10.12.26 Gas Prices & Vehicle Choice / Is Price Tech Stalking You?

With gas prices squeezing wallets, you might be tempted to trade in your current ride for a fuel-efficient hybrid or EV. However, making a permanent financial decision based on a temporary spike in gas prices can cost you thousands in the long run. Before you swap keys to save on fuel, make sure the math actually works for your budget. Also, Clark sets the record straight on a viral Walmart rumor. Stores are rapidly replacing paper price tags with digital shelf labels, leading some to believe Walmart is tracking individual phones to dynamically surge prices as you walk down the aisle. What’s really going on here? Plus, Christa shares your #AskClark questions and Clark gives his take. All this and more on the October 12, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show. Submit your questions: Ask Clark. Gas Prices & Your Car: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Digital Pricing Transition: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Should You Buy a New Car Because of Gas Prices? How To Save Money on Gas: 24 Ways - Clark Howard Clark Howard's 'Half-Tank' Strategy To Save on Gas 7 Money Mistakes You Might Be Making at the Gas Station The Best and Worst Days To Buy Gas in 2026, According to GasBuddy Why the Best Price on Your Next Car Is Getting Harder to Find How To Buy a Used Car - Clark Howard How to Buy a New Car: 5 Smart Steps To Get the Best Deal The Best Car-Buying Services - Clark Howard Clark Howard Debunks New Walmart Shopping Myth Walmart+ Membership Program: 4 Things To Know - Clark Howard Why You Should Never Mail a Check - Clark Howard Safer Ways To Send Money: Clark Howard’s Rules for Protecting Your Cash 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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• 0:29Speaker 01

  We are live from the Sam's Club Holiday Club Parade. Oh, wait, are those guys? Just snoozing. It's the Food Coma Club. They might lose count of their helpings of turkey, but never their spending. Oh, you hear that? It's the Cool Ants Club in their natural habitat of giving the trendiest gifts. It's the Deal Hunters Club. No sudden movements. They smell value a mile away. Whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's Club helps you make the most of your holidays. Come join us. Sam's Club.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  It's wonderful to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. So, gas prices and diesel prices, sky high. And that's driving people to look at vehicles that use less gas or even none at all. But is that the right idea right now? I'm going to tell you what I think. And later, there's this rumor running around the country rampant that Walmart is tracking

• 1:44Speaker 02

  your phone in the store and changing magically the prices that you pay for individual items as you walk around a Walmart supercenter, different than what the next person will pay, higher or lower. I'm going to tell you what's actually going on. So, natural reaction every time gas prices go up cyclically. I mean, through the years, we've been through times that gas prices were just moseying along and then all of a sudden, huge spike like we've had now. And people react by the fill-up and they say, I can't believe it.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  I just had to spend fill in the blank for whatever you drive, blah, blah, blah dollars to fill up our vehicle. One of our team members drives a pickup truck that's costing around $150 to fill up each time. Seriously. And you think about that money that would have gone to everyday expenses, doing something fun, whatever. There's nothing fun about watching when you're filling up a vehicle, see the dollars flying and the gallons crawling as you fill the vehicle. So, it leads to this reaction where people say, I gotta get rid of this thing. I gotta get something more fuel efficient.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  All right. So, you know, I'm a freak about wasting money, right? And so, for me, it's like, yeah, I want to drive something efficient. But you don't make that lifestyle change, which is a semi-permanent change in what you drive. Because temporarily, and I promise you, this is barring some completely unexpected event. This is a temporary effect of the Iran war with the higher prices. And so, long-term, I'm not that worried about the price of gasoline. It's brutal for you right now, but it's not a long-term problem.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  But if you ditch a vehicle you have that's working just fine and go into, let's say it's paid off, and you go into a new payment on a vehicle you buy, that because it's a hybrid, or it's electric, or whatever, you're going to lower the cost of the energy to drive you a mile by a huge amount. But then you're going to have that payment. Unless you're an ultra, ultra-long daily commuter, the math doesn't work. So, yeah, you keep driving what you're driving, use my techniques to try to get a lower price when you do need to fill up.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  And by the way, when you are in the vehicle market, to add insult to injury, automakers are trying to prevent open discounting of their vehicles for sale. Stellantis, which owns, you know, the Ram trucks and the Chargers and all that stuff, what else? The Jeeps. They have banned their dealers from publicly advertising online, on their websites, on vehicle shopping sites, anywhere they advertise, TV, whatever. Local dealers are now prohibited from promoting discounts, trying to reduce the competition

