>> I am so excited to introduce you to our keynote speaker tonight. When we were talking about who would be a great keynote, last year we had Eric Belchunas. Many of you were there. And he was so good. But we wanted to capture that same level of engagement, humor, intelligence that Eric brought.

And we thought, with Alan Roth's help, that Clark Howard would be a perfect person to be here. So Clark is a noted consumer advocate. He has one of the top podcasts for financial information out there, the Clark Howard Show. And in a lot of ways, it's a beautiful compliment to Bogleheads, I think, because Bogleheads is all about, you know, sort of figuring out how to invest your portfolio and save money on your investments.

And Clark's work is all about how to spend in a way that kind of maximizes your value. So I think it just is a perfect compliment to the investment stuff that we think about all the time. Clark is going to talk for a while. And then he will also take your questions.

So we have a mic here. We've been kind of holding back on the open mic thing during this conference. But for this part of the event, we will take your questions. Clark loves taking questions. And, yeah, so, you know, if you want to hear about how to score the best deal on an electric vehicle or, you know, vacation in Costa Rica or whatever, Clark's your guy.

So we're looking forward to hearing from him. Clark, if you can come on up. Thank you. Y'all ready for some fun? So it's so exciting for me to be in this room with people who are also frugal. But I will tell you, I am not frugal. I am cheap.

Y'all know the difference between frugal and cheap? Cheap is when you'll take lower quality for a lower price. And that is me. And I have had a very unusual life. I grew up in the South. We didn't have child labor laws. And when I was growing up, I'm 68.

So we really didn't when I was a kid. And so I had my first job when I was 11. I was working in a warehouse, not a very safe warehouse. And I started saving money then. And I opened Roth -- not Roth IRAs. Traditional IRAs first came along when I was a teen.

And as soon as I could, I opened one and contributed to it. And I grew up in Atlanta and decided that what I wanted to do was be a politician. So nobody laughed when I said that. That was actually true. I wanted to be a politician. So I applied to one college, the best school in America for political science, Georgetown University.

Any Georgetown graduates in here? We got one Georgetown graduate here. I didn't apply to any other schools. And then, this is before the internet, you got an envelope. You either got a thick envelope or a thin one. I got the thin one. I had missed the application to apply everywhere at that point.

Well, American University, just down the road from here, really needed students. And they took me. So I enrolled at American to study political science. And when I came home from college my freshman year at Thanksgiving, my dad was looking terrible, looking awful. And we were at dinner that first night home from college at Thanksgiving.

And nobody was smiling. Nobody was laughing. And I'm like, something's really wrong here. And after dinner, my dad asked me to stay at the table. And I'm like, this is it. And he said, I have something terrible to tell you. And he said, I got fired from my job.

And I started smiling. And he said, why are you smiling? And I said, because I thought you were dying. And so then he said, there's no money for you to go back to college in January. And I was like, what? Because my parents lived a really high voltage life.

I mean, really fancy life. They figured out how to be an American before Americans are now, where they lived on money they didn't have and all the rest. And so this was one of the most important events in my life, was what happened with my dad. And after a few years, my parents got back on their feet.

But American turned out to be the luckiest break for me, because most of the students at American were night students. They worked full time and went to college at night. So all I did was I scrambled when I got back those three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I got a job.

And I got a job as-- I don't know if this term will mean anything to anybody. I was a GS-4 with the federal government. Nobody's ever met a GS-4. But I was a GS-4. I was making $7,596-- I'm not holding the mic close enough, am I? I was making $7,596 a year as a federal employee.

Well, American was $2,400 a year. And I rented a really terrible apartment with a friend. And my rent was $124.50 a month. So I was able to work full time, go to college at night, get a degree, have not a penny of student loan debt, and get my degree.

You can't do that now. I mean, you go to American now, and four years is $300,000. But back then, we didn't have all these fancy campuses and all the big expense. And so I was able to get my degree. But what happened was it changed me. And I resolved I was never going to live my life like my parents handled money.

And something happens to you as a teenager. I don't know if anybody in this room had something happen to them as a teenager. But it changes you. It changes you if something traumatic happens when you're a teen. And so I resolved that I was going to live on every other paycheck.

And so I saved, starting at 20 years old-- because that's when I graduated from American-- I lived on every other paycheck. And grad school, I got paid for for free because I left the government. I was a GS-5 by then, for those of you who know what that is.

And I got a job at IBM as a bill collector. And they paid for my grad school. And I actually did OK as a bill collector, but I hated the job. So as soon as I finished grad school, I quit. But anyway, I got my master's degree for nothing in business.

Because the truth is, after three years with the federal government, it wasn't for me. And I decided politics wasn't my thing. But the reason I mention this is that it worked for me. I lived on much less than what I make. And you think about the principles of what so much in the culture in this room, it is about living on less than what you make.

I deal with consumers every day on the podcast, radio, TV, wherever. We do websites and all this stuff. And one of the biggest problems that we face is someone will come to us. And the problem is, they're in debt past their eyeballs. We just hit a record on credit card debt in the United States.

