The Clark Howard Podcast

So many are languishing in low paying jobs, unable to get ahead. See the Clark.com story on jobs that don't require college degrees and pay at least $70k per year. The Bureau of Labor statistics provides the data. The number one job - Air traffic controller - does require 2 years of training and retirement at age 55 - $125k per year. That may be too stressful for many. Job number 2 - Logistics (transportation, storage or distribution) manager at $95K. Police department supervisor - wages vary by location - $90K on average. See the full list including required training and education. A Bankrate survey reveals that more than 1/3 of those who have lent money to or cosigned for family or friends, have suffered financially with their credit ruined, money lost and/or the relationship damaged or destroyed. True example: Someone who cosigned for a friend's vehicle later had to pay for a repossession for a vehicle that had no benefit from, which ruined their credit for years. If you lend money to a friend or family member, think of it as a gift. Do not expect to get paid back. If they were good for it, they'd use a bank. Secondly, don't ever cosign a loan unless you can afford to deal with the consequences if the borrower chooses not to pay. And make sure you're aware in real time whether the payments are being made on time. If not, step in and pay, because you're fully legally responsible, no matter what. At January's CES convention Clark reported on app-based toothbrushes. It seems that both children and adults generally do an inadequate job of brushing. Expect to see app-based toothbrush systems peddled over the holidays. These systems vary but generally monitor and guide brushing. Prevention is key. This could save you dental trouble. Also, dentist are migrating to precisioned designed, near perfect 3-D printed crowns, which can be completed in one visit. This technology is in use for only about 15% of dental practitioners, but as more adopt, it gets cheaper and better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clark discusses some newer apps that help you shop at local businesses.Christa reads listener posts about how Clark has missed the mark in his advice this week. If you have a "Clark Stinks" to share you can leave it here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

LinkedIn has published a list of the top 10 emerging jobs. The trend is clear: STEM jobs are happening. 7 out of 10 are related to tech, computers and science. Don’t go STEM if you have no aptitude. But if so, the career paths are wide open.Some for profit schools have taken advantage of students, recruiting them with false promises. The University of Phoenix has historically enjoyed a good reputation. Now the school must absorb a $50 M penalty and $141 in student loan debt from students who attended under false pretenses, having been told the school had corporate partners directly hiring graduates. The FTC found that was all made up. False advertising to this effect started in 2012. Students enrolling based on those false promises of corporate partnerships are eligible to apply for having their loans wiped out.A Financial Review study looks at how people choose the funds in a 401k. An employer will supply a list of fund choices. People are most likely to put money into the first 4 funds they see on the list. If you’re not into investing and your plan offers a target retirement funds, that’s the easiest, wisest choice to make. Pick the year closes to your projected retirement and the fund adjusts accordingly over time. For Roth investing, also do the target retirement fund. Keep it simple. If your company 401k offering doesn’t have target retirement funds, if you’re under age 45, put the money a total stock market index fund, or a 500 stock index fund. You could also put some of your money into a total international index fund. Conservative investors should consider putting 20% in a total bond index fund. 3 funds could get your money widely allocated to lower risk in times of decline. Choose target retirement funds when available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clark NEVER ever settles a personal score in any public forum. But he will share how he’s been able to solve a problem. Last year Clark bought a deal on a new MacBook for his son’s school work from Woot. When the keyboard malfunctioned, Clark took it in for repair and was informed the computer had been refurbished. Customer service at Woot is moot – Clark’s attempts at reaching them ignored. Clark filed a complaint with the BBB. Clark received a response from Woot offering a full refund after sending back the computer. The response gave no admission of guilt – but a full refund. When you have a customer service issue, don’t give up. Keep trying different approaches to get to a result. There are many different levers you can pull. Had they ignored the BBB, Clark would have attempted the arbitration.Fraudsters are selling snake oil cures to the desperate terminally ill. Clinics have opened up around the country promising stem cell treatment cancer cures. The Washington Post reports one such clinic claimed an 80% cure rate, when actually they cured no one. The FDA is trying to go after these clinics but they morph to survive. Stem cell treatment become bogus blood treatments. Better