• 5:21Speaker 02

  among dealers and push the price that people are paying for vehicles. And they were so public about it that they've been taking the heat, but this is a clear trend in the automotive industry. And I'll tell you, if you follow the strategies I've got for you to shop for a vehicle anyway, online, the way I want you to do it, these new techniques by the automakers to try to push the price of vehicles you buy higher, you're going to defeat them. Requires some work, but you're still going to get a deal, even though they don't want you to get a deal.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  All right. I pulled a few car questions for you, Clarks. Scott in Idaho sent in this one. Clark, I just bought my first car and paid cash in full thanks to your advice over the years. Now, I'm looking to-

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Thanks to you saving the money.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Fantastic.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Now, I'm looking to stock it with essentials, like a portable jump starter and tire inflator. What car accessories are actually worth the money? And where should I shop to find the best deals on reliable emergency gear?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Okay. So, I love what you were thinking about because what are the things you don't want to be? You don't want to be stranded by the side of the road with a low tire, a flat tire. You want to be able to at least pump it up enough to go to where you can get assistance with that tire. And if the battery dies, you want to be able to jump start it. And now, we've got these devices you can carry that are two-in-ones, that do those two things. And they tend to cost 50 to 100 bucks. Read the reviews closely. Don't just look at, this one rates 4.7 stars and this other one 4.3, because you don't know what of the reviews are fake.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  But you want to read the reviews, see which ones people have really been helped out by when they've been stranded by either of those things, which are probably, you name the two, they're really good to have one of those in your vehicle with you. And paying $50 to $100 for something like that, it seems money well spent. You can buy them in auto parts stores, discount stores, warehouse clubs. Amazon sells a ton of them. So, that would be a first. And if you live in a climate that winter is tough, you better have a windshield scraper. You got used to that, didn't you?

• 7:55Speaker 03

  I sure did.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  I also, do you want me to make a couple of suggestions?

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, please.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  I always keep a first aid kit in the car. And then, just if someone in my car has a problem, or I come across someone, and then an emergency kit that has like, you know, there's these pop-up things that if your car is stranded on the side of the road, these big, like it pops into an orange, like triangle, warning other drivers that you're sort of on the side of the road, because that's such a danger.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, when you rent a car in Europe, they always have those roadside kits in them for the things you talked about with the flashers or with the triangles, that reflective triangles. Good suggestion.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  And maybe a blanket, too, if you're in a cold place in case you get stranded and it's cold.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Remember about half a year ago, when I told the story about when Grant and I witnessed the woman who fell and was injured? And it was right by a roadway? Person after person stopped, and they had emergency gear in their car that they ran over with and helped that woman. That was really, it was really great. Thank you for adding those things.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Sure. Gary in Georgia says, what is your take on buying a vehicle through Carvana? Is that updated info from you, or is it the same?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  It's really Carvana and CarMax. What I love about both of them is you know what you're going to pay. They both have a period of time you can return the vehicle for a full refund. They, they basically both clean sheeted what people hated about buying a used car, although Carvana also sells new cars now of certain brands, and made it a transparent process. But it doesn't mean the car's okay. During the time you have it, if you like it, use that time period to have the vehicle checked out by an independent mechanic of your choosing to make sure it's okay.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Now, car dealers, over and over again, have blasted me saying, but they're paying more for the car from Carvana or CarMax. Well, people go where they feel comfortable buying a vehicle. As to whether you're actually paying more at Carvana or CarMax, I've not seen empirical evidence one way or another.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Brandon in Florida says, hey, Clark, I'd like to know what you think about possibly buying a used, and you say a Polestar?