I think it's $1.1 trillion collectively in credit card debt. How are you supposed to save for a rainy day? How are you supposed to save for your kid's college? How are you supposed to save for retirement when you owe all that money to Visa and MasterCard at the average bank interest rate now, 22%?

Now, if you know somebody who's in credit card debt, they need to know this. Do you know the average interest rate at a credit union for a credit card is 12%? And I've always referred to Vanguard, to my listeners and my viewers, as a credit union for investing. I've always thought of it that way, and that's how I've always explained it.

And when you think about what it's always been about, it's been about by and for the members. But you know, that's only one part of what makes a company great. The first part is you have to treat your employees well. The great companies treat their employees well, and in turn, treat their customers well.

Business is complex. Business can be complicated. But when you treat your employees well and your customers well, even if you're in a complicated business, you will find your customers, and they will find you. Because you're doing the right thing, and you're treating your employees well. And there are very few companies-- it's the simplest thing in capitalism, enlightened self-interest.

Do right by your employees and your customers. And I think about two companies in retail. One of them, we have a dog named Kirkland Signature. And you think I'm kidding. No. The deal is my wife gets to have dogs, but I get to name them. So we used to have a dog named Costco Wholesale, and unfortunately, she's passed away.

So now we have Kirkland Signature. And do you know that Kirkland Signature will sell $60 billion as a brand in '23, one of the world's most successful brand names? It's not even a brand name. But Costco pays their employees incredibly well, gives part-timers full health benefits, has a markup on the merchandise in the store of 14%, unless it's Kirkland Signature, when it's 15%.

Everything they're about is value. And they are now the third largest retailer in the world, I think, from nothing. They started in 1984, or three. And they are this monstrously large company. And they've done it because they treat their employees well, and they treat their customers well. Now, I'm a Sam's Club member as well.

Do we have any Sam's Club members? Do we have any Sam's Club members that are also Costco members? Raise your hand. OK, so let's take a trip down each store's checkout. So you're in Costco, and you get the front, and they're checking you out. They have two people working each register, and they're hustling.

And if they've got a price problem, there's not a SKU, not a barcode on something, one of those Costco people takes the item, runs back. You tell them where you think you found it in the store. They run back there, and they find it, and they run back to the front.

What do they do at Sam's Club when you get to the front, and the item doesn't have a SKU on it, or doesn't ring up? They'll say, it doesn't have a SKU. And they look at you like, what are you going to do about it? It's got to be both.

You've got to take care of the employee so they can take care of the customer. And that's the thing. It's easy. It's simple. Business is hard. But we make it harder in capitalism than we need to because we forget that. You know, I believe that Walmart, the parent company of Sam's Club, is one of the greatest anti-poverty programs in the history of the world, that they have the most efficient distribution system for consumer goods of anybody on planet Earth.

And the prices are great and all that. But they only do half of it. They only do half of it. They do the pricing right. They don't treat the employees right. And that's why when you go to Sam's Club, which they own, or you go to a Walmart, it's just really a difficult experience for the employees working there and the customers buying there.

And so that's the thing. You think about how many-- can anybody name another company that you think does that combination? Vanguard, and we've got also my Costco people, Chick-fil-A. All right, who knows the history of why Chick-fil-A does a better job at their stores than any other fast food restaurant other than Culver's?

If anybody knows Culver's from the Midwest? Which custard do you like best at Culver's? I like the butter burger with Swiss cheese. OK, so what is the magic-- and this is a capitalist thing-- what is the magic of Chick-fil-A and Culver's? Who knows how they operate? They make them better than everybody else in fast food.

And we have a mic right here. Somebody knows the story. They get the Sundays off. It's not the Sundays off. Culver's is seven days a week. Who said it? Who just said it? You said it. Will you stand up? Say it so everybody can hear you on the mic.

They're not franchise. That is exactly right. If you look at the capitalist arrangement between a McDonald's store like the one across here and McDonald's corporate in Illinois, the franchise and the store are arch rivals with each other, right? Because all McDonald's wants is they want their royalties. And all the store wants is they want to make money.

But McDonald's is always forcing the operators into all these discounts they don't want to do and hours they have to be open. And it's an adversarial relationship. And now the states all have these franchise laws where McDonald's and all the other owners of franchises can't kick out a bad operator.

Chick-fil-A and Culver's, the way they do it is you're an operator. You don't have to put any money in. You operate that store at their pleasure. If they decide you're not performing or you're not treating your employees well, you're out instantly. And the employee operator and the company split the profits 50/50.

The interests are aligned. Chick-fil-A sells something like $5.7 million per location. A Burger King right now might do $500,000 a location. And it's because they got the incentives right, the motivation. The employees are motivated to be there. They are treated well. They're given college scholarship money if they're in high school.

This isn't hard. You just treat people right. And I have done it in my own life, my own business. I have 44 employees with my company. And what I do for my employees is each year I do three special things. One, I take them on a shopping spree every Christmas based on our profits.

They're given money and Costco. And they're given one hour to run around and spend it. Second, I take them on a trip wherever in the world I find that's on sale. So earlier this year, we went to Singapore and Thailand because it was on sale. And every year, we go wherever.

