hi, everyone welcome to "on the money." i'm becky quick. kids and food allergies. it has scary implications but now there's new hope open enrollment is here. there are some changes this year how to pick the right plan and the choices you'll have to make. lotto dreams -- a guide to what to do with all that money once you win wouldn't it be nice? and hot halloween costumes this year. why it's hard to find people to sell them. plus, you may think you have a tough job working with sharks. but meet the woman who catches real live alligators for a living not exactly my idea of fun, but

check it out "on the money" starts now. >> this is "on the money," your money, your life, your future. now becky quick. we begin with food allergies and the fear that comes with them for parents of children with serious food allergies the risk of even a reaction, even a possibly fatal one is a constant and harrowing concern. but as our meg terrell found, there are new advances that could be a game changer. it's this week's "cover story." >> reporter: for 13-year-old will brody a bite of the wrong food could be fatal. >> my peanut allergy is the one that i have. it's anaphylactic which means i could die or i take my epipen and go to the hospital. >> reporter: will has dangerous allergies. according to the cdc, the prevalence of food allergy, the most common cause of anaphylaxis rose 70% from 1997 to 2016 in kids younger than 18 allergic reactions are causing more hospital visits too

an increase of more than four fold in a decade peanuts are the worst culprit. >> peanut allergies affects approximately 1 1/2 to 4.5% of children. >> reporter: two new treatments may reach the market as soon as next year. from biotech communities both introduced small amounts of peanut protein to patients over time with the goal of building up tolerance. will brody is in a clinical trial. >> at first we almost didn't do it because it was eating the thing i was avoiding at all costs. >> reporter: every day he mixes a powder made of peanut protein into food and over time it increases. >> they start you at a low dose. by the end of this past august when they did their last food challenge, he was able to complete the entire challenge. which was over 4,000 milligrams and it's something like 13

peanuts. >> reporter: it doesn't come without side effects like upset stomach and it's not a cure. >> you have to be careful but just that peace of mind of knowing that like if i accidentally ate something that i shouldn't have, nothing would happen. >> it's a game changer. >> doctors caution it's best you don't try this at home at least not without medical supervision. >> hey, meg, are the pharmaceutical companies trying to develop new treatments for any other food allergies >> yeah, they have things in the pipeline from milk and eggs and other companies like regeneron which is trying to develop drugs from blocking allergic reactions from taking effect at all, like cat dander and pollen. >> thank you so much dr. scott sicherer is from mt. sinai in new york and the author of "food allergies, a complete guide to eating when your life depends on it.

thank you for being here today. >> thank you. >> meg pointed this out in her piece, but it seems like there are so many more allergies than 10 or 20 years ago why is that? >> look at the peanut allergy, it tripled from 1 in 250 children to 1 in 70. it's almost an epidemic. >> are we better at catching this or kids are so much more allergic >>, no, this is real people who look in classrooms now you're seeing 1 in 13 children, two per classroom with food allergies it's not just our imagination. we don't know exactly why. one theory is this cleanliness theory because our immune system is the part of the body that protects us from germs but for allergy to attack the food and it makes us sick and we have clean living now with kids that are on computers instead of on the playgrounds. we are not really living - >> we wash our hands so much we use purell all over the

place. >> so our immune system is attacking the things it doesn't need to. >> is the answer eat dirt? >> some of the research is looking at good germs. >> aside from peanuts what are the most common allergies? >> well, milk, wheat, soy account for most of the allergies. but you can be allergic to my food. >> the suggestion if you vary slowly and gradually build up more immunity, is it promising for other allergies? >> it is promising for other foods as well and we have treatments in the pipeline to look at more foods, to look at better efficacy than what we are seeing now and with fewer side effects. >> how much of is as in meg's piece, you can't solve it, but you can build up your tolerance.

>> our goal 100% is for a cure but in the meantime safety is a big part of it people -- when you're living with a food allergy it's like you're living in a land mine situation. every meal, every snack, party, social activity is that food that can hurt me going to be there? if you can increase the threshold let's say from a hundredth of a peanut to two peanuts that's an amazing safety thing. >> are there things that parents can or should do i think back to peanuts in particular when i had my son the recommendation was you don't give them any peanut butter or any peanuts until they're at least 2 years old and that changed later. do it earlier. >> times have changed, but for prevention of peanut allergy there are now national recommendations that you not delay giving peanut -- now peanuts are unsafe for infants, it's a choking hazard and peanut butter is too thick. peanut protein can be part of that, however, if you have a

child who has signs of significant allergy like really bad eczema or a food or egg allergy you need to talk to your doctor before start on that pathway. >> what do you do if you're a pregnant woman, when i was pregnant i ate peanuts thinking that would help her out. >> no recommendations there. there's no reason to avoid anything in particular or eat anything more in particular. just a healthy diet is the idea right now. >> and dirt? >> well, that might be unsafe to eat dirt, but go outside, get some sunlight, these are going back to the old days that are better. >> dr. sicherer, thank you so much great to see you earlier this month, the employers had more than 7 million unfilled jobs for the first time on record but could this have some scary repercussions especially for halloween and other seasonal retailers? joining us is stacy widlitz from sw retailers. >> good to see you.

