Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you!

We’re looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN. Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.

This week’s question comes from Andy and Debbie Rishmawi of Flushing, Michigan.

Money Coach with HLN’s Money Expert Clark Howard

Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you!

We’re looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN.

Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.

This week’s question comes from the Kerry Genter of Duluth, Minnesota.

Money Coach with HLN’s Money Expert Clark Howard

Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you!

We’re looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN.

Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.

This week’s question comes from the Burns family stationed at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia.

Clark Behind the Headlines
From HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

There are changes coming to the car market that are so exciting. The cost of reliable transportation has come down and down and down. And we are now in an era where you can buy new cars for as cheap as $10,000!

Manufacturers will often release versions of their lowest price point models – some as low as $8,000 or $9,000 – and many of them come equipped with just about anything the typical buyer would want: cruise control, automatic windows, automatic transmission, etc. Wait, it gets better!

Nissan, one of the world’s largest automakers, is putting out a car in Asia in about two years that will cost around $2,000 bucks!

Now why in the world would you care about a car that’s being sold in Asia? Well, I want you to think historically. In electronics, the trends often emerge from Japan. The Japanese market is a leading indicator of what’s coming to the United States and to Western Europe.

Now we’re not going to have $2,000 or $3,000 cars in the United States anytime soon because of our safety requirements. The cars have to be designed to meet our safety and emission rules and that’ll pump up the price to around $6,000 brand new, but that’s still a heck of a deal!

Money Coach with HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you!

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Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.
This week’s question comes from Dan and Heather Sostrom of Gainesville, Florida.

Clark:
Wow you’ve got a lot of mouths to feed in that household, now another one on the way. Three children that you’re going to have to raise and pay for college for.

But the thing is, do you know what? You paid for your own college you said that set you back. But the truth is there are so many ways to pay for college, but you know what? There’s only one way to pay for your own retirement.

So you love your children, you want the best for the them but key thing, your primary focus and goal should be to beef up your savings for retirement. You need to contribute more each and every month to that and then if there’s money left over, put it toward your kids’ college in a prepaid plan or the 529 plan.

This conflict I’ve just talked about, I hear this over and over and over again. And when I talk with older couples whose kids are now grown and then I ask 'What did you save for retirement?' They kind of can’t look at me because they’ve taken all the money and put it toward their kids’ college.

Remember what I just said. Your primary goal with your long term savings is not your kids’ college. There’s work, there’s loans, there’s grants, there’s scholarships but for retirement you’ve got one thing and that’s you.

HLN Money Expert Clark Howard.

Help Me Clark!
From HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

JAMES:
Two years ago, my mom charged about $11,000 dollars to my credit card and now they're coming after me. I am 22 and just graduated from college, and many employers look at my credit as a negative towards hiring me. The debt collectors call me and I have tried offering a settlement and they will not accept it even after I have explained the situation to them. What should I do? I cannot afford to pay them anything.

CLARK:
Well what a sad thing that your mom betrayed your trust and charged to your credit card. I get this question a lot where a family member or a friend abuses your credit card and you're left holding the bag.

Normally you would have to fill out an affidavit where you swear that you did not make the charges and you say that they were made by your mom and if you do that at the time that the charges have taken place or the time you knew the charges had taken place you normally are not liable for those charges.

You've let this go on and it doesn't sound at all like you want to put your mom in to legal jeopardy so it's going to be up to you to try to make a deal. You have two issues. One is the affect on your credit which for seven years the unpaid debt harms you on your credit report. If you reach a deal and the debt no longer exists on your report the harm to you lessens enormously and with time essentially disappears so the most important thing is to try to cut a deal. And the key number for you is you're two years out from this, once you hit statute of limitations in your state, which means the amount of time that somebody could sue you against a debt you have far more negotiating power to negotiate a settlement for a much smaller amount than the 11,000.

Likely once you go outside of statute of limitations you should be able to settle the debt for 1,000 or so dollars.

If you go and do a Google or Bing search and put in your state and put statute of limitations on debt as the search, you'll see. And that varies by state from either 3 or 4 years on a credit card debt. Some states it will be longer than that.