So people keep asking, where are we going on the trip in '24? I said, wherever goes on sale. And so we've been to every continent except Antarctica. We go wherever. And they so look forward to it. But the cool thing is their friends who work wherever else they work, they tell them they're going on the trip.

And they're like, you're doing what? Yeah, it's something we got at work. And they're just blown away. But it creates this special sense of reward. But the third thing I do is I take 50% of my company's profits each year, and I pay them out to the employees. And so the employees totally operate, think like owners.

When COVID hit, and it was so disruptive to so many businesses, and our revenue-- because we live by ad revenue on our websites, on our podcasts, newsletters. All the stuff we do is all ad-supported. Well, those of you who are in ad-supported businesses, we were dying when COVID happened.

Not literally, thank goodness. But anyway, financially, we were. And there we were in April, May, June. And suddenly, we didn't have money coming in. My employees worked their tails off and kept working. And the ad revenues started coming back in July and was fully restored by about September. But they weren't going anywhere because they believed in the mission of serving our audience.

And they also knew how they were being treated and that they were part of the team. And this is the way we should be in business. And so there's something we were talking about the other day. You know, in that slide earlier about Jack Bogle, they were talking about the four giants of the financial industry.

Did anybody notice who the second one was? It was Chuck Schwab. So he and Jack Bogle were, to me, the two great disruptors in what had been a very closed society in investing. And Chuck Schwab's a brilliant man. But Schwab, without him operating it day to day, it's lost its way a little bit.

Anybody have a Schwab account? You're not going to get in trouble saying you have a Schwab account. So it probably looked like about a fourth of people have a Schwab account. What do you earn at Schwab on your EIDL cash in your account? 0.45. 0.45%. 0.45. What do you earn at Vanguard on your EIDL cash?

Right now, right around upper fours to five, depending on what you have in it, five plus. The brilliant people running Schwab now decided, you know, we're going to make a lot of money on the spread. We're going to pay people. We're going to sweep their EIDL cash into something.

We're going to pay them 0.45. Then we're going to turn around, and we're going to lend it, and we're going to earn five plus percent on it. And I don't know how Chuck's letting that go on, because that's not how you treat people. It's really so easy. Treat people right.

And I love capitalism. I love it. I am a free enterpriser. I know my kids have grown up in these situations in school where they've been taught that capitalists are evil and dishonest and all these things. And it's not. Capitalism is great. And some of the decisions people make don't show enlightened self-interest, which is key.

But enough about that stuff, because now it's time to talk about fun stuff. I want to-- and then we're going to go to questions. So I want to talk about travel for a second. The travel industry suddenly is starting to see softness with customers. And anybody who's traveled to Europe in the last year, you paid a lot to go to Europe in points or dollars or whatever.

Now Europe's starting to soften. I looked this afternoon. And for travel November through February, these fares are from New York. But they're representative of the fares happening around the country. Rome is now 420. Lisbon, 470. Dublin, 380. London, 460. And this isn't just on some really terrible airline. It's on several terrible airlines, like American-- --American, United, Delta, Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Canada.

And there are sales all over the place. And does anybody have what used to be called SkyMiles that are now called SkyPennies? So those of you with SkyPennies, Delta is really getting a lot of bad wave of publicity. So they did a sale today for people with SkyMiles as coach.

But London starts at 34,000 points round trip from the East Coast and goes up to 59,000 on the West Coast. People have been booking it like crazy today. But if you have SkyPennies, try to book this, because it is such a deal. And Delta is doing a deal with Sydney, Australia from the West Coast for 80,000 SkyMiles round trip.

Those are cheap deals. In fact, I got it from my son-in-law for 59,000 just recently on Delta. So the travel industry is going through a lot of disruption now. And so there are a lot, a lot of deals. But my main rule you heard me allude to earlier, I never, ever pick a destination.

I only find a bargain, buy it, and then figure out why I'm going there. And that is absolutely the key with travel. Because what most people do is they pick a destination and they say, I want to go on, I don't know, March 16. And I got to come back March 23.

And I got to go to Paris. And it needs to be nonstop. And they're like, why is it $1,650? Because the more you narrow your options, the more you're going to pay. With travel, the more opportunistic you can be, I promise, you'll see the whole world if you just buy the deals.

Now, I've gone, I'm telling you, I've been to every continent repeatedly. But it's always the deal that takes me there. And so our next deal is we're going to Amsterdam for Thanksgiving week, because JetBlue had Amsterdam for Thanksgiving week for $399 round trip. Now, we didn't get the $399.

We got $469. But I mean, that's good. And so you let the bargain drive what you do. Although, I won't fly Frontier. If Frontier paid me, maybe I would. They've got some customer service problems. But Spirit is, compared to Frontier, Spirit's like going on, I don't know, on Singapore or something like that.

Frontier is the bottom, bottom, bottom. Their CEO is really an interesting guy. Anyway, but what I do with my audience, our slogan is save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And what we do is we teach our audience how to take expenses in their lives and reduce them so they have money to save for their future, to live on less than what they make.

