Clark Smart Kids - Check out Clark's guide for investing and saving for youngsters

When you check out at any store, it's practically universal that you'll be rung up by a scanner. This is a good thing for speeding up the checkout process, but a bad thing when deals aren't entered into the computer and you're overcharged at the register. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Office Depot has been fined $2.3 million for overcharging customers in California at the register. As part of the settlement, Office Depot has agreed to offer five-dollar coupons in future sales circulars and refund five dollars to those who are overcharged again. Clark has his own system to avoid getting ripped off at the register. He doesn't allow anything to be rung until he has all items ready to go and he can watch the register. He loves self-checkout service for this very reason. Clark benefits from having a photographic memory when it comes to remembering prices, but he encourages others to write down the sale price or bring the circular to make sure they're getting the deals. Clark recently was at a store that rang everything up at retail price and only made deductions once it had all been totaled. It turns out he was overcharged $50 and had to have the order rung up again to get the right prices!

Do you hate legal mumbo-jumbo? Well, consumer reporter David Lazarus recently read through Time Warner's entire 3,000 word privacy policy and terms of service. What he discovered is that Time Warner reserves the right to track the Internet habits of its high-speed customers. This info includes what websites you visit, how long you spend on them and what e-commerce purchases you make. They can also read your personal e-mails, according to the terms of service. Time Warner is also allowed to disclose personally identifiable info about its customers to advertisers, direct mail operations and telemarketers for a price. A company spokesperson claims they're not doing all this just yet, but Clark wonders why Time Warner is even allowed to reserve the right to totally invade your privacy. And it's not only Time Warner that has these kinds of policies -- AT&T tracks very similar info on its customers and records their TV viewings habits. While it's never good to look reflexively to Washington for a solution, Clark believes in this case we need an ironclad privacy policy from Congress to protect the privacy of your viewing and surfing. After all, would the CEOs of Time Warner and AT&T -- or those on Capitol Hill -- like it if the public saw every one of their e-mails?

Five years ago, Clark's daughter Stephanie was three years old and received a pre-approved offer for a Visa credit card -- what she then called a "Wisa" card. Stephanie loved the fake plastic card that came with the offer and often tried to scan it using her Barbie cash register. At that time she didn't really understand that you have to apply for credit and use it responsibly. Now that Stephanie is eight years old, she's received a solicitation from American Express. She wants to apply and so far Clark hasn't discouraged her. She's going to list her income as zero, her occupation as a student and disclose her true age. Then she'll wait to see if her application gets approved. Clark wonders what he's going to say to her when she's declined. Even worse, he's wondering what to say to her if she gets approved! The credit-card companies are so desperate for customers that there have even been documented cases where they've extended credit to people's dogs. Clark thinks his executive producer Christa should sign up her cat Willow for e-mail lists from merchants and assorted cat-alogs -- pun intended! The whole trend of young people having credit cards is very dangerous in Clark's eyes. One in 10 high-school students has one. But teens should be learning about saving, not spending. It's also important to look at the message about credit that we as parents are giving our children. If you run a balance every month, you need to get your own finances in shape before you try to teach your children by example.

Clark believes that parking politics at the office builds walls between management and employees. CareerJournal.com recently ran an article that dissected the hierarchies used to determine who gets what reserved space. Companies that give preferred parking spaces to executives are sending the message to employees that they're chumps, according to Clark. He makes no bones about saying that management at the WSB studio is still in the Neanderthal era with its reserved parking policy. But things could be worse. Clark recently was at a multi-tenant office building toward the end of the business day and there were hundreds of empty spaces available. Unfortunately he couldn't use one because they were all reserved until 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m. or 24 hours/day depending on how important the person was. The issue of parking at work is one that really gets people fired up. If it seems trite and trivial, realize that it gives you insight into whether or not management values its employees.