It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you're able to make better financial decisions in your life. Today, let's face it, a lot of Americans really are squeezed financially and we might make decisions today that we'll later regret. One of the hard ones is how many people are taking withdrawals from their 401k plans, taking loans, taking hardship withdrawals, whatever. Recent stat from one financial house said the withdrawals were at a record high last year. I want to talk about what that actually costs you down the road. And later, buying a car, man, it's no fun. But that has created a huge opportunity for, of all people, Amazon. Yeah, go on Amazon, buy a pack of socks, buy a new car. Actually, that is possible now from five different brands. I'll tell you about that later. So 401k withdrawals, first Congress passed a law that greatly expanded the options where you're allowed to do a withdrawal from your 401k. The time Congress did that, I was not happy. All right, so here's the dilemma. In behavioral economics, you have to think about how people are motivated to make decisions. And so if I am given a choice to put money in a 401k where I work, and they tell me, no matter what, you can't touch that till age, depending on the employer plan, age 55 or 59 and a half, no matter what, you can't touch it. There's a belief that a lot of people would say, I can't take that chance. I can't cut my paycheck now. and know that, let's say I'm 28 years old, and you're telling me I won't be able to touch it for potentially as long as 31 years. So the theory is that people would, even though it's a great thing to do the 401k or a Roth IRA, that people won't do it if they know they can never touch the money. So think about how I talk about Roth IRAs. I say, well, you know, you put the money in and if you had to have it, you can pull out your contributions, but not your earnings, tax and penalty free. I'm part of the problem. I'm like saying, yeah, please shove that money into that Roth IRA because if things really fell apart for some reason in your life, you could still get a lot of the money without a tax penalty. Back out. No tax, no penalty. Same idea with the 401k, except now it's become so easy to withdraw money from a 401k that people are treating it as a mad money account. And the consequences are ugly. And so we have a tool we've developed at Clark.com that if you're on the bubble and you're thinking about pulling money out of your 401k, doing a loan from your 401k, will show you what the long-term consequences are to what your life will look like later when you hit retirement age because you took that money out. It's really hard. Let's say you're 35 years old and you've been putting money in a 401k. You've been great about doing it from when you first got a job out of high school or college. And now you hit a financial bump in the road and you're like, thank goodness I have this 401k money. And you take that loan from the plan. Before you take that loan, try our calculator. And you may say, you know what? I got another way I can get this done. I don't need that 401k loan. And the choice is yours. And again, the reason why there are these escape valves is to get you to contribute in the first place. And that's why I speak a forked tongue. Is that the expression? I think so. I say, you know, you can put money in the Roth IRA. And if you had to have it, you can get blah, blah, blah. And then at the same time, I say, but don't do it. Right. All right. Let's go to some questions. This one came from Lucas in Oklahoma. Hi, Clark. Last spring, I purchased my first home and I'm obsessed with putting extra money towards the principal of the loan. The rates when I got the mortgage were high and I locked in at six and a half percent for a 30-year loan. I put 20% down and still owe about $150,000. The loan was originally $170,000. My question is, would you advise taking out a loan from my 401k, which my employer allows, to pay down the principal even more? The 401k loan has an interest rate of six and three quarter percent, but all the interest goes back to my account. I can take a loan up to $30,000 with terms from three to 58 months. I'm only 25 years old and I contribute 11% to my Roth and to my 401k. Congratulations to you. Yes. I know it's usually not a good idea to take money out of your retirement accounts, but would this make sense? I just hate seeing 80% of mortgage payments go straight to interest. To the man from Roth, thank you for all you do you've certainly empowered me into making better financial decisions in my life go falcons hope springs eternal for my falcons thank you from oklahoma go falcons thanks lucas because uh that's a betrayal because in oklahoma the football team that most people in oklahoma cheer for is either the kansas city chiefs or the dallas cowboys but of late, it's the Kansas City Chiefs. Why? Because they've got so many recent Super Bowl rings, something the Falcons have never had. It's been elusive. Yes, it has. Okay. So the answer is don't do it. Yes, you're right. You look at your mortgage payment and you see how much is going to interest. Let's flip that around. Your 401k, look at it and look what the compounding effect is over time. and it grows tax-free. If you're in the Roth version of the 401k, it grows tax-free and when you spend it later, it is tax-free. So your mortgage is 6.5%, the loan 6.75% from the 401k and you probably have loan setup charges with that loan. Just keep doing what you're doing, keep saving like you're saving and an opportunity will come along, sadly in the next recession where you'll have an opportunity to refinance that mortgage into a better deal. Mark in California says, I received an email inviting me to activate my Pays wallet now available through my Citi Costco card. I've read your comments that you weren a big fan of this service I currently don have or use the digital wallet service and I haven found a need for them Is there any convenient reason to use Pays Wallet Is it safe So first of all just because the Citigroup Citibank is trying to solicit you to have a Pays Wallet with your Citibank Visa at Costco doesn't mean you can use it at Costco. Isn't that wild? You may not be