And I use a number of strategies. But there are certain areas that didn't used to exist that now eat a meaningful chunk of people's life each and every month. I see so many people with their smartphones. And the really smart ones have Androids. But anyway, I see so many people with smartphones.

What are you paying for your plan? And the reality is, we were talking about this over at this table. So how many people are Verizon? Who just said visible? Are you invisible? 15 a month. So Verizon is having to play blocker because of all the new discounters. So Verizon has a discounter that I call invisible because they don't promote it.

It's just a defensive thing where you get the same Verizon branded service, but you get it from their discounter visible that they own 100%. It's just a brand name of theirs. And what you pay Verizon $100 a month for, you pay visible $25 for unlimited everything. And each of the cell phone carriers have this.

No, AT&T has Cricket. T-Mobile has Metro. And so they all have these blockers that are defensive, that are geared really towards people under 35. But there's no reason any of us can't use these services. And you're on the same exact network, same towers, same everything. And these companies are owned-- they're not companies.

They're just brand names of each of the big ones. So there's so many things like that. Like what's going on right now with streaming. I mean, the cost of streaming is going through the roof. And so we have a tool on Clark.com where you can put in your favorite channel that you like to watch.

And it'll tell you what it's going to cost you per month on the cheapest streaming service that'll get you that. And then you put in your second favorite channel and your third, and on like that. And then you hit a point where you're like, uh-oh. It just went from 30 a month to 70 because I added this channel or that channel.

And so if you learn to treat money as a precious finite resource, and you learn how to squeeze every penny, every dollar, it's so easy. And so that's what we're really about, is teaching people how to take all these things in their lives and do them for less. And you don't have to do what I do, lower quality for a lower price.

You can stick with good quality and still get a better price. And I'm ready-- who wants to ask the first question at the mic? Just go right back there. Just go ahead. And if you don't mind, say your name and where in the country you live, because the geographical dispersion and diversity of this group is amazing, where everybody's all from.

from Greenville, South Carolina. Do you have a job or an internship? I'm asked that a lot, actually, when people hear about our travel and stuff. By the way, this will really surprise you. We have no turnover. Clark, thank you so much for everything you do. I wrote down the question.

And it is, consumer advocacy is a significant part of your work. What are some of the most pressing consumer issues people should be aware of right now? So the number one thing is people getting scammed. And the pretexting scams-- who has not gotten an email, or a text, or a phone call from somebody pretending to be from Bank of America, or Wells Fargo, or Chase, or Citi?

Or if they have cracked your identity, the exact financial institution you do business with. And we're putting people on TV who've lost massive amounts of money. And there's no getting the money back once you've been scammed by a pretext, or pretending to be from your bank, or your brokerage, or from a financial house.

Thanks. Sure. Hi, there. I'm Adrienne. I used to live in Atlanta over 20 years ago. And I would listen to you on talk radio. And since I moved, I've kind of lost touch with you. So it's really good to hear you. And I'm going to pick up your podcast and start listening to them again.

Thank you. Where in the country do you live now? I live in Arlington, Texas now. Austin, Texas? Arlington, which is outside of Dallas. Oh, OK. Yeah. My question-- since I haven't listened to you in so long, I don't think 0% credit cards were out back then. But I take advantage of them now.

I was just sharing with my table there. I use them for house renovations. Our house is paid off, so I'll just take it and get the points. I don't have any credit card debt. I would be interested in hearing what you have to say about 0% credit cards. If you're using them as a payment system, and you get it paid off within the 12 months, 18 months, whatever, 24 of the zero, I have no problem with that.

That's not an issue, as long as it's a method of finance that you use. The thing that's really on our radar right now are these pay-in-fours, the buy now, pay later. And those are blowing up on people. I don't get a lot of problems about what you're doing. I'm getting tons about pay-in-four, where you get to the register, or you're buying something online.

And they say, would you like to pay this in four easy payments? And pretty much a fourth of people doing that have ruined their credit, because they don't get the pay-in-four done on time. They end up in the hands of a collection agency. They end up with interest and penalty payments that they thought it was free doing the pay-in-four.

But there's no give on that. In your case, you know you're getting six months, 12 months, 18, whatever it is you're getting on the 0% intro on it. So that's fine. Yeah, absolutely. That's how we do it. Like, say, for example, if I'm getting a new air conditioner, it's $10,000.

If they're going to charge me a fee to use a credit card, then we just pay cash. But if I can do it with a 0% and get the reward, and then just pay it right off, then we will just do it that way. Now, do you need a new AC?

Because if you do, get a heat pump instead of AC. Oh, I've got to start back to listening to you. Much more economical, and you can get big federal tax credits right now. I got it. I'll be back to listening to you. Thank you. Hello, Clark. Hi. Where are you from?

I'm Rob from Colorado Springs. And I didn't-- Y'all know each other? This guy's from Colorado Springs, too. We actually met once a few years back. So I didn't save the easy question for you. I got a hard one. I'd like to talk about health insurance. For those who are retiring before Medicare eligibility, you know your choices are COBRA, maybe.

