0:04

It's. My pleasure to welcome you

0:07

hear that Clark Howard show

0:09

where our mission is to

0:11

serve you with a advice

0:13

and information that a powers

0:15

to you make better financial

0:17

decisions in your wife. One

0:19

decision that you can make

0:21

that I believe is a

0:23

really smart one is to

0:25

sign up for our for

0:27

we money saving newsletters a

0:29

court.com/newsletters. Today. I've

0:32

got some significant news I want you

0:34

to be in the know about. With.

0:36

The Future of credit cards. And.

0:39

I'm also going to talk about why. You

0:42

buying the way? This greatest

0:44

television. Is. Really not

0:46

a good. You see your money, I

0:48

don't care how good they work. And

0:51

of course I'm going to answer as many of your

0:53

questions. As. I can. So.

0:57

There. Was one of those legal settlements that

0:59

got a lot of. Reads: On

1:02

media outlets Television. All.

1:05

Over the internet and all that. Bad.

1:07

Illegal settlement involving credit cards.

1:09

Bit. Really was clear as

1:12

mud. And so I want to clear

1:14

that up for you and tell you. What?

1:16

May well be coming. Or.

1:18

It's here's the story. Under. The

1:21

settlement. That. The credit

1:23

card issuers reached. With.

1:26

The plaintiffs that sued them. Is.

1:30

Merchants. Are going to have

1:32

the ability. Potentially.

1:34

As soon as. This.

1:36

Summer would be the earliest. To.

1:39

Charge discriminatory fees,

1:41

Based. On what credit card you pull

1:43

out of your wallet. Let's. Say you

1:46

pull out a Chase Sapphire reserve card

1:48

or Capital One Ventura Eggs. Or.

1:50

And American Express Platinum. Or.

1:53

Any of these premium. High.

