The $172,000 Retirement Surprise (And Exactly How to Avoid It)

Your Money Guide on the Side

Tyler Gardner

Business, Education, Entrepreneurship, Investing, How To

4.9 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pre-Order Tyler's First Book, Real Wealth, ⁠here⁠ & be immediately eligible for exclusive bonuses between now and December 1st! April Bonus: Free two-hour digital live event on Wednesday, May 6th from 7-9pm EST, where Tyler will answer the most commonly asked questions and walk through what you can expect from the book! And as always, a MASSIVE thank you to this week's sponsors: Thrive Market: Get $20 off your first three orders plus a FREE $60 gift if you order at thrivemarket.com/tyler today. Facet: find out why I have been endorsing Facet for over 18 months now by checking out ⁠facet.com/tyler⁠. They are a one-stop shop for financial planning, investment management, tax strategy, and retirement planning. And best part: it's all for one flat annual membership fee. And on to the show notes! No one wants to think about long-term care. Which is exactly why most people don’t plan for it. In this episode, Tyler tackles one of the most uncomfortable — and most overlooked — parts of financial planning: what happens if you live long enough to need care. Because longevity is a gift. And financially, it’s also a risk. In this episode, Tyler covers: The reality that ~70% of people over 65 will need some form of long-term care What long-term care actually means (it’s not just nursing homes) The real costs — from home care to assisted living to memory care Why long-term care is separate from normal retirement planning The four ways to pay for it: self-insuring, Medicaid, traditional insurance, and hybrid policies Why Medicare doesn’t cover what most people think it does How to estimate your true long-term care exposure (and why it can reach seven figures) The biggest mistakes people make — including relying on kids or “figuring it out later” Tyler also lays out a clear, practical framework: Understand your numbers. Decide who pays. And make the decision before you need it. The core idea: A retirement plan isn’t complete until it answers one question — what happens if care is required? Because this isn’t just a financial decision. It’s a decision that affects your spouse, your kids, and how the last chapter of your life actually plays out. If the show’s been helpful, leaving a quick review on Apple or Spotify genuinely helps. Hope this gives you something to think about this week.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So when you say, my kids will take care of me, what you may actually be saying is my kids will
0:06.7	absorb a significant financial and personal cost so that I don't have to plan for it.
0:12.2	That's worth sitting with.
0:15.4	Hello, friends. This is Tyler Gardner, welcoming you to another episode of your Money Guide
0:20.4	on the side,
0:21.6	where it is my job to simplify what seems complex, add nuance to what seems simple,
0:26.7	and learn from and alongside some of the brightest minds in money, finance, and investing.
0:32.2	So let's get started and get you one step closer to where you need to be.
0:37.0	Before we get into today's episode, I am genuinely thrilled to share this with you.
0:42.9	After three years of listening to your questions and locking myself in a room to answer
0:48.0	as many of them as I can, I decided it would be slightly more efficient to write a book.
0:53.9	So I did.
0:55.2	It's called Real Wealth, published by Norton out December 6th of this year.
1:00.9	Yeah, the kid whose parents thought he might be illiterate until he was 21, and whose high
1:05.5	school English teachers passed him on the condition he never took another English class,
1:09.4	and I'm dang proud of how it turned out and what I believe it can and will do for all of you.
1:15.0	Here are three quick reasons to pre-order right now, and I'll tell you exactly how at the
1:20.2	end.
1:21.2	One, you'll actually finish this book.
1:23.9	I know, low bar, except it really isn't.
1:27.2	I've spent two decades watching people's eyes go blank the moment I said asset allocation.
1:32.3	I took that personally.
	...

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