Don't do COBRA right now. OK. OK, that's a good piece of advice. And the Affordable Health Care Act, ACA, which often leads to very narrow networks, no out-of-state coverage for those of us who like to travel. This seems like a tough nut to crack. Yeah, so what I've recommended for people who are 50-plus, up to 64, is that you do an HSA-eligible, high-deductible plan on healthcare.gov.

Because if you do the HSA-eligible, high-deductible plan, usually you're not going to be restricted on network like you are in a traditional plan that you would buy on healthcare.gov. The networks in a lot of places-- here in Colorado Springs, your network's going to be much more narrow than it would be for somebody in Denver or somebody in Phoenix.

So it's tough for you. And that's why I would look through the choices and see if you can find an HSA-eligible, high-deductible that allows you the freedom to go where you want. OK, thank you. And by the way, for the HSA money, don't put it in some terrible HSA savings account.

You can invest that money. And I don't know if there are lightning bolts in here. Fidelity is doing the best job I know of on investments for HSA money. Well-- What's that? That's right. You get a tax deduction up front, it grows tax-free, and you spend it tax-free. The company I work for already chose Fidelity for our HSA.

Thank you. Sure. Am I in a lot of trouble? I mentioned Chuck, I mentioned Fidelity. No, let me give you some trouble. Oh, sure. I'm the site administrator. I'm Lady Geek from the Philadelphia area. As soon as you said avoid COBRA, that hit an alarm bell with me. I was-- last year, a year before, I was in the same situation.

I retired, but I was not eligible. I didn't want to go on ACA for a while, so I went on COBRA. Why did-- why would I go on COBRA? It was cheaper, actually, because I work with an insurance-- a medical insurance broker. They are fantastic. Not a life insurance, a medical insurance broker.

They're all over the place. It's a guy I've been dealing with for years. What he made me aware of is that you're-- of course, COBRA, you pay your share plus the employer's share plus 2% administrative fee for 18 months. What he told me was that the policy premiums paid by the employer are based on the average age of the workforce.

So your workforce average age is like 30s. So I am like 60-something. OK, I'm going to get 65 next-- oh, my god. So I actually checked. He gave me the rate sheets for the Philadelphia area insurance. And I compared the rate sheets for someone 60 in the ACA marketplace versus the COBRA cost.

It was a little more than half to be on COBRA. It was a huge, huge savings. So I went on COBRA. I'm so interested in hearing that because I've not heard that before, so I appreciate the correction from you. Yeah, so be careful. So first of all, yeah, because, I mean, you're dealing here.

You want to give general advice, of course. But the advantage of having an insurance agent for something-- I mean, it doesn't hurt to do yourself. But to have someone with that level of experience-- I mean, I called him up and said-- and it was like an instant answer. I said, why?

So he sent me the rate sheets for his insurance. And he was right. So be careful. Just be aware that the workforce premiums are based not on your individual age. Because remember, everybody pays the same premium. So they base it on the average age. So your premium increases with your age.

So if you're in the 60s, the ACA marketplace price will be a lot more than if you were in the 30s. So you want to use this price, the lower price range. Thank you for that. OK. Clark, thank you for what you do. I'm very upset. I'm very upset about the Phillies beating my Braves three games to one, two years in a row.

Typical Philadelphia fan giving it to me. OK. Thanks, Clark. I do listen to your podcast. And I think you do something for us instead of something to us. And so I kind of like the consumer advocate. Richard Boyd from Lexington, South Carolina. I've run a business for 40 years.

And like many people, have the sky pennies, but have collected a lot of air miles over the years that I really was saving for personal when it wasn't business to use. And you read the points guy, you read these folks about how you can take advantage of the best air miles award points.

And so about a year ago, Forbes ran an article on the top 10 points concierge people that'll do it for you. For like $200, they'll search out the best flights to Amsterdam or to London. If you're not finding the cheapest fare that's on sale, which works, and I appreciate that.

And I used it and it was fantastic. I didn't know if you'd had any interest in that. What they ended up telling me was, are you willing to reposition? Because Charlotte is not a very friendly airport to use air miles. And it'll cost you twice as much. But I can get you business class to Amsterdam for 52,000 miles versus out of Charlotte for 100,000 miles.

And so those points concierge, I don't have the bandwidth, the search. Although I think they've got a word hacker now that you can do it on your own. But I don't know if you had any input. I'm glad you mentioned that, because I meant to mention that earlier and I forgot, that there was a new extensive study that found that international airfares to Europe are much, much, much cheaper out of New York on average versus anywhere else.

The second cheapest city to fly out of is Boston. But I can't fly out of Boston because the Patriots beat my Falcons in the Super Bowl. But it is true that the departure point matters so much. And we do this a lot, where we go to the gateway. We're going to Australia in January.

And the fare out of LAX was so much cheaper than going from back east that I bought tickets on Southwest to the West Coast. And then we're getting on Delta at LA. And the savings for five of us were just unbelievably different. So yeah, the departure point gateway for international is everything, whether you're using points or using dollars.

The point.me was the one website. It was highly recommended in terms of if you wanted to book with your air miles and didn't want to have to-- Point.me. I'll check it out. I've not looked at that one. Yeah, thank you. Hi, Gauri from New York City. Thanks for your work and sharing your insights.