>> with all of these low unemployment numbers and so many job openings especially for the retailers who are saying they want to hire hundreds of thousands of workers for the holidays is this going to be a problem for them >> as you can imagine with the unemployment rate at you know 3.7% here, there is lots of competition for the best workers. for the holidays this year so, you know, you have seen the likes of kohl's, they started in june going after seasonal workers and target announced they'll have 20% more workers than last year so they're offering perks. offering discounts and things to get the best labor in the stores especially considering that amazon has offered $15 an hour, so they have really upped the game and upped the ante. there's no shortage or opportunity if you're looking for a holiday job. >> they may offer perks but how many of the employers have to pay up and match amazon at $15 an hour? >> i think that's a big pressure for the retailers this holiday so you have to raise your wages

and offer significant discounts for those employees in your store. so i think that hits profitability of the retailers this season. >> it has been a pretty tough year for retailers sears just this month filing for bankruptcy you had toys "r" us before that. what does the vacant space mean, what does it mean for the malls? >> so for the malls sears is closing their store base, you think about the amount of malls that are going to have a massive space that's gone dark for the likes of jcpenney that's a big issue because almost half of their mall stores have a huge dark tenant in their malls so that kills traffic you know, the mall operators have to be creative. they really have to figure out how to fill the short term spaces that's where the emergence of the pop-up shop has come in. it's no longer a black hole you want to fill and an undesirable space. this can be used as an opportunity and that's what a lot of the malls are doing. >> is that a good thing? i mean, it seems great i guess for the holidays but what

happens when halloween is over and the pop-up shop goes away can they fill it pretty quickly? >> they can. there's a company that emerged a few years ago and they're partnering with the malls. and what they do is create an online marketplace for entrepreneurs and start-up brands and established brands including luxury brands. you can go online and get a prime piece of real estate for a day and they're ending up as growing a real store base. so there's massive opportunity for the malls and small brands >> okay. what are some of the hot halloween costumes this year i ask because i was running around this week looking for a thor costume to no luck. it seems to be sold out everywhere. >> yeah. so some of the top ones are fortnite for sure. that's in huge demand. spider-man and i think personally i'm going to go with the top -- number three which is a unicorn for my toddler. >> yes we have a unicorn party in our house. >> keep it safe. yeah. >> we love that.

perfect. stacy, thank you so much. >> good to see you up next, we are on the money. stressed out over choosing the right insurance plan we'll tell you what you need to know. there was a winner this week and the huge -- in the huge jackpot lottery. what should winners do after their numbers get called we have a lottery strategy for you for us dreamers out there. for now, take a look at how the stock market ended the week.

many workers say they're stressed out or confused about

picking the right health care plan this of course is the time of the year known as open enrollment when you choose the benefits you want for the next year sharon epperson joins us with what you need to know. the first question, is there anything new when it comes to health benefits, anything we should be aware of >> there are a couple of any things and first of all, people need to spend the time to kind of look into what's happening. many people spend less than 30 minutes looking at the open enrollment period and so much to go over. the bad news first is that health insurance premiums are rising by about 5% but that's less than an increase than we have seen in past years and -- >> is this new >> and many employers are covering the bulk of the costs. >> really? i feel like the employers have been shifting it to us. >> if you have a high deductable plan, you can get a health savings account and the contribution cap has gone up to

$50 for individuals, $100 for families. >> on the federal limits >> yes. >> where you get your health care is changing a lot of people want a center close to where they work there are many more of those that are accessible, covered by health insurance plans and when you see the retail clinics in the pharmacy or supermarkets those are covered often by your insurance. >> let me jump back to the point that the idea the employers will pick up more of the cost we were talking about the tight labor market, is this a perk >> it's all about the perks that you can offer. they're doing it which really -- how they're doing the perks. it's not just health insurance and of course retirement they know people want those benefits but they're looking at more personalized perks for people, trying to retain employees and showing that the loyalty does go up if you give them the benefits like they want. >> like what

