Final Broadcast - One

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Education, Business, Investing, How To

4.5 • 811 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The final live radio episode of Talking Real Money blends nostalgia, listener appreciation, and core investing philosophy. Don and Tom reflect on nearly four decades of broadcasting while reinforcing their timeless message: consistent investing beats prediction. Using a simple S&P 500 example, they illustrate how discipline—not brilliance—builds wealth. They address current market declines with calm realism, urging listeners to ignore noise and stick to a plan. Calls cover everything from podcast transition logistics and annuity sales traps to credit freezes, tax surprises from brokerage accounts, and when to fire an advisor—ending the radio era exactly as it ran: practical, skeptical, and relentlessly investor-first. 0:04 Emotional opening and end of the radio era 0:46 Show history back to 1988 and investing perspective 1:55 $500/month S&P 500 example → ~$3.1M outcome 2:43 Market fears vs long-term investing reality 5:16 Podcast growth to #43 in U.S. investing category 6:40 Market drop discussion and “what should you do?” 7:29 Core advice: plan, ignore predictions, stay disciplined 8:57 Podcast call-in format going forward (Car Talk style) 11:01 How to challenge annuity salespeople effectively 13:22 Call from Paul Merriman reflecting on legacy 16:55 Listener success story: Roth IRA to $500K 20:32 Credit score drop and how to check/freezes 26:35 Why freezing credit is a smart default move 27:47 Tax shock from brokerage gains and hidden trading issues 32:11 Warning signs of poor advisor behavior (Wells Fargo case) 34:08 When to fire an advisor (fees, complexity, value gap) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reality Radio for a really great future.
0:08.0	We're talking real money.
0:10.1	Okay, I'm getting a little weepy as an era.
0:13.9	Draws to a close.
0:15.2	Hello, everybody.
0:15.8	I'm Don McDonald, and this is the last day of our radio show.
0:24.9	Yeah, okay.
0:26.8	And the history goes back a couple of years.
0:30.4	Goes back.
0:31.0	Well, actually, Talking Real Money, I looked it up.
0:33.0	First episode of Talking Real Money was in...
0:35.8	On the radio.
0:37.0	On the radio, on Como Radio in Seattle
0:39.5	I'm gonna predict Northwest News Radio I'll say 2014 exactly January of 2014
0:48.8	our first program that was not no one gave me, Don didn't give me that in advance.
0:54.4	So that was the beginning of talking real money. Prior to that, there was investor radio,
0:58.4	prior to that there was sound investing. That's right. Prior to that was the Don McDonald's
1:03.3	show. Prior to that was the Ways and Means Committee. And by the way, the Ways and Means Committee
1:07.7	started in July of 1988. And just to put this in financial perspective, if in July of 1988, you said, well, I believe
1:20.3	in what this Don McDonald guy is saying, this whole buy good funds, put your money in,
1:25.3	leave it alone for a long period of time, don't pay commissions, all that kind of stuff.
1:28.9	If you had put your money just in the S&P 500, just the S&P 500.
	...

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