Can You Retire?

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Education, Business, Investing, How To

4.5 • 811 Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most Americans are far less prepared for retirement than many assume. Don and Tom discuss new Federal Reserve data showing that only about half of Americans have retirement accounts, the median retirement balance is just $200,000, and only a tiny percentage of retirees have more than $1 million saved. They explain why starting early, saving consistently, and avoiding speculative investing matter far more than chasing hot stocks or market trends. The episode also covers Social Security misconc...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Your guides to a really great financial future.
0:09.0	Tom and Don are talking real money.
0:12.4	Our goal when we retire is to have a pretty decent nest egg of money off of which we can live when we stop working, whenever we stop
0:24.0	working, and that varies from person to person.
0:27.5	But the reality is most people these days don't even consider a million dollars enough to live
0:34.8	a decent middle class life in retirement, even with Social Security.
0:40.9	And we've got some interesting facts on how many people actually have that much money
0:46.6	here on another exciting edition of the Talking Real Money podcast with me, Don McDonald,
0:52.7	him, Tom Cock, and you are lovely, lovely listeners out there across the
0:57.9	fruited plains and overseas to
1:01.2	all over the place.
1:05.0	So, Tom's just over there smiling.
1:08.7	I didn't know you could say, I didn't know you could say
1:10.5	fruited planes anymore. That's why I was kind of curious. You can't say that. I didn't know he could say, I didn't know you could say fruited plains anymore.
1:11.7	That's why I was kind of curious. You can't say that? I don't know. Did you read the disclaimer? I go into every meeting now with anybody and read the disclaimer first. I just read it. And they're like, why are you reading? I don't know. I'm just like Mirandizing the clients. Basically. Please. Let me read this. Then we can talk.
1:29.2	Wait a minute. Okay. Okay. Before we get to today. It's just like Mirandizing the clients? Basically so. Let me read this.
1:28.1	Then we can talk. Wait a minute. Okay. Okay. Before we get to today's topic, I now need to know why. I don't know why. It might be politically incorrect to say fruited planes. I don't know. I'm going to leave it at that. So let's just leave it there. So I'm just trying to be careful. about ripe with wheat.
1:45.5	Yeah, which my plants are not growing at all. It's 45 degrees this morning.
1:50.6	This is just horrible. Worst spring I've ever seen. I'm going to have to replant everything,
1:54.4	I think. It's just sad. So sorry. Oh, I'm not even going to tell you what the temperature is
1:59.1	going to be here today. It's about 50 degrees warmer.
2:03.1	Yeah, almost exactly.
	...

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