1:55

reward kind of travel cards that you

1:57

pay the big annual fee for the

1:59

get all these points, well

2:01

the merchants are paying just

2:04

gigantic fees when

2:06

they take those cards. I

2:08

talked about this back in January about

2:11

how in Australia when you come

2:13

to a register it will have

2:15

an electronic list showing that if you use

2:17

that card you're going to pay this much

2:19

extra in fees and

2:21

retailers and restaurants are

2:23

going to be allowed to

2:26

do the Australian kind of thing at the

2:29

earliest this summer where you'll

2:31

have to make a choice is

2:33

it worth it for you to

2:36

get those Chase or Capital

2:38

One or American Express points from

2:40

one of their premium cards or

2:42

you could have an American Airlines

2:44

Advantage card or United Mileage Plus

2:46

card or Delta Sky Miles card

2:49

are you going to be willing to pay

2:51

two three

2:53

percent extra to use that

2:56

card versus let's say another credit card might

2:58

be fee-free or might be one percent debit

3:01

card might be free to use

3:03

free of fee I mean we're going to be

3:05

in a whole different era of potential

3:08

complexity and I know this

3:10

is weird I'm actually in

3:12

favor of it I know don't throw

3:14

anything at me and I'm somebody who

3:16

earns all these points all over the

3:18

place and cash back and all that

3:21

because it's not right

3:24

that the retailer the restaurant

3:27

the supermarket should just

3:29

be having you come to the register say punch me

3:31

in the nose again punch me in the nose again

3:33

by the banks being able to

3:36

charge these gigantic fees

3:39

to the restaurant or retailer or

3:41

whatever now they're going to be able

3:43

to make a choice they're going to be places

3:45

that say okay it's worth it to

3:47

us because we want those big money spenders which

3:50

tend to be people who pay

3:52

for these big annual fee cards they tend

3:54

to be less price-sensitive when they shop and

3:57

they tend to buy more stuff so

3:59

we hate it but we'll

4:01

take them and we're not going to feed

4:04

them or people may

4:06

say nope nope we're

4:08

not going to take those at

4:10

the normal cost we're going to charge

4:12

the surcharge so it means

4:14

that you and I when these start appearing are

4:16

going to have to pay attention and we've seen

4:18

this for a while with

4:20

like school websites or

4:23

government websites when you

4:25

go to pay a bill and it'll say you

4:28

know you want to use this credit card it's

4:30

you know 2.7% or this one's 1.8 or whatever

4:35

so we've already experienced it some

4:37

in our lives with online bill

4:40

pays that we're paying for different things

4:43

but now it may

4:45

migrate to being just part

4:48

of routine everyday life and

4:51

I was in Australia in January and

4:53

came back and talked about it and

4:55

what I found was I'd get to a register I had

4:57

to look at the digital charges

5:00

and that would control how I paid

5:02

for something what form of

5:05

payment I used which card I

5:07

used and there

5:09

will be other business models that

5:12

emerge it's not

5:14

beyond reason that

5:16

we might have big retailers that

5:19

come out with their own payment platform

5:21

that Amazon in addition to having the

5:23

Amazon card and Walmart having their

5:26

Walmart credit card they may have some

5:29

kind of payment portal that

5:31

you can pay to them and

5:34

avoid fees these are

5:36

the kind of things that if you let

5:38

the free market work you

5:40

let experimentation come forward who

5:43

knows where it's going to play now ultimately

5:45

it means you're going to have to make

5:47

a value judgment our

5:49

mileage plus points advantage

5:52

points delta sky miles

5:54

points are they actually worth you

5:56

paying extra for at the

5:58

register there's no. I

6:01

mean the only time it would even marginally

6:03

be worth it is if you're

6:05

close to a next level of whatever

6:07

status and you just got to get

6:09

there and you need to do a little more credit

6:11

card charging to get to it, maybe

6:14

you can justify the cost against

6:16

the benefit. But everyday use,

6:20

no way. No way.

6:22

No way. You downgraded

6:24

your airline card, didn't you? No. I

6:27

thought you were going to do that. I didn't do it yet. Stephen

6:30

Missouri says, I have a question

6:32

about reducing our savings rate. Gasp.

6:34

Currently my wife and I are

6:36

saving roughly 29% of our

6:38

gross income in... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Steve

6:40

is upset that they're saving 29%. Yeah.

6:44

Steve, Steve. Wait,

6:46

you got to hear his reason. It's a very

6:48

good point. Yeah, but wait, wait, wait. Let me

6:50

start with this. The average amount, the average American

6:52

is saving is like three cents of every dollar

6:55

and you're saving 29. You got nothing

6:57

to feel guilty about no matter what Krista

6:59

is going to say next. All right. Okay.

7:02

So they're saving 29% of their gross income

7:04

in various retirement vehicles. We want to

7:06

reduce our savings rate to 25%. My

7:08

wife works in IT full-time. I'm a

7:10

firefighter and

7:13

work 24-hour shifts. On my days

7:15

off, I watch our two toddlers to

7:17

save money on the crazy high daycare

7:19

expenses. Currently, our boys go to daycare

7:21

twice a week. We want to

7:23

start putting them in daycare three times a week because

7:25

daddy daycare is burnt out and needs a day off

7:27

once a week to maintain our home or just sleep

7:30

after a long shift. Anyway, what

7:32

is the best way to reduce our

7:34

current retirement contributions? And then

7:36

he lives... My wife contributes to her 401K

7:38

up to the 6% company match. We both

7:40

max out Roth IRAs. I contribute 13,000 to

7:42

my 457B. I can retire in 10 years

7:44

and start pulling from

7:48

it penalty free at 45. I

7:50

max out my HSA. Where should we make

7:52

cuts first? Okay. First things

7:54

first. Let me go back to basics. You're

7:58

saving 29% in your... going

8:00

to cut it all the way down to 25%. You

8:03

got so much to be proud of, I don't

8:05

even know where to start. You got two little

8:07

kids and you're still living on 75% of

8:09

your pay and saving

8:11

25%. You're

8:13

a perfect example of even

8:15

with kids being able to live on less than what

8:18

you make and create financial

8:20

opportunity for you. You're able to

8:23

retire. What age again is he

8:25

going to be able to? 45. 45

8:28

and you'll have some kind of as

8:30

a firefighter, some kind of really nice

8:32

pension to carry income forward.

