IRS.gov - Claim your first-time homebuyer credit now (Editor's note: This is a .pdf file.)
ClarkHoward.com - Clark's gold buying guide
TireRack.com - Price your tires online
DealNews.com - Search for deals on HDTVs

Many of you have asked for an update on getting the best travel deals for the holiday season. Unfortunately, there's a reason Clark's been mostly mum on this issue.

This is not a normal travel year. While you can steal a deal on a hotel, car rentals are extremely expensive. The car rental companies are responding to the down economy by not adding to their fleets, which reduces the supply of available vehicles.

Air travel, meanwhile, has some real deals for fall and winter travel on the domestic and international fronts -- particularly to Australia and New Zealand.

But don't expect to find a deal during the Thanksgiving travel period for domestic travel. For example, some routes that are typically $59-$69 one-way to Florida are now selling in the $200 range -- if you can find a seat.

Her's Clark's best advice for getting something approximating a deal this holiday season:

• Have a flexible travel date. United Airlines has an online calendar that can help you suss out the best travel days, no matter which airline you're flying.

• Fly before 3 p.m. on any travel day if possible. You're likely to avoid weather delays that way.

• Beware of excessive baggage fees if you're taking presents to or from your destination. Southwest Airlines has no baggage fees at all, but they don't serve every market. Shipping packages with UPS Ground or FedEx Ground can help.

• Finally, Clark recommends searching both Kayak.com and Southwest.com when looking for fares. Southwest does not publish its fares to screen-scraper sites like Kayak.

Technology companies love to hook customers into contracts (euphemistically called "agreements") because they're scared of competition.

For example, both Clark and his executive producer Christa are Clear customers for high-speed Internet. Christa signed a contract, while Clark went the non-contract route.

Now Christa can't get a signal in the townhouse where she and her family are temporarily living. So she has to pay $5/month to suspend the service for an anticipated nine or 10 months while flood damage in her main residence is repaired.

Clark, meanwhile, is not getting a decent signal at his house. As a non-contract customer with Clear, all he had to do was cancel his service and go back to a cable or phone provider for high-speed Internet.

In related news, Verizon Wireless has raised its termination fee to $350. That's simply outrageous!

The key rule here is that when you sign up for any service -- cable, satellite, home phone -- you must find out if there's an "agreement." You may have to sort through 40 or more pages of legalese to find out like Clark recently did. Why can't we have a simple, one page plain English disclosure about this stuff?!

Clark has a special tip for those who are interested in buying distressed real estate.

Banks are demolishing the credit scores of would-be bidders on short sales and foreclosures by running credit checks to decide if they'll be allowed to bid. Furthermore, The San Francisco Chronicle reports that people are also being told if they don't do a mortgage with the bank, then the bank won't even entertain their offer.

Don't let a bank force you as would-be bidder to allow them to run a credit check on you. Agents, beware of this abuse of your buyers and pushback if necessary.

Banks claim they're doing this to make sure they're not wasting time with a potential buyer who's not credit worthy. Well, again, that is not your problem. Don't let the bank make it your problem and push you to the point where you don't qualify because you have all these inquires on your credit.

Have you gotten sticker shock when you needed replacement tires for your car? Chances are you may have expensive non-standard tires.

Automakers create multiple lines of a single vehicle at different price points. One of the up-sells they add to the pricier lines are fancy wheels that are larger than usual tires.

Some models even have speed-rated tires that are designed to perform at 149 mph or higher. We've all seen the commercials with stunt drivers tearing it up on closed roads. It's like James Bond syndrome! But how often do you drive even 100 mph?! Do you really need those high-performance tires?

So Clark is recommending you check out the tire size and type before you buy a car. Or simply ask the dealer about the replacement tire price. Of course, for many people style is king and they don't care if they have to pay extra. But if you do care, use TireRack.com to check tire prices.