers, agents and commissions. If you are thinking of looking for a home, you need to know what could be buried in that

• 1:31Speaker 03

  contract for a buyer's agent that could eat you up. All right, so I had mentioned recently that the savings rate in the United States had fallen to 4.7%. And now the latest data that I alluded to, gosh, last week, week before, it's now down to 2%. Two cents of every dollar people make, they're saving, not spending. This ain't gonna work, let me tell you.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Two cents on the dollar? I mean, what do people need to save? Now, if you believe what the investment houses say, I've always said a dime on a dollar, they're all saying like 17%, stuff like that, just because they're trying to, with people that are really conscientious savers and investors, get more and more of the money from you. But the reality is, the whole thing is about living on less than what you make. And Americans just aren't into this. And I've talked in the past, we've had Clark stinks about the comparisons I've given with other countries where people save a great deal more money. This is all up to you.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  And maybe you're in financial Armageddon in your life and talking about saving money just isn't possible. But let's say it is, and it's really like it is for so many people who are upper middle class or above. It's all about lifestyle and feeling like, well, my neighbor's got that, I should have that. Oh, that is a really cool hot tub they have. I'd like to have a hot tub, whatever it is.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  I mean, I know that if you're having trouble just paying basic bills, I'm not referring to you. I'm referring to our culture. Because if you're flat broke, just paying for everyday expenses, I'm not talking about why aren't you saving more money? What I'm talking about for people who don't just get around to it, it's not something you get around to, it's something you have to be intentional about that you're doing all the time. And in the US, the amount of money people save stays way lower than most any place else on earth. It's just not our thing.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Do you know the only time it was our thing that was kind of mind blowing was during COVID? And the early part of COVID, when a lot of people were in places, things were really locked down, people were shocked how much money they were saving, like they never had before. Outstanding credit card debt in the US collapsed because people weren't running around, they weren't spending money here, there and everywhere. And what it really taught me was how much of spending is truly discretionary. That when we went through that terrible shock of COVID, the reality was people didn't spend.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  And now we're spending like maniacs. And part of it today is because of the unrelenting inflation we've been going through. But even then, for so many of us, it's about how we think about saving as a burden or an afterthought. I want you to think of it as about you being liberated, you making a choice to have more control on your life, to reduce the anxiety about who you owe and what you owe. To think about it as something that's a lifelong habit of saving money.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  So that when I say, oh, the savings rate fell to 2%, most recent federal data, you're saying, phew, I'm so glad I'm saving 10% of my pay in my 401k. I'm so glad I have a rainy day account. The things I want you doing are on automatic pilot. Habits that are not intentional, but automated, good habits that build that financial security. So I talk about over the course of a year, and we write about on Clark.com, different

• 6:13Speaker 03

  ways to do it efficiently, companies to use, ways to build your 401k, when you use a Roth instead of traditional, almost always is the answer, by the way.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  So the tools we give you, but what I'm talking about right now is the two, not the tools. What's in your head? What are your intentions? What are you creating in your life by saving before you spend? What you're creating is financial security, and that's what I want you to have.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Love it. Okay, Marie in Georgia has another update on the ACATs lock.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  She says like,

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Did we set off a firestorm with ACATs?

• 7:00Speaker 04

  I think it's good. I called Schwab to inquire about locking ACAT transfers and they do have a solution. They can place a restriction on each account to disable automated transfers. Going forward, a Schwab representative will call the account owner to verify any transfer request before proceeding. While it's a manual process, it provides a valuable layer of protection.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Marie, we haven't heard this from anybody. Thank you for the heads up. Did we talk about the new Vanguard process?

• 7:29Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Okay. Ironically enough, Vanguard sent me a message, it was on my Vanguard internal message dashboard, that said, would you like to run a security check on your account? Did you get this? And it tells you from like red to orange or yellow, I'm not kind of colorblind, to green, you know, you're doing a good job on security. And Vanguard has now a layer of protection that you can put in place, kind of like Fidelity has, with just a click on the account or the app. And they talked about in this that they're going to a much more comprehensive step to

• 8:15Speaker 03

  protect your account from hackers or fraudsters or whatever. And I've been disappointed in Schwab that you got to go through all this work, Marie, and Schwab has so much money, they're doing really well now. This is something that if two of my favorite children have been able to make this ultra easy for customers, why can't Schwab do it? Come on Chuck, what you up to?

• 8:44Speaker 04

  Okay, Paul in Florida says, I've been thinking about investing in real estate, but want to start small. I'm wondering if Clark has any feedback on the various real estate investing apps and websites with low entry fees to own parts of investment properties with minimums as low as $100. And some of the web apps and websites I have found are, and then there's a list of them. Does Clark recommend any of these programs as an entry into real estate investing or have any other suggestions for investing in real estate with limited funds?

