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Navigating the healthcare maze can be an exhausting process if you or your family members are sick. Employers are starting to understand this and make healthcare advocates available to their employees as a free benefit. Healthcare advocates are usually former medical professionals who help people get what they need from the medical system. Right now about 3,000 employers offer healthcare advocate access. But very few workers even know they're entitled to such a benefit. Clark thinks of the healthcare advocacy phenomenon like he does expeditors. When you live in a city, sometimes you can hire an expeditor who knows the right people to contact to expedite any request. In the same way, healthcare advocates can assist you in getting to doctors and certain facilities that you might not be able to get into on your own. Of course, it goes without saying that healthcare should not be this difficult. Yet that's the reality. Healthcare spending accounts for 1 in every 6 dollars in our economy and it's not slowing down anytime soon.

A lot of people in real estate love doing 1031 Exchanges. If you're not familiar with the term, 1031s allow you to sell an investment property and roll your gains over into a new investment property -- rather than paying taxes on your capital gains. There are certain rules governing 1031s. The money must go directly into the hand of a qualified intermediary. You have 45 days to identify a new property, and you have 180 days to actually acquire that property. But there have been a lot of problems with 1031s because some qualified intermediaries are running off with the cash. Now The Washington Post reports that the IRS is retroactively disallowing some 1031s as a precaution.

Clark's real advice is to not do a 1031. People are so obsessed with avoiding tax that they lose sight of the bigger financial picture. For example, right now the max tax you'll pay when you sell a property is 15 percent. That's the best deal we've had in years. With the Democrats likely to get into office in 2008, most of their candidates are talking about capital-gains taxes of 28 percent. So doing a 1031 now to defer paying 15 percent when you'll later pay 28 percent is not "Clark Smart." Instead, just harvest your gains and pay your taxes! Clark knows everyone will tell you the opposite. But he believes the tax rates are only likely to go higher. This is best it's ever been; it's probably not going to get better -- only more expensive.

The whole text messaging phenomenon is really misunderstood by many adults. Clark recently heard a government regulator in the telephone industry admit he's not familiar with texting. Parents are often similarly oblivious. That's why unlimited text messaging is a real help. If you have text-happy teens, it helps ensure that your kids don't run your bill into the ground every month. But those unlimited plans don't cover all text messaging services -- especially some premium services that are advertised on MTV and elsewhere. There was a recent news report about one developmentally disabled teen that ran up a $10,000 bill in one month using these services. The sad thing is that the child's parents had an unlimited text messaging plan through Sprint. The cell phone carriers get a kickback for doing the billing, so there's no real incentive for them to modify their practices. Parents need to be aware of this danger and teach their children not to give into alluring services that offer dating opportunities, a joke of the day or horoscopes sent directly to their handsets, among other things. But there's a larger problem here. How can you even get the FCC on this issue if the commissioners don't know what text messaging is?!

Millions of people facing foreclosure are being tempted with ads about filing for bankruptcy as a way out of their problems. This may not affect you directly, but perhaps you know a friend, family member or co-worker who is going through this. So let's consider a couple of scenarios and see if the bankruptcy option holds water. If you bought your home in the last two or three years and almost immediately fell behind on payments, then the reality is that you may not be able to keep your home. But that doesn't automatically mean foreclosure. Try instead to arrange a short sale with your lender's permission. This may help the lender avoid the usual $70,000 cost of foreclosure, while it will help you avoid the stigma of foreclosure. Approach your lender several times if you don't initially get the answer you want. A second alternative to bankruptcy would be to arrange for something called a deed in lieu of foreclosure. This is like a voluntary turn-in of your property. This will probably appeal to lenders in states where they'd have to incur the expense of going to court to proceed with foreclosure. One thing to keep in mind about bankruptcy is that while it may help you today, it will not help you in the long run. Sometimes the best option is to allow foreclosure to proceed if it's unavoidable. It's like closing a bad chapter in your life and moving on. Let's consider one other kind of scenario. Say you're a longtime owner who has fallen on hard times now but has a good payment history. Then you might want to seek a loan modification, forbearance or a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing as a last resort before you lose your home. With Chapter 13, you can remain in your home and develop a workout if you already have demonstrated a good payment history. Bear in mind that Clark's really over-generalizing here. He's laying out a road map, and you need to see where you fit on the road.