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Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Bonds, Bluffers, and Buckets

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Business, Education, Investing, How To

4.2 • 680 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Don fields a fresh batch of listener questions in this all-audio edition. A longtime fan asks whether a municipal bond ETF (VTEB) is a smarter place than a money market fund for short-term cash—Don explains why liquidity and risk matter more than yield. Another listener wants help navigating how much cash retirees should keep and when to use it—Don breaks it into two simple buckets: one for living, one for emergencies. A third caller gets a red flag for being pitched Cliffwater’s CCLFX fund by a so-called fiduciary. Don pulls no punches on high-fee, opaque, risky private lending funds—and questions the advisor’s motivations. Later, a listener asks about Vanguard’s old-school actively managed funds like Wellington and PrimeCap, and whether they still have a place in a modern index-based portfolio. And finally, a TIPS investor wonders if he’s overcommitted to inflation protection. Spoiler: maybe. Don wraps by reflecting on 40 years in talk radio and thanking the show’s loyal, growing audience. 0:10 Don introduces the many ways listeners can submit questions 2:21 Q1: SPAXX vs. VTEB for short-term savings—liquidity vs. yield 5:34 Why money market wins for money needed within 2–3 years 6:27 Q2: How much cash should retirees keep—and when to use it? 7:25 Retirement cash strategy: living cash vs. true emergencies 9:31 Q3: Advisor recommends Cliffwater CCLFX—should I worry? 11:01 CCLFX breakdown: 10% yield sounds sexy, but what’s the cost? 13:27 A thousand times the cost of Vanguard bonds—yes, really 15:41 Don: this “fiduciary” isn’t acting in your best interest 17:01 Q4: Do Vanguard’s active funds still belong in a portfolio? 18:18 PrimeCap vs. VTI—higher cost, same return, less diversification 19:56 Active funds are legacy products—and not built for the long game 20:25 Q5: TIPS bonds—smart inflation hedge or overweight risk? 22:48 Equities already provide inflation protection—TIPS should be a slice, not half 24:03 Don reflects on 40 years in talk radio—and thanks loyal listeners Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:03.4

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0:21.0

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0:25.5

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0:34.9

Reality Radio for a really great future.

0:37.9

We're talking real money.

0:40.2

Well, one of our favorite things to do on our Talking Real Money podcast is to answer your questions.

0:47.9

We like doing that, and we do it a lot of different ways.

0:51.1

On our regular podcast, Tom Reid's questions that you have sent in at

0:57.4

talking realmoney.com. You typed them in the old-fashioned way. We also take old-fashioned

1:05.0

phone calls during our Saturday show at 855-935 Talk, which is 8255.

1:14.8

We have a Saturday show that we do in Seattle, and you can call us there at 855-935 Talk between the hours of 3 and 5 Eastern time on Saturdays.

1:26.9

So there's that. Then there's the third.

1:29.3

That's this. This edition. This is the typically Friday edition of the podcast. Most of these

1:38.0

are me answering questions that you've sent in, in a way, from talking realmoney.com.

1:46.2

Except this time, you go to the contact form and you hit a button that looks like a microphone

1:50.4

and you record your question using your computer mic or your phone mic or your tablet mic

1:58.3

or whatever mic you have hooked up because, well, you know, it's not just

2:03.0

old-fashioned phones. Not even rotary dial phones. I mean, just old-fashioned ones, even old-fashioned

...

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