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Okay, let me draw a comparison for you if I could, Paul. When I talk about investing in real estate, that's where your hands on, you own a property, you have to find your tenants, you rent to them, you're making money as a side business. When you invest in a completely passive way in a real estate exchange traded fund or a real estate index fund or mutual fund, or you invest in one of these things that you're supposedly owning a piece of their active real estate. Let me draw three comparisons here. So if you're actively owning real estate, that's real money. And you pointed that out clearly, no doubt.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  And you also have a chance for more reward. You also have a chance for more responsibility. The plumbing breaks, the roof needs replacing, a tenant skips on you, a tenant's not paying rent, you got a victim. I mean, you got the goods and the bads from decades and decades and decades of being a real estate investor overwhelmingly good. And you're building real wealth slowly. If you go with the funds like ETF that invests in real estate or a real estate index fund, something like that, you're paying basically nothing to be a passive investor. And the tax strategy is pretty clear.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  These little pools that you're talking about where you threw an app or whatever, you put in a hundred here, whatever, the fees involved historically have not been well disclosed and have been very high. So if I was not going to own real estate, I would much rather you do a fund Vanguard, we talked about Vanguard a minute ago, they've got some very good fund choices where you can own little pieces of a huge amount of real estate and you just ride it up or down.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Is it mainly called REITs? Is that right?

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, Real Estate Investment Trust. But I'm not talking about a REIT fund. Those are complicated. I'm talking about an index fund.

• 11:29Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  A real estate index fund or ETF. Those a hundred bucks, you can do a hundred bucks, whatever. You can commission, you can buy them through a discount broker typically commission free. And that would be if you wanted to do dip your toes in real estate, that's how I would do it.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  All right, Ethan in Colorado says, hi Captain Clark and team. I know that Clark doesn't like consumer protection plans or extended warranties and such, but how does Clark feel about paying for postal insurance when mailing something of value? I was recently mailing some non-breakable items worth about $500 and I wavered on paying the extra $7 for insurance in case the items are lost or damaged in the mail. I thought to myself, what would Clark do? Losing the items would not be a major financial hardship for me, but it would still be a major bummer. If a piece of mail is insured and does end up lost or damaged, is it actually possible to get a payout from mail insurance products? Love the show.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Well, thank you so much. And all right, so here's what I go by. I cannot recall, now I'll get them, ever getting a complaint about someone not being able to get a payment on an insured item sent through the postal service. On the other hand, we've had plenty of complaints about people using the private competitors. So as to whether or not they pay, I can only look at it from the standpoint that nobody's found their way to tell us they had a problem. Then you bring up the biggest issue. It would be a bummer, but would I insure items worth $500?

• 13:15Speaker 03

  So as I've always said with single item kind of insurance products, if you would not suffer any financial harm from the loss and just be, as you said, a bummer, you don't buy the insurance. If the loss of that $500 would be a hardship for you, even though the value, what you're paying for it is not a good dollars and cents loss ratio kind of thing, buy the insurance. In your case, I wouldn't buy it. And that's how I would decide. You only buy insurance if the loss you would suffer, the insurable need, if you will,

• 13:58Speaker 03

  is something that would be a big financial hazard in your life. Coming up ahead, talk about financial hazard in your life. The law of unintended consequences and the way you hire real estate agents is causing a huge consumer problem for people and eating up their wallets. I'm going to tell you what you need to know straight ahead.

• 14:27Speaker 00

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• 16:42Speaker 03

  So I was really excited when the real estate industry lost the lawsuit about how commissions were being cooked up in different places in the country. And now the market's deregulated, you negotiate a deal if you're selling your home or condo or townhouse, you negotiate the deal with the listing agent who's representing you as a seller and you agree that you're going to pay them X commission. And then

• 17:14Speaker 03

  If you're somebody looking to buy real estate and you want an agent to represent you as a buyer's agent, you now have your own representative, you agree to pay them whatever. And it used to be that everything was done through the person who was selling the property, that they paid the agent who was, in our minds, representing the buyer. And it would be a commission, one commission, that would be split in whatever arrangement between the two of them. What was happening was, in many states, the person you thought

• 17:55Speaker 03

  was representing you as a buyer was actually surreptitiously working for the seller under the agreement you signed. So you would say, well, you know, we could afford to pay blah, blah, blah, but let's offer so and so. And they could turn right around and tell the agent representing the seller, oh yeah, they can really pay this. And so you were completely undermined. So that's the deal. And the commissions were kind of baked. There was no negotiation. Now it's all negotiation. You negotiate with, if you're selling, what the commission's going to be. You negotiate as a buyer, what you're willing to pay that