>> paid leave. that makes sense leave to take care of an elderly relative that's one of the top perks that people want. >> yeah. >> and pet insurance. >> pet insurance, come on. >> some people want it it's expensive if you have a pet that gets sick, you know why you want that insurance. >> what does that cost the employer, but this is not like a salary but there's a cost associated with it. >> when you have a great benefits package you need to look at that as the entire compensation package it can add up to significant dollars. just a health insurance plan where they're covering the bulk of the premiums. if the premium is over $19,000 and your premium is only $5,500 we are talking about $14,000 that your employer is covering for your health care the health savings account, many employers put money into that. on average maybe $600 to $1,250 for a family and the disability insurance,

you know how important that is that ltd acronym -- long term disability, you think what is this >> sign up for it. >> sign up for it. >> sharon, really good advice, things that people can use right now. sharon epperson. up next, "on the money," one lucky ticket was sold in the near record breaking lottery what should you do if a $2 ticket becomes a life changing jackpot? we can dream anyway, if you didn't win a lotto there's a job opportunity. it may not be for the faint of heart. look out

this week there was a lucky ticket sold in south carolina with the winning numbers in the near record $1.6 billion jackpot. what should winners do before they claim their money avani ramnani is from francis financial, and thank you for being here today. >> thank you. >> all right this is a huge long shot the idea that you're actually going to win the lottery, but we have thought about it from time to time. if i were to come into a whole lot of money, how would i spend it, how would i prepare for all of that? you tell people that the very first thing they need to do is what >> be very quiet don't tell anyone. you know - >> not even your spouse? >> maybe your spouse, but not even the kids. >> why be quiet? we have read some of the stories of people who just get preyed upon afterwards but why keep it so quiet at first? >> because initially when you

get such a huge sum of money or the idea of getting a huge sum of money, you can do a lot of things from an emotional perspective. and you tend to do things that you may not otherwise do if you were in a calm state of mind so it needs to be quiet, you need to let that reality sink in you need to let a few days go by to just be comfortable with that feeling. and you need to prepare financially because you may never have had a financial adviser or an attorney or a tax person work for you. you need all of these people. >> why >> because your financial adviser who is hopefully a fiduciary for you, who is looking out for your best interest is someone who becomes a quarterback of your team this adviser will help you decide the first thing is whether you should take the lump sum or take the annuity other 30 years or whatever it is.

>> what is the right call? >> i would lean towards the side of taking a lump sum because you get all your money in one shot, you can invest wisely and do what you want to do. >> one concern about finding this team of people who you don't know and never met before, how do you make sure you're not getting taken advantage of by sharks in the potential person >> you need to be very wise and for that, i would say that's -- start with a financial adviser a fee only financial adviser that puts themselves out as a fiduciary and they'll help you find the right attorney. will help you find the right accountant and then also, i would say have a mental health person on your team as well becky, i'm not kidding, but money and emotions are so closely tied. >> lottery lunacy? >> exactly. >> quick question, do you buy lottery tickets? >> i did, and i did not win.

>> me too. thank you so much for coming in. >> thank you up next, check out this woman. we'll tell you why she left her 9:00 to 5:00 gig to take on one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and make less money for it

imagine seeing this -- check it out the next time you're on a golf course that's right that is chubs.

that's a gator from palmetto, florida. he's estimated to be about 13 to 15 feet long he makes an appearance every now and then on that green, but what happens if he or one of his friends shows up in your backyard our morgan brennan has more. >> reporter: this 900 pound angry alligator is named godzilla and the 100 pound blonde on his back is christy kroboth. she earns a living tracking, wrestling and capturing these violent beasts and here in south texas where the gator population is over half a million and growing, these fiercely territorial predators are invading parks and neighborhoods. turning the local kids and pets into very vulnerable prey. >> he's mad. >> reporter: that's where christy and her partner chris come in. >> it takes a lot of courage you know, my mind is telling me, stop, getting back, it's dangerous and then the other part, it's your job, you have to

get this gator. >> reporter: and the way they get them might surprise you. here is chris sneaking up on the gator with a regular old fishing rod and then christy wrangles wit a lasso, before wrapping the jaw short with the pink tag. >> we'll take her to the farm. >> reporter: the goal is to release them to the nature preserve. >> most of the guys go out and kill the alligators so i got into it to take the animal alive. >> reporter: she makes a decent chunk of change doing it. >> if it's a small little three foot alligator underneath a car that would be real quick $100 to $200 but if it's a company and they have an alligator in their pond, it would be anywhere from $800 to $900. >> reporter: on average they trap 150 alligators a year and each can bank a total of 60 grand annually >> oh, [ bleep ]. >> we know we won't get rich

catching alligators. we do this because we truly love what we do, we love helping the animals. i would rather work with animals over people any day and staying on your toes and paying attention to the animal. >> wow okay before wrangling reptiles, christy was a dental hygienist making around $75,000 a year from one set of jaws to another. she mays this makes her a lot happier. i wonder if she ever heard of the darwin awards. anyway, that's our show today for today. next week, retirement money mistakes how to avoid missteps with your nest egg we will see you next weekend ♪

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