8:34

This is great stuff. Okay, so

8:37

of the things here, the

8:40

401k has to stay like it is because you want to

8:42

pick up all the match. So

8:44

the Roth IRA might be on the table. Your

8:47

13 grand to the 457B

8:49

might be on the table. The

8:51

HSA money

8:53

is way too valuable. You got a

8:55

current tax deduction, you get to spend the

8:57

money tax free and it grows tax free. HSA

9:00

absolutely can't touch it. So how do you

9:02

decide between reducing the

9:05

Roth IRA contributions and

9:07

reducing the 457B? I

9:10

guess I would say the most important

9:12

way to make that decision is

9:16

does the 457B have higher

9:19

management costs or

9:21

does the Roth IRA have higher management

9:23

costs? Whichever is the lowest

9:25

you want to leave and management costs, you

9:28

want to leave as much in place as

9:30

possible and pull from the

9:32

other. Even with your ability to

9:34

pull penalty free at 45, I'd

9:37

say you could live to 90 or

9:40

older and so you got a

9:42

long time in front of you, you have to fund

9:45

and so I wouldn't go strictly based

9:47

on the fact that one you're

9:49

going to withdraw from at 55, the other at 45. I'd reduce

9:53

the amount of contribution to whichever has

9:56

the higher management fee that you have to

9:58

absorb. temporary because when they

10:00

go to elementary school they probably won't need

10:03

the daycare as much. Right,

10:05

but this is for the next

10:08

few years and already doing so

10:10

much to create financial security and

10:12

financial independence. Awesome. Elaine in

10:14

Florida says, when renting a U-Haul truck for a local

10:17

move, do you need to take out the insurance?

10:19

Almost always and not based on it

10:22

being local or long distance because

10:25

your personal auto insurance will have

10:27

a limit on how many foot

10:29

truck you can rent that

10:31

will be covered by your own automobile

10:33

insurance. So you need to

10:36

call your automobile insurer Elaine and find

10:38

out what is the

10:40

maximum length truck that you

10:42

can rent. With my insurance, I

10:44

think it's a 12 foot or less,

10:47

I can have covered by my own auto

10:49

insurance but bigger than that is not. So

10:52

you want to know that your auto insurance covers

10:54

the vehicle and covers

10:57

the liability of you

10:59

driving vehicle. As

11:01

long as you're okay with the length truck, I

11:04

had something recently where I

11:06

went to get a rental truck for the

11:08

day and I had booked

11:11

one size and got there and they said,

11:13

oh we have good news for you, we've

11:15

upgraded you to like this mega truck and

11:18

I couldn't take it because it

11:20

would not be covered by

11:22

my auto insurance. So I had to

11:25

wait for a smaller truck to be

11:27

available. Alright, so this is a show and

11:29

tell. Joe in Florida sent

11:31

this video that goes along with his question so

11:33

I'm going to show you a quick clip from it,

11:35

dash cam video. Oh,

11:40

oh, oh let me paint the picture of

11:43

what I just saw. He says

11:45

someone swerved in front of my wife's 2010 Sienna. And

11:48

they did swerve in front of it. They were in

11:51

a lane, they were supposed to

11:53

go straight. They decided that the

11:55

last second they were just going to

11:57

hang a left right in

11:59

the path. of the CNA, bam.

12:02

Yes, we have a dash cam thanks to

12:05

your recommendation which fully proved the other person

12:07

was at fault, definitely clearly. We

12:09

filed a third party claim with their insurance and

12:11

they accepted 100% liability. Originally

12:14

the estimate was $5600 to repair and they

12:16

valued the van at $4500 therefore it's

12:19

totaled. I fought their valuation with comparable

12:21

ones and got the valuation up to $7700, woohoo.