• 18:36Speaker 03

  person to take you around and all that. Okay. So all good to this point. Law of unintended consequences. Lot of real estate agencies and agents are playing really dirty pool when you're hiring somebody to represent you as a buyer. And they're having you sign waterfront agreements. What's a waterfront agreement? The most anti-consumer, one-sided piece of junk ever. So if a buyer's agent takes me and shows me a place and I end up buying it, I have a commission owed to them. They spent their time, they spent their effort.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  I owe them for that. Right? Right. But here's what the agencies are doing. You gotta be so on your guard. They're having you sign again, a waterfront agreement. What that means is that for a period of time, in the most egregious cases, you don't even realize you're signing a one-year agreement. Whether you never see that person again, you owe them a stated commission if you buy a place using another buyer's agent because you didn't really like that first person. You buy a property direct without involving anybody

• 19:56Speaker 03

  representing you at all. You, for that whole year, you owe a full commission on anything you buy, even if they weren't involved in it at all. This is crooked. This is wrong. This is brutally terrible for someone. So you, in your mind, you spent this much to buy a house, and then later you get a legal notice that you owe these other people potentially tens of thousands of dollars, and they weren't involved in the transaction in the least. Now, shame on the states for not outlawing this practice. And there may be states that

• 20:39Speaker 03

  have outlawed this already. But this is unconscionable, unethical, dishonest, crooked, you name it. Why am I pounding this so hard? Because if you are going to buy a home, and you're going to have somebody represent you, you better pay close attention to what you're signing your name to, and what ongoing obligation there may be. And if there is an ongoing obligation, regardless of whether you continue to retain them, you cannot sign that agreement, period. End of story. Krista, law of unintended consequences always comes up, doesn't it?

• 21:23Speaker 04

  Always. All right. Let's go to questions for you. This one came in from Phil in North Carolina. We are in our mid 70s, in very good health and active.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  And starting to look at retirement centers. We've only looked closely at one, but we'll look at many others. The one we looked at has a beautiful setting, contains all levels of care, assisted living, memory care, and nursing home care. The entry fee is $1 million for the 1,800 square foot feet we would want. The monthly fee for the above unit is $9,000 and increases as the level of care increases.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  The monthly fees are projected to go up 2% to 5% per year.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  But not guaranteed.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  When we die or vacate the property, 80% of the entry fee will be refunded, not 80% of the present value of the unit.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  I'm concerned if the company goes bankrupt, what would happen to this money? The entry fee seems very high to me. If we moved into a community that charges a monthly fee only, we could invest it and double it in 10 years and use the money to pay for any necessary assistance. Although, good care is hard to find, and it's also expensive. However, we also know that you might only be accepted into retirement centers when you're healthy and active. If you wait until you need extra care, you may not be accepted. It seems that living in a progressive care community commands a very high premium, is living in a retirement center with no progressive care and bringing in care as you need it, preferable to such expense. Have you done any long-term care planning for yourself? And what do you think

• 22:56Speaker 04

  of the higher costs of progressive care centers? And I want to just mention one thing that another listener wrote in about, that her, I believe it was her aunt, was in one of these communities. And then when she needed assisted living, there was no space, and she ended up having to leave.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Leave anyway. Right. Yeah. Phil, there's so much in your question. I don't even know where to start. And I know a great deal about this, having twice helped relatives with this journey, with this process. So the prices are all over the board. There are anywhere from continuing care, retirement communities, that don't charge an entry fee. They're not going to have the fancy dancy facilities you're talking about. But you don't pay that money upfront. Second, if you start searching online, you will, in a hurry, understand that these

• 23:52Speaker 03

  properties go bankrupt, and people's money takes a one-way trip. You do not get back your million dollars, or the 800,000 of the million. The care may not, the facility may not continue to be as well-maintained, and you want to exit. Or, as Krista mentioned, when you need more serious care, it may not be available because the money's made in building the campus and the ongoing semi-independent living. The price differences from equivalent facilities are so large from one to another, it's unreal. This one could be a million.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Another could be a $2 million buy-in. Another could be 400,000. I have a friend in California who, relative of his, the buy-in on a modest unit was $3 million.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Because of the market conditions in Southern California. So Phil, I don't know how far afield you're willing to go, but geography matters. My brother and his wife are in a facility in Utah, and they went there, they were Floridians, they were Florida residents. But they found out about this place in Utah and went there because it was a great place, and the buy-in was 300 and something thousand. And equivalent facilities that they looked at in Florida were one and a half million dollars buy-in. You can hire a geriatric care consultant, is that the right term? You can hire a fiduciary one,

