Did you know choosing the train over your car can cut your carbon footprint by up to two thirds?

So, one family outing at a time, one little adventurer at a time, one trip to the museum, one dinner in the city, one nap on the way home at a time.

One train journey at a time can help create a greener future.

So when will you take your next trip? Find out more at nationalrail.co.uk slash greener.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show where it's all about you and that wallet of yours.

I want you to learn ideas to me so you can keep more of what you make.

This is so different than a normal talk show where in a normal talk show, the host always is about having the last word, always being right.

And that's not what this is. This is where we learn together to serve each other, to empower each other with knowledge that you can use to improve your life and your wallet.

And there are times that you'll hear me answer a question from someone, give an opinion, give advice that you feel didn't hit the mark or was just flat wrong.

And when that happens, I want you to let me know. And there's an easy way for you to do that. You go to Clark.com and we have a message board called Clark Stinks where you can go post where you feel I missed it.

And then others can comment add on to that, disagree with you, but everybody can read and I learn. And then weekly, Kristar, producer goes through your posts on Clark Stinks and shares highlights with you here on the air.

I should have never encouraged you to speak. You much think I'm pretty stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're right now.

All right. Let's get into it. What you got up first, Christa.

Credience are not the best solution. I don't really think Clark Stinks. I don't know what he smells like. Or, but if I had to guess, I would guess he smells like a pleasant combination of coffee, peppermint, life savers, and Chris knew one dollar bills.

Not coffee because you don't drink it. Maybe Coke zero. None the less. I think he is missing an opportunity when he tells people that the best way to finance a big expense is to get a loan from a credit union years ago.

My husband and I discovered a much better way to finance big purchases. You could call it reverse interest paying financing. It works like this. We look ahead and anticipate we might need to make a large purchase. Maybe we figure out that in three or five years, we're going to need to buy a car.

Then we figure out about how much we will need to spend for the car. Then we figure out how much we need to put aside every month in order to have the money we will need for that purchase. That's the reverse part.

We make the payments first and then we purchase the item. The interest paying part is that while we are saving, we are actually making a little interest on that money instead of paying an interest to a bank or even to a credit union.

This is saves us far more money than getting a loan from a credit union. My late mother had the goal to suggest that we did not invent this kind of financing. She said this is the way everyone in her generation used to make big purchases. I find that hard to believe since no one in my generation seems to have heard of it.

That is the post of the month because you are right. That's how we used to do things in America. Credit was not widely available. You save money and then when you have the money, you paid for it. That's why lay away that now is so rare. I guess Walmart is the last big player doing lay away where you put money on deposit till you have enough money to pay for an item.

Then you leave with it and this concept of saving first and then buying with cash you've accumulated is very infrequently done in the US.

But obviously paying for things with cash is almost always a superior thing to borrowing money any possible way.

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