12:25

Oh, I'm right there because

12:27

that's important. Drivers will

12:29

lowball you when they say they're going to

12:31

total out. They will lowball you

12:33

on what your vehicle is worth. It's not

12:36

all unusual for them to come in about

12:38

30% below the actual

12:40

fair market value of the vehicle. I

12:43

can't run the math that quick to see 77 to

12:45

56. Yes,

12:47

he can. Yeah, that's like 30%. And

12:50

you ran the math. Okay, got up to

12:52

7700 and he says woohoo but the car was

12:54

still totaled. We got a second opinion for the

12:57

repairs that came in at $3400 so now the

12:59

car went from totaled

13:02

to being fixed, another woohoo. So

13:04

everybody won, the insurer won

13:06

and you won. Next, I filed a

13:08

diminished value claim. I provided some documentation in the

13:10

estimate of about 14% of the new valuation. They

13:14

gave us $843, about 11% as a cash payment. My

13:19

wife loves her 2010 Toyota Sienna and since

13:21

it could be fixed, we fought hard to

13:23

get it fixed. Another knowledge I've

13:25

learned from team Clark over the last 25 plus

13:27

years is invaluable to fall back on him. I'm

13:29

always saying on Clark Howard they said. Get

13:33

a dash cam. Yes, that was key. Yeah,

13:36

I mean the dash cam thing, we just

13:38

talked about it again on the dash cam,

13:40

how valuable it is and they're as cheap

13:42

as $10 to buy

13:45

one on amazon.com, walmart.com.

13:48

Usually the $10 to $20 ones you got to buy, micro

13:51

SD card usually or an SD card.

13:54

Those are really cheap now and

13:56

they do continuously recording. You're

13:59

in an accident. have the proof. Let's

14:02

hope you're not finding proof that you were at

14:04

fault, but so often people

14:06

have amnesia about what they might have

14:08

done wrong and the dash

14:10

cams are great. And we

14:12

told the story before, Krista, about you

14:14

in the wreck where somebody claimed it

14:17

was your fault. And then

14:19

the police officer watched the dash cam

14:21

video that's built into the Tesla. You

14:23

don't have to add separate camera and

14:25

the officer said, that's the clearest video

14:27

I've ever seen. And then wrote the

14:29

other person the ticket is

14:31

being at fault. It was true

14:33

serum. Yeah. It was great. So

14:35

I'm so glad you had

14:38

the strategies, you knew everything

14:41

to fight your battle with the insurance company

14:43

and you won and you won and

14:45

you won all the way around.

14:48

I hope the repair on the

14:50

Sienna was great and that your

14:52

wife can drive it for many, many years

14:54

to come. Coming up

14:56

ahead, you could spend the kind

14:58

of money you're talking about just

15:00

buying a new television, going into

15:02

Best Buy or Sam's Club or

15:05

Costco or wherever you'd see TVs.

15:07

I'm going to tell you why you don't want to

15:09

do that. Apple card

15:11

is the perfect cash back rewards credit card. You

15:14

earn up to 3% daily cash

15:16

on every purchase every day. That's 3%

15:18

on your favorite products at Apple, 2%

15:21

on all other Apple card with Apple pay purchases

15:23

and 1% on anything you buy

15:25

with your titanium Apple card or virtual

15:27

card number. Visit apple.co/card calculator to see

15:30

how much you can earn. Apple card

15:32

issued by Goldman Sachs bank USA, Salt

15:34

Lake city branch subject to credit approval.

15:36

Terms apply. This podcast is

15:39

brought to you by progressive insurance, whether

15:41

you're driving, cooking or doing laundry,

15:43

progressive knows the podcast you listen

15:45

to go best when they're bundled

15:47

with another activity, much like

15:49

how their progressive home and auto policies go

15:51

best when they're bundled. Having these

15:53

two policies together makes taking care of your

15:55

insurance easier and could help you save to

15:58

customers who saved by switching. their home and

16:00

car insurance to Progressive save nearly $800 on average. That's

16:02

a whole lot of savings

16:05

and protection for your favorite podcast listening

16:08

activities like going on a road trip,

16:10

cooking dinner, and even hitting the gym.