HLN Money Expert Clark Howard.

HELP ME CLARK!
From HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

KIM:
I have student loans, a Stafford subsidized and Stafford unsubsidized, that were consolidated to lock in a low interest rate. I have heard that after either working for the government or in law enforcement for 10 years you can ask to have your loans forgiven. I work for my state's government and am considered law enforcement. It will be 10 years in November. My loans are current. In fact I pay more than the minimum payment very month. Can I ask for my student loans to be forgiven if they have been consolidated?

CLARK:
Okay, here's the story. Under the income based repayment plan you are eligible for forgiveness of the remainder of your student loans after 10 years of payments if you're working for a non-profit or for government, or 25 years if you work in the traditional private sector. But you have to go in to the income based repayment plan first for the clock to start ticking. Believe it or not the years you've already been paying don't count toward the 10 years so get yourself converted to income based repayment and get that clock running.

Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you! We're looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN. Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.

This week's question comes from Carmen and Ray Zych in Des Plaines, IL.

One of the things that I'm concerned about is that we don't have enough money to put aside.

I currently have a Roth IRA through my employer, and my husband and I each have one through our bank. What we are trying to do is sort of play catch-up. So I work part-time at a second job, and most of that money I'm putting into a retirement fund.

My husband thinks that putting everything away is foolish because if you are saving and saving and saving, you are not enjoying your life now and he has a good point. We would like to get a small little house, live in a small little town and just quietly spend the rest of our life relaxing.

We need a Money Coach!

Hear Clark’s advice for Carmen and Ray this weekend at noon on HLN

Do you need a Money Coach? Send us an iReport video with your money questions and tell us why you need the Money Coach.

Money Coach Diaries with HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you! We're looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN. Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.

This week's question comes from Michael and Holly Hima of Loganville, GA.

Holly: We're approaching our 40's. We have two kids and we're looking toward making sure we have enough money to retire on.

Michael: I don’t think we ever had a time where, you know, we were looking at a heavy debt. Even if the car breaks, we still find the money somewhere. After a while you live comfortably and you accept that this is how much you make and this is how much you can spend. We have 401ks. We have savings. We have an IRA. We just don’t know how to put all that together and then manage it… I understand that the market goes up and down and I have faith that it will progress up in the future, but where I'm putting the money, is that the right place to put it?

Holly: We want to own a bed and breakfast one day. That’s sort of where we want to live, in the mountains, would be our dream retirement. I just want to live somewhere to enjoy the outside and nature and just not have to worry about if I have enough money for that month. That would be my dream. We already have some money for retirement. How much more do we need to save so that we can live comfortably when we retire? Money Coach, can you help us?

Money Coach Diaries with HLN's Money Expert Clark Howard

This week's question comes from Ashley Bothwell of Atlanta, GA.

Ashley:

I'd like a money coach for a lot of reasons. I have my own business and I have no idea how to manage cash flow, planning for the future, anything like that. And then personally I spend a little bit out of control. I haven't done any saving for retirement.

I created a stock market account after my father passed away. We got life insurance benefits, so I wanted to pretend that I didn't know I was getting that money, handed it over and opened up what at the time was the best and most aggressive kind of stocks you could get into.

I try not to look too much at the statements these days because it's losing a lot of money... I do nothing to manage my stock market account. I've got a financial advisor who's assigned to my account and he makes all the decisions... I don't even speak to him, to be honest.

I feel like I stay out of managing the stock market account because I have no idea how it works. I feel like if I did start to become involved, I would become obsessed and be tracking trends online and that sort of thing, whereas I just don't have the time to add anything else like that to my plate.

Tune in to Clark Howard Saturdays and Sundays at noon and 4 p.m. ET on HLN to hear Clark's advice for Ashley.

Having trouble managing money? Do your money goals seem impossible? Clark Howard wants to help you! We're looking for individuals or families who are willing to be profiled on HLN . Those chosen will get money advice and information from Clark Howard.