I'm so glad you've joined us here on the Clark Howard Show.

You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you,

so you make better financial decisions in your life.

One financial decision that can be so confusing to many of us is where to invest the money that we're

saving for our future. And how you do it can make a big difference over time what you end up with

in life. I'm going to explain something straight ahead that puzzles people, but it's important you understand

the difference between two forms of investing that are generally not well explained. Hopefully

you all do a decent job. And later, take it from me, pets can be expensive.

So I want to tell you there's a plan that a lot of vets are offering now that could be okay,

but often ends up as an ugly, mean-spirited rip-off.

But right now, I want to talk about your money, something that professional institutions,

professional money managers use routinely, but nobody ever bothers really to explain

what they are to everyday people trying to put money aside for their future.

And it's what an ETF is versus a mutual fund.

A mutual fund is where you are pooling money with a bunch of other people,

and the mutual fund shares you own,

although there's more than one kind of mutual fund, but the most common kind is where you're

pooling money, which is what's called mutual fund. And the money is like its own thing. That mutual

fund is its own thing, except at the end of the year,

when even if you keep owning it for the future, it can hurt you to be in a mutual fund

outside of an IRA, outside of what's the equivalent of mutual fund shares inside a 401k or something like that.

But if you have just a regular investment account with a discount broker or a regular,

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