16:13

Yep, your home and your car are even

16:15

easier to protect when you bundle your insurance

16:17

together. Find your perfect combo.

16:19

Get a home and car insurance quote

16:22

at progressive.com today. Progressive Casualty

16:24

Insurance Company and affiliates. National average

16:26

12 month savings of $793 by

16:29

new customers surveyed who saved with

16:32

Progressive between June 2021 and May

16:34

2022. Potential savings will vary.

16:36

I want to start

16:38

with a funny nostalgic thing. So

16:42

people are setting up

16:45

little libraries not for books.

16:47

You know how you'll see these free

16:49

take one, put one

16:51

in whatever little libraries that are

16:54

in neighborhoods all over America now.

16:57

Now people are doing the same

16:59

thing they call Blockbuster libraries and

17:03

they put old DVDs into these

17:05

that they're not interested anymore and

17:08

you come and you get a DVD and you leave

17:11

others in there and all that. And why are

17:13

people going back to an

17:15

ancient technology? By the way, when

17:17

I read a story about these

17:19

Blockbuster libraries, I went

17:21

online at retailers see how hard it

17:24

was to find a new DVD player.

17:26

It's not hard at all. Now there's 25 bucks.

17:29

The reason people are doing it

17:31

is you buy this fancy

17:33

new TV and the

17:36

video quality of streaming is

17:39

so bad. So

17:41

you go into the store. I don't

17:43

care what store it is and they have

17:46

the TVs on display and they're all in

17:48

these closed circuit things. Probably

17:50

running from DVD players. And

17:53

the pictures look crazy

17:55

great. So you look

17:57

at the latest LG, the latest Samsung, the latest Samsung, the latest Samsung, the latest

18:00

song, the latest Sony, the three

18:02

were considered to be the premier brands and you

18:05

look at them and you're like wow wow

18:07

look at that I got to get

18:09

one of those and see you got one

18:11

of them and then you get home

18:14

you plug it in you hook it up to

18:16

your Wi-Fi in your home and

18:18

then you start loading your streaming

18:20

products whether it's Netflix or Hulu

18:22

or Pluto or whatever

18:25

it is and you add those in and

18:27

then you start watching video and you're like

18:30

what happened here? Wait a minute

18:32

what happened? Because you saw this

18:35

demo thing on the LG or

18:37

the Samsung or the Sony and

18:40

you get home and it's like where's

18:42

that picture? You're not gonna get

18:44

it because that picture

18:46

requires perfection and video source

18:49

that you're not gonna have

18:51

the way we watch content today. It doesn't

18:54

matter what it is except the only

18:56

way you might get that picture is

18:58

if you have an antenna hooked up to your

19:00

TV and you're pulling the HD

19:03

or 4k signal from your

19:05

local television stations and

19:07

then you'll see what that TV can do

19:10

somewhat like what you see in the store

19:12

but most of us most of the time

19:15

we're watching streams whether

19:17

they're fast you know the free ad

19:19

supported TV the free streams or

19:21

we're watching whatever it is something

19:23

like YouTube TV or Fubo or

19:25

a sling or whatever

19:28

bringing in traditional kind of cable

19:30

fare but whatever it

19:32

is you're not seeing the picture you

19:34

see in the store so do

19:37

not abuse your wallet do

19:39

not fall for those demo

19:41

videos in the store by

19:44

the cheapest rock-gut TV you can

19:46

get in the screen size you

19:48

want whether it's 40 inch 50

19:52

inch 55 65 75 98 85 110 sounds like I'm

19:54

a quarterback calling

20:00

out signals. Mike! Um,

20:03

buy the cheapest because

20:05

the picture is gonna look really

20:09

good having that big

20:11

screen television, but again,

20:13

nothing like you see in

20:16

the store. Period. I

20:19

know you bought one of those. You bought

20:21

an expensive Samsung or LG a few years ago?