able to use the Pays Wallet there. So what's going on is you've got Apple Wallet, Apple Pay, Google Pay. You've got Samsung Pay. And my Samsung watch tries to get me to set up Samsung Pay and pay for things on it. And there's something Garmin's doing. They're trying to get me to do. And so everybody's trying to get a share of your wallet activity and transactions. If you're going to do a wallet and you're an iPhone person, do Apple Pay. If you're on an Android, do Google Pay, Google Wallet, because it's a more secure way to pay than the actual plastic. Why add another one like Pays when you've never added either of those? I don't know why you'd want a Pays wallet anyway. I have not seen any compelling reason to have it. Amethyst in Pennsylvania says, I created an account on a website that fills prescriptions, basically, I won't say the name, to place an order. No issues receiving my prescription, but after I received it, I wanted to log in and delete my credit card information in case the site gets compromised. I don't like my credit card information on file at any website. There's no option to remove my credit card information, only to add another card. Some people on a message board said they added a fake card number and then were able to remove their actual card. We shouldn't have to go through hoops for this, though. I just want to delete my account and have them delete my information. I got on their chat and support team and letting them know that I wanted my information deleted and my account deactivated. This is their unhelpful and absurd response. I understand you'd like to deactivate your account and have your information removed. I can confirm that all your subscriptions have already been canceled, so you won't be billed again unless you contact us to restart it. Your account is inactive now. As for your payment info, it's stored securely in our system and can't be manually removed. But since everything is canceled, there won't be any further charges. Clark, how do I get this account deactivated at this point? It's alive and you cannot kill it. I mean, this is a terrible problem. And that's why I love one-time use credit card numbers. So it's very easy if you are in the Google orbit for you to have it generate for your cards a one-time use only number. When a site requires that you register a card number with them, you use a one-time use only number. It's called virtual card number in Google. And does Apple have an equivalent system? Yes, I'm sure they do with Apple Pay. I would think if you have it on your Apple browser, wow, we're not enough Apple people in this room. I'm sorry. We're just, I know that, what is it? Three quarters of our viewers and listeners are iPhone. And we're all. We're Clark washed. You made us do Android. Okay. Okay. So using one-time use or virtual numbers is how you alleviate this problem. So when I shop online at an online merchant that I don't normally use, I always give them a virtual number because that way, if I never go to shop there again, I don't have to worry that if they get hacked, that that number is now a problem that's going to be stolen and be used for all different kinds of charges I don't want. So you've done everything you can do at this point. Just know that your best solution moving forward, because it's always easier to prevent a problem than to try to solve one, is to use virtual or one-time use only numbers moving forward at any website. And And I should mention that Lane had a card that expired on a streaming service. And I said, does anybody actually watch it? She said, yes, it's got all these shows we watch. I'm sure she didn't say it that way. I'm sure she's very pleasant. No, she was exasperated with me. Oh, well, that's understandable. I'm always trying. You're all over them. Because I keep eliminating streaming services and they'll go to watch something and it's not. we don't have a subscription anymore because i'll look at the bill i'll see one i just immediately go and cancel it and they're like halfway through a show and you don't understand yeah i don't understand no but anyway so she said can you it says the payment form is expired can you put in a new one so i go there and i put in a virtual number and somehow their system knew that it was a one-time use-only number and rejected it. I don't know how that, I wonder what kind of electronic transmission they would have gotten that they knew. Well, it probably just rejects it, I would think. Yeah, what a disappointment. Can I tell Clark's story real quick before we go to break? I remember your siblings, you all were, this is back when you were all working together to care for your mom. And it wasn't easy, this is pre-Zoom, Google Meet or anything like that. you set up a conference call for all of you to get together to talk about. I mean, it was a really stressful, important time. And you set up some free conference call service. And you guys were in the middle of this discussion. And it was like, you have 30 seconds before your free call will be disconnected. And what did your sibling say? There were a number of adult kind of words that were thrown at me, all involving the word cheap. And for me, it was so routine. I said, OK, we have to hang up now. I'll call you all back. I just have to listen to some ads first. It's a true story. But I do want to say I've always repeated my dad's phrase that one parent can take care of 10 children, but 10 children can't take care of one parent. the four of us as siblings did a great job, each of us taking on different responsibilities. As my mom had dementia, as she declined, we did a great job as kids up to her death in 2016, taking on different responsibilities. So it can work. And it worked better because it was on a free conference call service. Coming up next, an update on being able to buy your next new car on Amazon. The car business is slowly, surely, but slowly coming into a new era. And people generally hate the process of buying a new vehicle. Women more than men. Women feel that they are treated disrespectfully at a lot of car dealerships when they going to buy a vehicle And the business has been going through slow motion change for 30 years I never thought it would take this long Part