to find a university based research center doing advanced work on the illness at hand.The Atlanta Constitution reports on how a rideshare passenger and driver impacted each other’s lives. After getting acquainted during the ride, the benefactor passenger paid for the driver to finish her degree at GA State University. She worked 2 jobs, raised 3 sons and had run out of funds to finish her education. Passenger Kevin was so impressed with her life story, he was inspired to help her. He made his way to the registrar’s office, paid off her tuition and paid forward for the rest of her education. Now at 43, she has completed her degree. Now she aspires to attend law school! Story 2: USA Today reports how a MD real estate firm doled out bonuses to employees at total of $10M at the company Christmas party last weekend. Employees received $50K on average. The smartest capitalists share success with those who make it happen. Many in business who have a great year don’t think beyond themselves. But nothing substitutes for making an employee feel like an owner sharing in success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The lines for returns start Dec. 26. Often you’ll get a gift card to use at that retailer to shop. The week between Christmas and New Year’s has become one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year, and an expensive one as well. Lines, crowds and higher prices. Better idea: January 6th or later is when to return items, unless that retailer has a tighter window on returns. By January 6th and later, shoppers have evaporated and excess merchandise and previous returns all get marked down. No crowds, no lines, lower prices. Amazon gifts can come with return vouchers. Make sure when you open a gift delivered by Amazon, you find the gift receipt in order to do a return if need be.Yes it’s hard to consider switching banks but Wells Fargo continues to prove it’s a criminal enterprise posing as a bank, unworthy of being trusted with you money. Follow up on a previous story – $2.5M of a widow’s inheritance was stolen by her Wells Fargo broker trading at Wells Fargo. The broker is alleged to have forged documents to generate massive fees. The only recourse: arbitration. Concurrently, the Office of the Controller of the Currency has sanctioned WF for ignoring employee grievances. They’re doing nothing to investigate employee complaints. You are at risk if you do business with this company that REFUSES to do right by people.About 1 in 8 of us are self-employed or have some kind of side gig. Tax is not being withheld with this type of work and you could get hit hard at tax time. You’re expected to pay 15.3% to social security and make estimated tax payments 4 times a year. If you don’t, you’ve under withheld and are penalized. If you also have a regular job, do maximum withholding, averaged out over the year by the IRS, to reduce penalties for not having paid through the course of the year. If solely self-employed, pay the IRS the sooner the better to stop the interest and penalty clock. You’re expected to make estimated payments 4 times a year, state and federal. For the solo self-employed, you can do a solo or self-employed 401K with generous limits to reduce your tax bill. For high earners, a SEP has a limit around $57K per year you can set aside for retirement, fee free – all to reduce the tax you’d owe otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clark discusses the current economic situation. Unemployment is low. Hooray! But pay has not gone up as much as it should have considering the current unemployment numbers.How much should you tip during the Holidays? Clark talks about who you should consider being generous with this time of year and what amounts to a fair tip amount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next year we’ll see many great airfare bargains domestic and international. Allegiant, Frontier and Spirit, the 3 hard discount airlines are having a big impact on airfares all over the country. When they come into a marketplace with a flight even just twice a week, airfares in that market on other airlines decline. According to Hopper, there’s a 17% rate drop when a new flight comes in from a discounter. Another factor for lower airfares in 2020: Eventually the Boeing Max is going back in the air. The influx of more aircraft will have an effect. The Southwest effect: Fares drop by over 60% when that airline enters a market. As Southwest gets the Max back, there should be a bargain affect. When a new route is introduced, deals appear.Christa reads listener posts about how Clark has missed the mark in his advice this week. If you have a "Clark Stinks" to share you can leave it here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One recent study reports a record 5.7 billion robocalls were made in Oct. alone, up 25% from the month before. That translates into 182 million robocalls per day, or over 2 thousand per second. Experts predicts by year’s end, Americans will have received about 60 billion for the year. Phone companies make money from robocalls. The FCC is putting heat of telecom to address the problem by the end of the year. The industry solution – Shaken/Stir, could take years to meaningfully remedy the problem. Shaken/Stir will reduce robocalls at best but the problem will not go