20:23

No, I bought a Sony from

20:25

Costco. It wasn't terrible, but it's

20:27

really good. I mean, I do have 4G

20:30

programming. I pay for the extra thing on

20:32

YouTube, TV and Netflix. 4K, I mean, yeah,

20:34

whatever it's called. 4G, 4K, it's like

20:36

220, 221 whenever it takes. Old

20:40

movie reference. Yeah, I love that TV.

20:44

Okay, and I gotta un-sale at Costco. I

20:46

mean, am I forgiven? That's still a lot of

20:48

money. I mean, see, if I

20:50

can buy, like right now, you

20:52

buy a 75-inch TV for

20:54

$499 or you can pay

20:59

many, many thousands of dollars. Yeah, I did

21:01

the payment. What's the difference between the $500

21:03

TV and the one that's many thousands? Whatever

21:07

the price difference is between them. When

21:09

you get them home and you're watching

21:11

streaming instead of some kind of closed-circuit

21:14

beauty, and it is fun being in

21:16

Costco or Sam's, and you see that

21:18

stuff, you know, where they have the

21:21

video of the, it's always nature.

21:23

You know, they'll have the mountains and

21:25

they'll have the streams and the sky

21:27

and they'll have a close-up of some

21:29

kind of little animal, you

21:31

know, and it's just like, it's

21:33

unbelievable it's better than if I was at

21:36

Yellowstone looking at this stuff. There

21:38

is 4K programming available. Yeah, but it's

21:40

not gonna look- What if your football

21:42

games could look so good that you could see

21:44

the bead of sweat on the guy's

21:46

face coming down? Like wouldn't you want that? So

21:49

I had that this last season with

21:52

YouTube TV. Yeah, you can do the 4K

21:54

with that. And so I, you know, I

21:56

could see on my cheap TV, I could

21:58

see the beads of sweat. could see

22:00

the individual blades of grass and

22:02

as soon as football was over, I discontinued

22:05

the 4K. Alright,

22:07

Cherylin in Texas says, I'm a fairly new

22:09

listener, 6 to 7 months, but I've

22:12

learned a lot listening on my daily morning

22:14

drive. Welcome, welcome to the clerk's

22:16

squad as I like to call it. We

22:18

live in a part of Texas where we

22:20

do not have a choice of utility providers.

22:22

We've been notified the utility company is switching

22:25

to smart meters. We are considering opting

22:27

out but that's $166 charge plus $16 a month to two so and

22:32

we have two meters on our property. There

22:35

are definitely mixed reviews on smart meters, mainly

22:37

some who say it gives the utility company

22:39

control over your energy usage. But

22:41

don't they have that anyway? Others say

22:44

smart meters might seem cheaper now but just

22:46

wait a few years and your energy costs

22:48

will increase. We live outside the city limits

22:50

on a small acreage and if

22:52

we go with the smart meter because we don't want

22:54

to pay the fee to opt out, would it be

22:56

in our best interest to consider a backup generator? Just

22:59

trying to make the best decision before they show up

23:01

to switch the meter. Okay, wonderful.