of the change is coming about because of the electric vehicle manufacturers who sell their vehicles direct to the public. And there's no games, no gimmicks. And it would shock you. But when you buy a Tesla, you go on Tesla.com. You build the car you want online. It tells you the price. You pay a $250 non-refundable deposit. And then they notify you when the vehicle's ready. You fill out some forms online. And you go to pick it up at a Tesla center. And the whole process at the center, if the center's cooking right on that day, is under five minutes from when you walk in the door till you take possession of your vehicle and drive away. No games, no gimmicks, nothing. And more and more of the electric vehicle companies are doing the model like Tesla does. Carvana, same kind of idea. And Carvana, after a near-death experience a couple of years ago, is now doing exceedingly well, exceptionally well. Because people like the simplicity and the straightforward nature of buying at first just used cars. And now Carvana in certain parts of the country is selling new cars the same way. Limited brands, but new cars. Well, Amazon, always looking for new businesses to get into, now has Amazon Auto. And I talked about it when it was essentially not even a beta. It was almost an alpha. And so if you go to Amazon, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you go to Amazon.com and the search box, put in Amazon Auto, and it will take you to it. And you'll see, depending on where you live in the country, they're only in 130 markets right now. So not nationwide. And their cooperative efforts vary by brand what's available in a market Amazon is in. But when I first talked about it, they were only with Hyundai and only a few markets, but that's been spreading widely. And now their corporate sibling Kia is in it, Mazda, Subaru, Chevrolet, and Jeep. Now as best I can tell, Chevy and Jeep are just testing the waters, dipping their toes in it. And in some of the biggest markets in the country, Amazon went to those first. And so what happens when you go to Amazon Auto is if you're looking to buy a new vehicle and it's a brand that's one of the participating brands and you want a particular model, like let's say you want a Hyundai Santa fe santa hyundai so you put in hyundai santa fe and then it'll show you what's available in your area you can then select color and version of the santa fe you know which which trim level and if it comes in a hybrid you can select hybrid if it doesn't you can just see gas engine i don't know how santa fe is made but anyway you see prices and dealers there and it's not quite as clean as what I talked about with Tesla and other electric vehicle makers. Not quite as clean as Carvana. Amazon's still feeling its way, but it's a lot cleaner than the normal thing, the grind, where they try to wear you down and they put this fee on and that fee on and you're looking over here and they're doing something over there. It makes the process much cleaner. Not clean, but cleaner. They're not automated the same way. Costco's car buying program is making Costco pretty much the largest seller of vehicles in the United States. Costco Auto is a program where Costco, and it's very analog, where the Amazon thing, the Tesla thing, Carvana, they're really all digital. But under the Costco Auto program, you decide you want a particular brand, whatever it is. and you validate you're a Costco member, and then they will tell you who the Costco dealer is in that area. And any vehicle that dealer is selling, they have to have a no-game kind of process with a stated price up front with no gimmicks, and dealers mess with people through the Costco auto program at their great peril. because if Costco hears that people are being mistreated, they'll kick that dealer out. Because let me tell you, Costco's customer base is one of the most affluent in the United States of any retailer. And dealers want access because most new vehicle buyers are generally at the wealthier end of U.S. households. And so it ties in perfectly with Costco's membership base. Any of these ways are things you should be thinking about when you go to buy a vehicle. But let's say you want a brand that Amazon's not doing, or you don't like the dealer that Costco has in your area, or you're willing to travel a wider geographic zone, which I always recommend if you want to save money buying new wheels. You today can make a deal online with the dealer and execute everything online pretty much. You sign the papers online and no games, no gimmicks. You know what you're paying with prices. And anytime you're getting a price from anywhere, you say, some parts of the country, they call it drive out. Others, you just say, does that include all junk fees and taxes? I want an itemized list of all junk fees and taxes so that there's nothing that you get there later. They say, oh, well, we got this $1,299 breathing fee or this idiotic dock fee that dealers have made up. That's just what's known as ADM in the business, additional dealer markup. It means nothing. It's just a made up fee. So when you get a price, you want to make sure that it includes all the made up fees, all the ADMs they may have. And so the price is the price, whatever the marketplace will allow. but the best deals go to the savviest shoppers krista okay i have a few could you could you see buying a car from amazon yes you would do that i bought my last car online i love it i never want to go into a dealership nothing against car dealers but i just don't like the whole process no last time in my was i think in my 20s and i cried in there shirley in alabama says i'm Don't call me, Shirley. I'm interested in purchasing an electric vehicle. I like the Teslas, but I don't know what model or year to buy. My budget is $15,000. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Well, Shirley, I'm going to disappoint you about the Teslas, because if you were to look at even the lowest-end model of Tesla, which is the Model 3, and you look to buy one used, the cheapest ones, the ones that are going to be in the teens, are going to have ultra-high miles on them. They going to have maybe 80 to 100 or more miles likely on the odometer So I don know that if you want to buy electric that Tesla would necessarily be what you want to buy. What I do want you to do, though, is electric vehicles that are going to be used in the teens are going to be a little bit older, but not necessarily a lot of miles. and the reliability of the battery pack, the range of the battery pack, may not be sufficient for you. So I want you to go look at the Consumer Reports reviews of used electric vehicles. And the ones they say avoid, avoid. No matter how good a deal they are, you're going to have to pay Consumer Reports for access to that. By a year, I think, there's a new subscriber for like $15. or you can get it access at the library digitally potentially for free at your local library. Take time reading through as an alternative to Tesla. We were talking about Hyundai's just a minute ago. Hyundai has been pretty innovative with electric vehicles. They're dialing back now right now in the U.S. because the push towards hybrids in the U.S. instead of electric for new vehicle manufacturers, but they have a lot of used vehicles running around out there that are going to be cheaper to buy used than an equivalent Tesla model. All right. And Jasper in California says, Clark, my 80-something-year-old mother wants and needs to drive for approximately one more year as she transitions from living alone to a retirement community. Her current vehicle is a 2007 Mazda, which has had several minor issues in the last year, so she's rather freaked out that it's going to break down on her any day now. I'd like to get her into something worry-free for this final period with any needed maintenance and repair included. Seeing as it's too short to buy and most leases are for a minimum of three years, we're wondering if you have any other suggestions. I found you can get a short lease from a specialized company or a long rental from someone like budget, but they all seem quite expensive per month. Do you have any other solutions I haven't thought of? Rideshare probably won't work for her due to frequency of trips and technophobia. Okay. So for Californians and scattered other spots around the country, there's something I've talked about in the past, and that's that the European car rental company 6th, which is S-I-X-T, has a subscription model where you subscribe to transportation per month. It's almost like signing up for a streaming service, but you're signing up for a vehicle. And when she's done with it, your mom can just turn it back in. The cost all in is about, I think it's about $700 a month. and gosh the average vehicle new vehicle payment now is higher than that. Look at the sixth program because I've found that their subscriptions work best for people who are needing a vehicle for 90 days, six months, a year that even though it sounds like a lot per month for having access to a vehicle that you can just wash your hands of at pretty much any time, I think it's the best deal going. Now, there are some local groups experimenting with subscription services, trying to enter this market. And I don't know where in California your mom is and if there are any locals out there. So what you do is you do a search with whatever search engine you use for car subscription services or car short-term leases. And there is one other way to do this that, gosh, has a lot of, it's a barbell effect, that people either really seem to love or really seem to hate. but there are services where somebody's in a lease and they want out and they play a match game. Let's say you find somebody with 10 months left on a lease or one year left on a lease and you pay a service to this company, the finder's fee that finds the lease for you. You have to qualify with the leasing company to take over the lease. But then that's another way you benefit somebody who's in a lease they need out of and you in turn have an ultra short lease that might fit your mom's needs. Dan in South Carolina says, I'm puzzled about auto leases. Speaking of leases. I've never leased a car before. I'm 65 and can afford to pay cash, finance, or lease. With cars costing $50,000 plus these days, I'm not sure it makes sense to part with that much of my investable cash. Maybe leasing could be a better option. Mileage is not an issue because we're retired. What's your thought on this? Okay. The thing you need to think through, Dan, how long do you keep a vehicle? If you like to keep a vehicle a really short time, not like the one year we were just talking about, but three years is a common lease term and you love having new wheels, you're going to pay for that lease more money than you would if you just bought something unless the manufacturer to move vehicles is offering a special factory subsidized lease. And you'll see these in ads from the manufacturer, not from the local dealer, either online or if you watch traditional television and you see ads, you'll see ads for special lease deals from the manufacturer. And these work well. Let me go back to the preamble. if you like to own a vehicle for a very limited period of time. And that case would be three or four years. But if you buy a vehicle and you like to drive it for seven, eight, ten or more years, let's even say five or more years, just pay cash and buy one. If you have the resources to buy it, keep it simple and just buy what you want. And leases can be crazy complicated. So it's not just the price per month, not just what you have to pay up front, not what you have to pay as disposal fee, but you've got to look at all the terms and conditions of that lease. And in your case, if you're not driving a lot of miles, a lease may be really rotten for you because you're paying for miles you might never use. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope we had some empowerment for you that takes you to what we're all about, which is empowering you with knowledge so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And coming up Friday, you get to hear me get empowered on our weekly Clark Stink segment. You get to hear how I failed to serve you well. And I love it. I love it. I've learned so much from you about answers I gave that were lame, incomplete, or in your opinion, maybe just plain wrong. So tune in on Friday as we all learn together.