So it seems a lot of bogelheads are hardwired to be frugal, meaning they didn't have to learn it. They weren't taught it. It's a personal preference. And conversely, a lot of people seem to be indiscriminately spenders in a hardwired way. What have you seen to effectively help folks transfer from the latter to the former?

So the earlier you can do it, like with my kids, I required all three of my kids to get a regular real job when they turned 15. And one of them worked retail. The other two worked restaurants. And my son was also a lifeguard in addition to that. And then I offered each of them what we call the mommy-daddy match on a Roth IRA because a kid doesn't have to pay rent, doesn't have to pay mortgage, doesn't have any of the normal expenses.

They just blow the money. So when I told each of my kids-- and I recommend this to anybody if you've got kids that are young or grandkids that are young-- that you offer them an incentive to save money that they're earning. And whatever they save-- let's say they make $2,000 at a job.

And so they're eligible to do $2,000 a Roth that year. So they give me $1,000. I match it with $1,000. They've got $2,000 in the Roth. And all three of my kids are totally into it. And I remember my oldest daughter was a freshman in college, and one of her-- I don't know if it was personal finance or economics or whatever.

And so the professor was asking-- the instructor was asking, so what should someone do to save for the future? And my daughter raised her hand and says, well, they should do a Roth IRA. And all the other students are looking at her like, you are one big loser. What are you talking about?

But the point is, she was a winner, and she learned it, and it was in her head. It's got to start young. The younger you can start it, the better. What I did with my kids when they were single digit was I'd take them with me to the supermarket, and I'd show them the difference between a store brand and a brand name.

And the kids, they don't care the consequence that the brand name is more money. And what I did with my kids was I said, whatever money we save as you try the store brand instead of the brand name, I'm going to give you half the savings. And so all three-- because always market, incentives, aligned.

That is it in capitalism. And my kids, two of them are adults now. When they go shopping, they're always buying store brand. And my middle child loves Aldi, so I really love her more than the other two. And so it is something that has to be taught young. Now, somebody later in life, if they're a spender, it has to be School of Hard Knocks.

They have to-- people don't change once they have habits in place until they're ready. But there's one thing I recommend to people who can't ever seem to save a dollar. I try to get them to save $0.01 of every dollar they make. And every six months, step it up another cent.

And in five years, I'll have them at a dime of every dollar that they're saving, because people don't miss it one penny at a time. And it's all about building habits and routines. Great. Thank you. Sure. Hi, Clark. We've got back-to-back New York City here. I'm Jeremy Zucke. So for me-- Which borough?

Manhattan. Yeah, me, too. Oh, only for two years, though. I'm more of a Chicago before that. But a bit of a personal question in a way, but I think one of the-- what I saw growing up, like one of the reasons that my parents got divorced was that they had a lot of resources, but one of them was a big cheapskate, and like a proud cheapskate, and the other one was not, and thought, we've got a lot to spend.

Why are we going and sitting by the toilet and coach on the airline when we don't have to? So I'm curious how you coach people who are in relationships to try to follow your principles, but also maintain a strong bond between them. So I'm not a good marriage therapist, but I will tell you that it really is about communication and respect for each other, and you have to find the compromises.

So you have to find the things that work with a couple. Where is it that you can reach an accommodation? And so on this, we're going to spend less, but on this, we'll do it your way. It has to be an ongoing conversation. There's not ever one conversation about money.

It has to be a continuing thing, and I don't know a couple alive that there's not some level of separation in how they feel about money. So it's got to be communication in that couple, and it can't be anybody imposing will on the other, because you're going to build up so much distance and resentment in that relationship if somebody is trying to impose their beliefs on the other person.

Usually the stronger personality will impose, but then the person who's not as strong will resent, and it builds distance and that separation. Thank you. Sure. Anybody who's a marriage therapist who wants to take a stab at that? OK, hi. I'd like to continue the Phillies' braids, but I guess one of us cannot.

But anyway, OK, don't let me-- sorry, a true Philly fan. But OK, I'm super-- Yeah, but we're from the home of the losers. Atlanta is loserville. We always lose. That's because Atlanta is so fun and so interesting that we always have things to do other than pay attention to whatever we're supposed to be doing.

All right, so let me-- you triggered another-- Cobra was the first, but the second, as soon as you said private brands, there's something that's really bugging me in grocery-- in the supermarkets, food selection. That is the private brand labels. Buy all these supermarket chains. In the Philadelphia area of ShopRite, you have Giant.

They have been creeping in, and it's all about the shelf space, you know, how they organize, the profit-- more profit, the promotional brands they put first, and do a lot of placement. They, over the past maybe year, these couple of chains, even the higher end chains, they start putting private labels.

And they said they're cheaper. And I think-- I really think they're intentionally boosting prices on the name brands, and they want to introduce their private labels. But what I've noticed is the difference between frugal and cheap. I look-- when you look at the product quality, turn-- no, look at the price, but look at the ingredients, like all the spaghetti sauce.