• 25:33Speaker 03

  where you're paying all the fees. Or you can hire someone who you have to know is living on commissions from the various facilities. I prefer you hire one who is a fiduciary to you. So there's a lot of work you have to do way beyond looking at the one place you've looked at. And also, whether you go to one in North Carolina or another state, you need to know if your state requires that money be held in escrow, and the state's actually looking out for that. You will see stories about states that require escrow, but they weren't watching. Facilities went bankrupt, and people lost all their money.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  So be very, very careful here.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Lori in Missouri says, I have long-term care question for Clark. My husband and I are married with no children, and we have no one we care to leave an inheritance to after we've passed away. Does it make sense for us to purchase long-term care insurance? Or does it make more sense to set aside the money we would use to buy it and invest that cash in an investment account of some kind? Help. No one I can find addresses this question for childless couples who do not care about leaving funds to anyone upon their passing.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Right. So Lori, there's another element to this. You can buy long-term care insurance. There aren't that many companies that sell it anymore. The benefit will be capped usually at three or five years, depending on what you buy. And the premiums are not guaranteed for the policies, meaning that the premiums can go up over time. Try to look for a mutual insurer that sells long-term care insurance. The premiums may be more upfront, but they're not as likely to do what they call in the industry, try to death spiral you, where you've paid in for years, and then they start raising the premiums to the point where they

• 27:30Speaker 03

  hope people leave and give up on their policy, or agree to reduce benefits. A mutual insurer is owned by its policyholders, and mutual insurers are less likely to do that. But long-term care insurance, I need to emphasize again, the premiums are not guaranteed. There is a way you can buy a certain amount of long-term care coverage, but I don't know the answer specifically. Oh, I do know one. This gets very complicated. And this requires a lot of research on your part, not just talking to people. You can buy, okay, I'm about to cuss here, any children? Oh, they're yours.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  You can buy an annuity that has a guaranteed long-term care insurance rider in it. So you have the benefit of using the money from the annuity while you live, but if needed, it can be used for long-term care. Because the other is where you buy life insurance that you don't need because you have no person who needs to be the beneficiary. So I would say the annuity, I said the cuss word again, is potentially a viable alternative, is an alternative to long-term care, but only buy one from a fee-only company that signs

• 29:00Speaker 03

  a fiduciary agreement with you or a contract with you, where you're not paying any commissions at all, and they are selling you the, or recommending the best annuity with long-term care built into it that they know in the marketplace as a fiduciary. And you pay them for their advice. Insurance salespeople make their money off commissions and have too strong a financial incentive to put you in what's better for them than for you.

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Okay. Andrew in Georgia says, Clark, I just wanted to thank you for talking about missing money again several weeks ago. I got on my state's unclaimed property site and thought I'd have some fun and see if I had any missing money. It turns out that I did from an old bank account I had closed 22 years ago. I submitted a claim this past week. I received a check for 93 cents.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  Yes, 93 cents.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  I am so sorry. I wasted all your time.

• 29:58Speaker 04

  I'm wondering what I should do with this windfall. Invest it in the stock market? Put it in my IRA? Perhaps some crypto, buy some crypto? Or should I just splurge at the dollar store? What would Clark do? I did some math and that 93 cents would be worth about $7.50 today. Oh, well, I guess I've learned my lesson to keep better track of my accounts. Thanks for all you and your team do.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  Andrew.

• 30:21Speaker 04

  See, that was fun.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  I'm so sorry. I messed up your time, wasted your time. You know, they tell you in a lot of the states when you go to file a claim, they'll tell you a band about how much money it is. They'll say maybe less than $25, less than 50, more than 500, whatever. So you can make that decision. Is it worth my time to fill out the form? So I'm so sorry. I wasted all that time of yours for 93 cents. What can you buy for 93 cents, Kristin?

• 30:56Speaker 04

  I don't know, but I think Andrew's probably happy. He got, he got to write into you and make some funny jokes and make us all laugh, right?

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Oh, but hopefully, if you do that search on missingmoney.com, which is free to use, you will find a lot more than 93 cents owed to you, a friend, a family member, who knows who. Sometimes you're going to get a big score there and you won't have had to pay for it with anything other than a little time and effort. Thank you. Don't cash the check, just frame it. Oh, that's funny. Well, I want to thank you for joining us today, having a little levity at the end of today's podcast, YouTube show.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  I hope you have an absolutely wonderful rest of your day. Know we're here for you all week long with our podcasts. We have four podcast episodes each week, available for you anywhere you download podcasts. Watch us on YouTube, watch our YouTube shorts, follow us on your favorite social media, read our newsletters that are free, go to our websites, clark.com, clarkdeals.com. If you happen to live in a market where I'm on television, on the news every night, or whatever time they put me on in the city, watch me.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  I'm on every weekday of the year, except Christmas Day, if it's on a weekday, and on radio as well, in markets that carry me on radio. So wherever you want content, we're there to provide it, with the key goal being information you can put to work in your own life to empower you to save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And I'll see you on Wednesday.