23:04

Alright, so Cherylin, smart

23:06

meters can be anywhere from just

23:08

one that can be read remotely

23:11

and saves them a lot of money on labor costs

23:13

not having to come read it to

23:15

ones that do time of use

23:17

power. So you pay two

23:19

to seven in the afternoon, they charge

23:21

you like five times the bill, two

23:23

times the bill, whatever per kilowatt. Overnight

23:26

they might make power nearly free and

23:28

all that time of use is

23:31

something the power companies all

23:34

love. Even though you're in a regulated utility

23:37

area of Texas, most of the state as

23:39

you know is deregulated and

23:41

everything is about what's the cost

23:43

based on peak. How

23:45

much more is it when there's a heat

23:48

wave in the afternoon? How much

23:50

less is it other times? And

23:52

so this is definitely where

23:54

power is going. And

23:57

I would say instead of a generator

23:59

to reduce. used during a peak time

24:02

because you're in Texas, which

24:04

is one of the most favorable places in

24:07

America for solar, instead

24:09

of spending $166 times 2 plus $16 a

24:11

month times 2, let them

24:17

put in the smart meters and

24:19

consider putting in a

24:21

couple of solar panels or five solar

24:23

panels or whatever it is that you

24:25

can put in. They would

24:28

not be that expensive or as an

24:30

alternative, you could put in

24:32

instead of a generator where you're going

24:34

to be running potentially a natural gas

24:36

or propane, you could put in a

24:39

battery wall kind of stuff where

24:41

you store extra power if

24:44

they go to time of day use when

24:47

you're overnight, when power is

24:49

extra cheap, fill up the battery

24:51

packs and then each day

24:53

when power is at maximum price per

24:56

kilowatt, you then run off those

24:58

batteries and it could end

25:01

up saving you a lot of money. There

25:03

are ways to handle this and

25:05

if you go to full mandatory

25:08

time of use, it forces you

25:11

to do laundry at different times

25:13

and all kinds of things to

25:15

avoid those peak periods

25:17

where they're charging so much more

25:19

money for power. Jonathan

25:21

in Texas says, I'm traveling to Switzerland

25:23

for a family member's memorial service in

25:26

August. I'm sorry you lost a loved

25:28

one. In August and I need to get

25:30

an international driver's license. Could you

25:32

please help describe how I would go about getting an

25:34

international driver's license? It's a bit

25:37

confusing. I want to make sure I don't get scammed. It's

25:40

amazingly easy. I have one because

25:42

of how much I travel and

25:44

rent cars overseas and

25:47

I just went to a AAA office.

25:50

They do them at most

25:52

AAA's for members or non-members.

25:54

It takes just a couple of minutes, costs

25:57

very little money and I

25:59

have no idea. never once been asked

26:01

to show it in

26:04

any circumstance, but I

26:06

have it in my backpack

26:08

just in case some day

26:10

I get to the car rental counter and

26:13

they say we want to see your

26:15

international driver's license or I

26:17

have an unfriendly meeting with the

26:19

police overseas and they want to see

26:21

the international driver's license. I'll

26:24

have it, but it's not big

26:26

hassle to get one and

26:28

likely something you'll never have

26:31

to show. Joanne in Virginia says

26:33

you said your son is going to be a

26:35

pilot for the airlines. Doesn't that mean you and

26:37

your wife can fly for free on that

26:39

airline? So Joanne that used to mean

26:42

that and technically it does

26:44

mean that. First of all

26:46

it'll be a few years before an

26:49

airline decides they want him. He's got to

26:51

get his professional pilot rating. He's

26:53

got his first step but he's got

26:55

several more to go through. But

26:58

the problem now is that airlines

27:00

have learned how to fill to

27:02

virtually every seat on a plane.

27:05

So pass riders end up

27:08

left behind sitting at

27:10

the gate again and again and again

27:13

because the airlines have so

27:15

figured out with computer modeling how

27:18

to get most planes we fly on 100%

27:21

full. So yeah

27:23

at one time it would have been

27:25

like the greatest thing ever. I

27:27

would just be able to go everywhere

27:29

with my wife and pay just

27:32

small junk fees and pay nothing

27:34

to fly pretty much. But

27:37

today it's a different game. So

27:40

even when our son is flying for

27:42

whoever he's flying with my

27:45

wife and I will be on whoever has the

27:47

best fare. No

27:50

matter which brand it is we'll

27:52

be getting the best deal. Sorry

27:54

that's how it works with my household. Have

27:57

an absolutely great day. Remember

28:00

we're about you, adding ways

28:02

to save form, spend less,

28:04

and avoid getting ripped.