They all have high fructose sugar, lower quality corn syrup, cheaper substitutes, lower quality of the product itself. So it just bothers me that they're encroaching on the premium market space, the shelf space, to put their best. And they are taking-- they're removing the private-- the commercial brands, the brand name stuff.

So I am actively avoiding private label brands simply because of quality. And I can taste the difference. I just notice it. Like, I will pay. Like, the spaghetti sauce is the higher-- the real stuff, it doesn't have sugar in it. It is much better. So like, say, the point of being a boga is you're frugal, but you need to spend on stuff you want, not stuff you need.

So if you want-- so I want better quality food. So I will buy-- I'm avoiding private label brands so I can buy the name brand to get what I like. So I would say in rebuttal that it is up to the retailer to have private label of a quality that people buy it, they're happy with it, and they buy it again.

When you buy a private label that you're happy with, you win, and the retailer wins. The supermarket wins. Because they're making a higher margin on that, and you're buying at a lower price. And so it's not to their incentive to sell you garbage ingredients in a private label. Now, you're looking at the labels, you're seeing garbage.

But that is not what the industry is really trying to do, generally. It's just-- but I just see them-- each store has their own brand encroaching on that. And you're right, but-- It depends on the store and how they do it. Yeah, of course, it's a balance. But I'm just pointing that out, because this is what I'm seeing.

It's a consumer area that I just don't like to see that. So do you shop at Whole Paycheck? No, it's not in our area. So people who shop at Whole Paycheck, the 365 brand is really good. The ingredients are solid, and it takes something that's four times the cost it would be somewhere else to only 2 and 1/2 times the cost of what it would be at another store.

And so the marketplace provides the competition. And in supermarkets, I would say it's not that you buy the store brand versus the-- the brand name versus store brand where you're shopping. It means you're shopping at the wrong supermarket. If I can find what I want, I'll go to a different store.

But I just want to bring up that point, that it's bothering me. And I understand it's a trade difference. But if I can see the quality, and I can taste the quality, I'll go for that better product. OK. Back to travel. My name is Paul Brown. I'm from Northern California.

My wife and I have a bucket list trip coming up because I have a four-week sabbatical. Pretty excited about it. And my question is, is there any value to using a travel agent? And again, the travel agent don't typically charge. They do. They charge an hourly rate now. If you use a sophisticated travel agent, you're going to be paying him or her like you'd pay someone for financial advice who's in this room, or you pay a lawyer or an accountant.

You're going to pay them for their expertise and a rate per hour for being knowledgeable about the destination and making your trip really great. Where is it you're planning on to go on this bucket list trip? I'll see you in Australia in January. All right. So-- And I've never been.

So-- What do you hope the agent will do for you? Put a package together that gives us the experience that we want. So part-- we're going to do Australia, New Zealand, so-- Yeah, so you and-- And I've never been, so-- And you live in the Bay Area? Yeah. So Bay Area, you'll have no trouble finding someone who's got high certification as a leisure agent, what used to be called a CTC, Certified Travel Consultant.

They use a different term for it now, but it's a professional designation. You'll be able to find someone and ask them, how many times have you been to Australia? How many people have you sent to Australia? And a good, experienced, knowledgeable agent will ask you a lot of questions about you-- what you enjoy doing, what kind of meals you eat out, how important this, that, or the other is.

They'll interview you first to make sure they're putting together the right kind of trip for you. Great. Thank you. Now, on the other hand, with my family going, we have nothing planned. It's going to land, and we just wing it. So it's a different style of travel. Have a great time, by the way.

Hi, Clark. Thank you for being here tonight. My name is Brian. I'm from Vienna, Virginia, right across the Potomac River. Since we're very close to DC, I'm going to ask you this open question. If you were a congressional staffer and could champion the consumer policies of your choice, what would you choose and why?

Thank you. What would-- you mean, what would I fix? Yes. In terms of consumers? Exactly. I think, well, right now, there's federal law that gives the airlines pretty much leeway to do whatever they want. And I've been on a slow burn about we, as taxpayers, bailing out the airlines after September 11, '01.

Then we bailed them out again during COVID, gave them billions of dollars with no responsibility to pay it back. And then they treat consumers so badly. I want us to have a law, like they have in Europe, that if they disrupt your plans, they have to pay you. If you don't make a connection and you're going to have to spend the night, they're required to pay for your hotel.

If you're delayed so much time, they have to pay you compensation. And it has made the airlines in Europe much more honest. And they run more efficient operations than we do in the United States. So that's the-- because I travel so much, you ask me self-interest. If I were on transportation committee in the House, that is what I would do.

I'd have consumer protections with teeth for people who travel. Thank you. We just need to convince Airlines of America of that. What's that? We just need to convince Airlines of America, the airline lobbyist group, of that. They are intensely powerful. They are very good at what they do. Hi, Clark.

I'm Frank from Maryland. And I just wanted you to comment on electronic vehicles. I believe there's a big push, obviously, with the makers right now, rolling out the EVs. And will hybrids still be around for a while? Hybrids are going to be around in the world. And there will be quite a few sold in the United States.