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Polestar.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  With their upcoming forced exit from the US market, would you trust that repairs and software updates will continue to be supported? For the record, I drive a 2005 Pontiac Vibe that I bought with cash 20 years ago.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  No way, no way. Oh, that's fun.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  It has a Toyota drivetrain and it's on its third clutch. It's pushing 240,000 miles on the odometer.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  It has served me well, but I know I'll have to replace it soon. I just don't want to replace it with something that will turn into a 4,000 pound brick in the garage.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Okay. I don't know what the thing is with Polestar. People keep asking me that question.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Really?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I'm not comfortable telling you to buy a Polestar because an electric vehicle is basically a rolling computer, and it needs continual software updates and needs the support, ongoing support of a manufacturer.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  And should Polestar have been kicked out of the United States? They were kicked out for national security grounds because it's a Chinese car. And so I just don't think I'd do it. The deals are screaming deals like the people have been buying the Fisker Oceans.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Oh, I do. Yep.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if you buy it in a situation or you you lease it from one of the aggregators who've bought a ton of them and they're maintaining the Fisker fleet, I guess that's okay. There's no infrastructure yet that I've seen that's trustworthy for doing the same with Polestar. Yeah, I don't want you to have that 4,000 pound brick sitting in your garage. That sounds like a bad idea. So coming up ahead, rumors floating around about Walmart right now are so heated about a new pricing policy. And I want to give as much clarity to it as I can tell you what's true and what's not.

• 12:20Speaker 00

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• 14:50Speaker 02

  So Walmart, because they're so huge, has gotten so much focus on it, on something that started with some regional supermarket chains two, three years ago. It's where instead of having those stickers with the prices of everything on the shelves that are inevitably wrong over and over again, because it's how in the world do you keep up with, you think about the tens of thousands of items in a Walmart or a traditional supermarket, to make sure they're right on the shelf with sales going on and all that is just so hard.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  So you might be aware that I have an obsession with super premium ice cream. And on the weekend, I do something called Treat Day where I eat the junk I don't eat the rest of the week. So I go into a store and there's certain flavors of Haagen Dazs that they have sale stickers on. And then others didn't have the sale sticker. And I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Is it only certain flavors that are on sale? So I go try to find somebody to ask them, couldn't find anybody. So I just go to the register to

• 16:10Speaker 02

  self-checkout with one that didn't have the the sale price marked on the shelf. And I ring it up, sale price came up. So it was just sloppy work that they hadn't put the stickers universally for the Haagen Dazs being on sale. And that's a normal experience that in a store, that the pricing, because it's such a hassle and it requires so much labor. So that's why the stores are going to the digital price label, where they can instantly update the prices at a computer for enormous labor savings of every item

• 16:50Speaker 02

  in there and have the right price on the shelf. But the rumor started that Walmart was using it pinging your phone, or your phone's pinging, figuring out who you were with all the deep data everybody's got on us now, and then raising and lowering prices as you walk down an aisle based on what they think you'll pay. And people are writing about this like it's fact. It's not. Walmart is not doing that. Now, having said that, there's thing after thing going on where individuals are getting different prices

• 17:32Speaker 02

  shopping online, that online sellers develop profiles and do discriminatory pricing. We were talking about this stuff with getting a Lyft or Uber and the experiments that had gone on testing, you know, if people were getting the same price standing next to each other, and they weren't. So there clearly is price discrimination going on online. But in physical stores, no such, at least for now, and certainly not with what Walmart's doing. It's all about labor saving. And I want to talk about something else, too, that

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Amazon is opening little mini warehouses in markets all over the country to be able to do delivery in just a couple of hours. Two days wasn't quick enough anymore because of the physical store competitors that are doing delivery now in a couple of hours. And so what Amazon's doing is they of course sell deep, they sell so many different things. But these mini warehouses strategically located in metro areas are only going to stock

• 18:54Speaker 02

  the most frequently ordered thing. And there are already some of these open. And I'll give you an example. My father-in-law was visiting us and his suitcase broke. And so I ordered a suitcase for him from Amazon Prime, one of their Amazon basics or whatever they call their suitcase. It was $56 for a carry-on. It's a decent suitcase. And it was there in two hours. Two hours. So it was in one of these quick delivery mini warehouses. And we're going to see more and more of that, which is going to be confusing, because

• 19:35Speaker 02

  you'll order one item and it'll say two days, three days, five days, whatever, from whoever. And then you'll order something else and it'll be there in, you know, three or four hours, two hours or less. And I remember how funny it was, we're Walmart Plus members, and we ordered a bunch of stuff from Walmart Plus. We had ordered one little thing, I forget what it was, and it showed up in 45 minutes. And then other stuff in the order came days later. I mean, how do they do that? What's the quickest you've ever gotten something?

