Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Clark Howard: The Consumer Warrior

I'm fairly new to the world of personal finance blogs and even more new to posting on my own. I've seen and continue to see some of the same names (Dave Ramsey for debt elimination, Warren Buffett for value investing, etc) come up in various blogs, but have yet to see Clark Howard's name mentioned. His self-appointed task in the world is to help others "save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off."

Clark hosts a weekday radio show out of Atlanta from 1-4pm ET which is syndicated to many radio markets across the country. His broadcasts are available for download in MP3 format. In addition to taking calls on his show, he provides a volunteer based call center helpline for various finance related questions. He also has a number of books available on general information as well as specific topics such as real estate. Finally, his website has categorized information as well as daily summaries of what was discussed on that day's show.

I've been listening to Clark for about a year. I must admit some of the information gets repetitive (Roth IRAs and 529's are good, etc) but it does on PF blogs as well. The listener calls he takes can be very eye-opening and sometimes downright amusing. When taking scam related calls he sets off a ridiculous audible alarm while the listener is talking and then calmly explains to them what they are talking about is indeed a deal that's 'too good to be true.'

Further information can be found at http://clarkhoward.com/

Clark is not my primary source of reference in personal finance decisions, nor is any one person. However, I do consider him a significant voice in the combined pool of reference for my PF decision making. I'm curious why others have not commented on Clark before...at least from what I've noticed. Have others heard of him or have any thoughts?

3 comments:

Mrs. Micah said...

Haven't heard of him, but he sounds interesting. Welcome to the blogosphere!

Mrs. Micah
http://mrsmicah.com

P.S. Just a tip, not allowing anonymous comments means that people who don't use google accounts for commenting won't be able to comment on your site--which is a lot of PF bloggers. My google account doesn't even link to my blog, but I use it if I have to. :-)

NoPaperMoney said...

I can't believe it was that way by default. As you can see, I have a long way to go. Thanks for the tip!

Anonymous said...

Just had to chime in here and say I LOVE CLARK. He's odd, but smart (more common sense than smart, but smart, too) -- and I love to hear him reinforce what I already know, as well as listen to learn about new opportunities to save money.