Because a lot of the US is so extremely rural that an electric-only vehicle is not necessarily going to be practical till we get to a range of maybe 700, 800 miles on electric vehicles. We're not close to that yet. And Toyota believes-- and they've been just hammered for this by environmentalists.

But I think Toyota is right. There's going to be a big market in the world. Because automobiles are a worldwide market. It's not just us. It's not just any particular country. They sell worldwide. And there are going to be a lot of places in the world that there's not reliable electricity supplies and the rest.

And so I think there's going to be a continuing role for hybrids for at least a generation moving forward. Now, I've driven an electric vehicle since 2011. I first drove a Nissan LEAF. Did anybody else do that? What was the range on yours? Mine dropped to 35 miles total range after a while.

You're really getting 80 miles? How about you? How many-- Wow. So I now drive a Tesla that goes 344 miles on a charge. So electric vehicles are so much fun to drive. Forget the environmental thing. I mean, if you want to be environmental, it's fine. But they are so much more fun to drive than gas engine vehicles.

It's nuts how much fun they are to drive. It's like a whole different thing. Especially if you get the Plaid Plus, huh? So I'm not getting a Plaid, because I have a teenage son. There will be no Plaid in our household. If you don't know the Plaid, it's the world's fastest production vehicle at 1.9 seconds, 0 to 60.

There is one $5 million car called the Rimac or something? Rimac that's faster? Oh, how many of those do you have? Just-- OK. Jim Dolley, Sandy, Utah. A lot of us are pretty frugal. Many of us are wealthy at this point, partly because we've been frugal our whole lives.

At what point does it make sense to not spend the time and hassle shopping for the deal? Because we don't need the money. So something-- Something we didn't talk about is I retired the first time I was 31 and never intended to work again. And I've always been just, at this point, wired so solidly that way that I just can't seem to let go of that.

But I did make a deal with my wife that I am about to blow all my credibility, so if you're ready. So I fly every week, pretty much for work, every week. And I fly Southwest, so I get the companion pass. I've had the companion pass since 2006. And my wife flies with me free everywhere we go.

Whenever she goes with me, her fare, it's not really free. We have to pay $11.20 round trip. But she's free. And she hates Southwest. So we reached a deal that up to six times a year, if we go international, she says, lie flat, baby, and we fly business class.

Because remember that marriage thing earlier? Life involves compromise and negotiation. And basically, whatever she says, that's right. But this was her deal. And you know what I've discovered? I really like flying in one of those lie flat beds in the front of the plane. I think he's getting the last question.

You get the last question. Oh, thank you. My name is Ramesh. I'm from Austin, Texas. No offense to Dr. Dow-- What's your favorite Amy's ice cream flavor? Oh, Amy's. See, everything for me is about food and ice cream. And if you ever go to Austin, you've got to have Amy's ice cream.

I like the Mexican vanilla. Have you ever tried that? Yes, yes. But obviously, that's not your favorite flavor. So what is your favorite Amy's ice cream flavor? Oh, the one in the Great Hills, that Amy's ice cream, that's the one I like. OK. My question is about the doctors.

I mean, they're in Austin area these days. There's a lot of advertisements about concierge services. They offer $400 a year. I'm fairly healthy, so I don't have to worry about major expenses. But what's your opinion about these concierge services? They offer 24-hour services. So I don't know where you're finding concierge doctors for $400.

I mean, usually, they're about $2,000. And it's something that I think is really advisable for somebody who has a chronic medical condition or is at an age where more things may go wrong. Because with a good concierge doctor, you get same-day or next-day appointment. And you get visits that are typically booked at-- they block an hour for your time with the doctor.

I mean, normally, when you're with the doctor, you're on a conveyor belt. And they walk in, you're already sliding down the conveyor to go out the door. And with a concierge doctor, it's a completely different kind of experience. So if you're really healthy, there's no reason to spend that money.

But at a certain age or with a certain condition, I think it's really a great idea if you can afford to pay for the concierge doctor. And doctors are being crushed, particularly primary care doctors are being crushed by the insurance industry. And they are not in a position anymore to provide the care and the time to a patient that they-- bless you-- that they historically did.

Bless you again. And so for doctors, they're between a rock and a hard place. If you're worried about why medicine is going up so much in cost, it is not the doctors, and it's not even the prescription drugs. It's all hospitals. It's all hospital bills. And so the doctors are used to making whatever they've been making in their career.

And they hate having to reduce the quality of service to their patients. And that's why the concierge movement's been so big. And I think for the right person, it's a great thing to do. But if you're really, really healthy, wouldn't do it. Now, he was supposed to have the last question.

So ask one really fast. Well, it's a quick story, if I may, since you mentioned the importance of compromise in marriage. Two weeks before our wedding, my wife and I were walking in Riverside Park. We saw this elderly couple before us. We approached them and said, we're about to get married.

You seem like you've been together a while. Do you have any guidance to share with the young couple about to get married? She embraced the question. She spoke for two minutes, saying, marriage is about compromise, accommodating. You must listen to one another. Two minutes. I said, thank you. Sound advice.

I turned to him. What would you like to add, sir? He said these five words. Always do what she wants. My wife loves that second one. Thank you very much.