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Hours.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Hours? You've never had 45 minutes?

• 20:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Isn't that freaky weird?

• 20:20Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  And it was, it was this one little Walmart bag with this one little item. I'll have to ask Lane what it was. But I mean, how much did they lose?

• 20:31Speaker 03

  I can't imagine.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Having a person deliver that one item.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  It's nuts. It's like they're waiting for you to hit the buy button and they're like putting it in their car or something. It's so crazy. All right, let's go to some questions. This one came in from Derek in New Jersey. I recently joined Walmart Plus for the free delivery, which by the way, isn't completely free since you have to leave a tip for the driver. How much does Clark leave as a tip? Does he use a flat rate or a percent of the order? It seems like a flat rate is more reasonable since a small order could actually cost a lot more than a larger order.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  So what I do, there is no right answer to this. And who we order a lot of delivery from is the regional warehouse club chain BJ's Wholesale that does same day delivery and you pick a two hour window and we pay an annual flat rate for unlimited free deliveries. But you tip, just like with Walmart Plus. So I just do 15%. Why? I don't know. I mean, there's no logic about it. I just, that's the historical percentage tip. And whatever it is, I just do 15%. What should I be doing?

• 21:47Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  I mean, this is hard. I'd love it if you give your feedback on what Derek should be doing with Walmart Plus delivery, what I should be doing with BJ's Wholesale.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  There's no Amazon tip for, there is for grocery delivery, but not for just regular stuff that's coming in hours.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  It's really, it's.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny with Sam's Club is that if you get shipping, you have to order, if you're a Sam's Club Plus member, you order $50 or more, it's free shipping. But if you order their delivery, then that's, I think you do tip with the delivery. I'm trying, I've never done Sam's Club delivery.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  The tipping world is a very interesting place these days. It's confusing.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Chaos, I'd call it.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Okay. Let's go to this question that came in from Greg in California. My son, who usually pays his balance in full every month, got in a bit over his head and clicked yes on the pay over time thing. It seems okay because the interest is capped lower than his normal interest, but I worry there are hidden gotchas. What is the downside of this, dare I say, scam?

• 23:06Speaker 02

  So it all depends on how that particular credit card calculates payments. Do they put payments towards the regular bill? And let's say you're paying the balance in full of the regular bill. Are they still charging you interest because you have this outstanding pay over time bill? In other words, some credit card companies segregate the pay over time and you're paying interest on it and your regular transactions, if you pay in full or interest free. Others, as long as you have that pay over time open, you're paying interest on everything on the bill. So that's really the key criteria. And I hope I explained that well.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Johnny in Michigan says, I know Clark isn't a fan of mailing checks to pay for anything for security reasons, but what about when the bill says you can put your credit card information on the physical copy of the bill and mail that back to them instead? Do you see this as a bad idea as well?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Okay, it's not as risky as mailing a check. What I prefer to do is when you're paying a bill, if you can pay it online on the business's website and you pop the credit card in there, that's safer than mailing it back with the credit card number on there. But sending something through the mail where you're paying a bill by writing in your credit card number is infinitely safer than mailing a check. Here's why. That check can be so easily manipulated and you can so get cleaned out by that. And it's very hard to get your money back when a check has been washed.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  On the other hand, if you write in your credit card number and you, you send in that payment, you know, mailing it in, and somebody gets a hold of it and they start using it, your liability at max is $50. And with most issuers, it's $0 in a situation like that. So one has an infinite risk and the other has a finite risk. So the credit card is a much better choice. And why we haven't followed other countries and eliminated paper checks? I don't know. But I do know, this concludes today's episode.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  And I hope there's something today that you learned that empowered you to make better choices financially moving forward, to have more control in your life with your wallet in your future, so you can build up financial security. That's what this is all about. Everything we do is about you having more control of the financial side of your life, to reduce anxiety in your life, to create more joy, if you will, over time, because you're not having to worry as much about money. Because the ultimate goal is empowerment through knowledge, so you can save more, spend

• 26:19Speaker 02

  less, and avoid getting ripped off. And we'll see you on Wednesday.