away. Filters like NoMoRobo can only block numbers known to be spam, while robocallers & scammers keep switching lines to get around filters, or commit spoofing.Most workers don’t receive pensions anymore, except for many state and local employees, many of whom are underpaid. Generous pensions are promised in return for years of service. The Economist reports state and local pension plans are underfunded. Either pension promises will be broken or taxes will have to go up. The real solution is better pay for state and local workers and 401K plans like workers in the private sector. Underfunded pension don’t work for taxpayers or government workers.About 1/4 of Christmas shopping is being done online.That means a massive number of packages circulating. Criminals are engaging in porch piracy on a scale never seen before. Many homeowners are putting in cameras. For theft prevention, several companies are selling connected package receiving boxes, accessed by delivery workers via one-time use codes, able to alert the owner to a delivery. The boxes can be at the street or at the front door. It’s become a burden for apartment and condo staffs to handle packages. Amazon is pushing their lockers in Whole Foods locations. Walmart and Target have package pickup. FedEx and UPS stores have pick up locations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s estimated 1 in 5 U.S. adults has a thin or no file by traditional credit reporting methods. A new regulation was issued yesterday giving the green light to new methods of measuring credit worthiness. Rent and utility payments can now be considered along with other behavioral analyses. Many young adults can benefit from this. What you spend vs what you earn is a new and very valid criteria for new scoring models. Do you live on less than what you make? Good saving habits are an indicator of a good bill payer. This hasn’t been a factor until now, to determine credit worthiness. The banking industry moves slow, so expect to see this first adopted by fintechs. Petal Card is among the first to use alternative scoring models.Many have made a habit of unplugging everything before leaving home for a few days, to cut down on power use and for safety reasons. Vampire electronics – Dracula devices are thought to eat up home energy. USA Today’s Know Your Stuff column reports that today’s modern appliances and electronics do not eat power when not in use. The energy consumption of at rest appliances and electronics is only 10% of what it used to be. If you’re going on a trip, consider unplugging power strips. The number one thing you should do to save on energy is use LED lighting. Smart thermostats auto adjust to maximum energy efficiency. These are simple ways to save on power. Clark discusses which toys made the list of unsafe items this year. Be careful what you buy for your kiddos! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s been a huge increase in the number of fake reviews. Consulting firm Pattern found for an item listed on Amazon, a one star higher rating leads to a 30% increase in sales. The marketplace incentives for fake reviews to boost a score are so enormous, fake reviews have infiltrated the retail landscape. According to Fakespot, in addition to Amazon this is a problem at Walmart.com. There’s no reason to believe it’s not a problem across retail sites. 35% of all reviews on Amazon are fake, often generated by paid writers from overseas. This makes it important to read reviews because you can tell when they’re bogus. Most people only look at the number of stars. Red flag: when an item only has 5 stars be suspicious and read on. Check Consumer Reports rating for the most trustworthy assessments.Gift cards remain popular, but 40% of Americans no longer wish to receive them because of all the fraud. Criminals gain access to secret codes enabling them to empty the cards upon activation. LA Times columnist David Lazarus reports gift card fraud has gotten more sophisticated. Now hackers have compromised the entire gift card system, able to use a computer program to figure out secret codes and card numbers for most every card issued. They can now compromise cards at will, and generally the retailers don’t make good on the ripped cards. Caution! Know the risk has increased and retailers have failed to provide adequate security to protect gift card purchases.Dealing with trash is a huge expense for municipalities. But city and county recycling efforts are not profitable today and attempts to do so are burdening tax payers. There’s been a technological breakthrough developed by an Israeli company that’s gotten worldwide attention. Startup UBQ Materials is using a new method that’s achieving zero waste. New machinery can sort, chop, grind, shred, clean and heat garbage into a thick liquid, which can be turned into pellets and reused in manufacturing. Full upcycling has been achieved here. The conversion of all waste into a potentially valuable product has enormous advantage to society, including the elimination of landfills. Key: solutions must be economically sound to be sustainable. We face strong demands on water and other resources, disease from waste and other problems. Solving these problems in such a fashion will make it green (profitable) to be green.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices