It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show.

You know, our mission is to provide you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life.

I hope you're enjoying our podcasts and our YouTube shows. Please share an episode with a friend who you think might enjoy our show, our content. In this episode, I want to talk about something that is a real beast of a burden right now on individuals,

live alone, couples, families, what you're having to pay for housing costs.

And later, I want to talk to you about shopping, saving big, and places that might not be normally where you

think of going. Right now I want to talk about where our wallet's going. Number one place

people's money is going is two housing. And that's as it has been. But what's different is the stressor

of what people are having to pay for housing. And there are certain markets in the United States

that half of what people make is going to putting a roof over their heads.

That means everything else gets squeezed out.

I'm telling you, everything gets squeezed out,

particularly in the highest cost markets in the U.S.,

it is a price pressure that is only relieved from people who make a lot more than typical money

or people who roommate up or people who go into a very, very small space.

My daughter who lives in Los Angeles lives in just right about 300, as best I walked it off, it was about 310 square feet,

just slightly more than 300 square feet. And what she pays per month is over $2,000 a month for

slightly more than 300 square feet.

And that's what it takes in really, really expensive places.

If you don't live in Boston or New York or Seattle, Portland used to be up there with Seattle and cost, San Francisco, L.A.

Housing costs are more variable.

So I want to talk about formulas.

The historical formula is that you should be using just a little more than a quarter of your net take home

...