Retirement Then And Now: What It Really Takes to Retire in 2026

Prices change, risks evolve, and so do the rules of a secure retirement. We take a time jump from 1971 to 1989, 2001, 2008, and today to uncover what history teaches about building income you can trust. Along the way, Brad shares personal stories, like his father’s 2008 losses at Merrill Lynch and the pivot that created guaranteed paychecks for life, to show how real households turn pain into better planning.

We break down the forces that matter most: the true cost of living in 2025, the impact of taxes on every withdrawal, and why sequence of returns risk can undo decades of saving if your first retirement years collide with a downturn. You’ll hear how the “quadruple whammy”—withdrawals, losses, fees, and taxes—erodes portfolios, and how to counter it with a blended strategy that pairs market growth with guaranteed lifetime income. We also explore practical tax planning moves like Roth conversions, bracket management, and smarter Social Security timing, plus how location and lifestyle change your target number more than any rule of thumb.

By the end, you’ll see a blueprint for resilience: set a reliable income floor, diversify risk, cut avoidable taxes and fees, and keep a cash buffer for rough markets. Whether you’re eyeing Missouri’s lower costs or navigating a high‑cost coastal city, this approach scales to your life. Ready to stress‑test your plan and keep more of what you’ve earned? Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s retiring soon, and leave a review with your top retirement question so we can help in a future show.

To learn more about Brad Pistole and the Ozark Retirement Group, please visit www.ozarksretirement.com 

Transcript

Welcome And Why History Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to Safe Money Radio with your host, Brad Pistol. Brad is a retirement income and tax planning certified professional, primarily serving clients in the Midwest, but he's sought after nationally for his expertise in helping people secure their retirement. Mr. Pistol is a licensed life insurance professional in approximately 20 different states, and he specializes in working with people who are near retirement and those who have already retired with wealth management, income planning, and asset protection strategies using life, health, long-term care, and annuity insurance products. And now, here to talk with you about securing your retirement, it's your host, Brad Pistol.

A Tour Of 1971 Costs And Taxes

Childhood Simplicity And Today’s Reality

Tax Truths And Keeping More

1989 Culture And Cost Of Living

College Costs And Retirement Math

Why Tax Planning Beats Performance

2001 Tech Shifts And Market Shock

Sequence Of Returns And The Quadruple Whammy

2008 Crisis And A Family Lesson

Hedging Risk With Guaranteed Income

Life And Costs In 2025

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Well, hello everyone. I'm so excited to bring the show to you today. This might be the first time you've ever heard the show. You might have been listening for 15 plus years. You know, it never does surprise me anymore. Someone may contact me and say, Man, Brad, I was listening to you all the way back in 2010. And sometimes people come in to meet with us and they'll say, No, I I've lived here my whole life and I just heard your show for the first time last week. So it doesn't matter where you are, where you live. People listen to us all across the United States. I have clients in more than 20 states. And so whether you're listening on the radio or you're listening to the podcast, this is one of the longest running financial shows in the United States. I've been here every single week, five times a week on the weekends in the Ozarks with the radio show and then the podcast for the last couple of years, going all the way back to 2010. And so I love what I do. I love bringing cutting edge information to you. And we just work with the best of the best, the brightest financial minds in the world. We are so grateful to be partnered with them. And so today's going to be a show, unlike any show I've ever done, we're going to be doing a show that's going to take us into the past. We're going to go back to the year that I was born, 1971. And then we're going to walk through several different periods of time and just take a look at what life was like back then versus now. And what does that mean when you start thinking about whether or not you could retire in the world of 2025, 2026, and beyond? So here we go. You know, it's been said that in order to prepare for the future, you often need to take a long, hard look at the past. And this seems to be true. It seems like avoiding future problems can often be solved by learning from the mistakes that we and other people made years ago. So just for fun, just for today, let's travel back into time and let's relive yesteryear. Let's start with my birth year in this first segment of 1971. See if any of these things ring a bell. These are all things that were taking place in 1971. Richard Nixon was the president of the United States. The 26th Amendment was ratified, lowering the U.S. voting age from age twenty-one to eighteen. Cigarette advertisements were banned on television. Do you remember that? The very first commercial video game was released and it was called something like computer space. Any of you computer game nerdies out there still have that? Hey, the fight of the century between Muhammad Ali and Walt Fraser took place the year I was born. Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida on October the first, opening the door to theme parks and family entertainment. It's one of my daughter and son-in-law's favorite places in the world. And that madness all started the year I was born. President Nixon announced a 90-day wage and price freeze to try to combat inflation. Richard Petty became the first NASCAR driver to win a million dollars in career earnings. So for all you NASCAR fans out there, it was 1971 when people realized, hey, you can actually become wealthy through what through NASCAR. So, how about some television? All in the Family debuted on premier television, CBS, and it included the first toilet flush that was ever shown on television. I just cracked up laughing and had to go back and think there'd never been a toilet flush on television before 1971. Thanks to All in the Family. And hey, speaking of that, when I actually went to visit Glenn Beck and was there in his studios and met him and spent the day with him, I got to see the original set from All in the Family. He has it there in his office space. Incredible. The Ed Sullivan show aired its final episode after 23 years on television in 1971, and the NASDAQ Stock Market Index opened for the first time on February the 8th. Here's one more fun fact. The longest game in NFL history occurred on Christmas Day in 1971 during the AFC divisional playoff between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs. The game lasted a total of seven hours and eight minutes, with actual playing time around eighty-two minutes and forty seconds. It ended seven minutes and forty seconds into the sixth quarter. Yes, I said that correctly, the sixth quarter, resulting in a twenty seven to twenty victory for the Dolphins. Sorry, Chiefs fans, but that's what happened. Now, here are some other things you might find interesting. In nineteen seventy-one, the world's population was approximately three point seven eight billion people. Let's go through some costs of living. The cost of a new home in 1971, approximately$28,300. Cost of a new car,$3,742. Median household income,$9,028. The cost of a first class stamp, six cents. The cost of a gallon of regular gas, thirty-six cents. Cost of a dozen eggs fifty-three cents. Cost of a gallon of milk? Cost of a hamburger at McDonald's? Now, friends, we're going to be going through some of these stats all throughout the show, but it for different periods of time. And maybe you'll listen to the podcast, you'll want to rewind and go back and look at the comparables because it was really interesting creating the information for the show. But here's what you need to know before we go to our first break. To retire in 1971, you would have needed about$65,000 in savings, which was roughly 10 times the national wage for that year, about$6,497. This is based on the common retirement guideline of needing 10 to 12 times your annual pre-retirement income saved in order to maintain your desired standard of living. So I want to ask you, how many of you would like to go back to life in the 1970s? You know, maybe not for the clothes or the haircuts or the technology, though some of you may prefer it way back then, but for the prices. You know, life was definitely much simpler back then. I remember very clearly leaving my house each summer day just after daylight and staying gone until lunch. Then I would go back out and stay until suppertime. My days were filled with fishing and building forts, wandering through the woods and exploring everything under the sun. And at some point in every single day, I would ride my bike down to the local gas station, which we called the quickie, and I would always take my quarter to buy Jolly Ranchers or a sucker. I would then ride my bike to the local pool that was there in our community. I would swim for hours, and as long as I made it home by supper or in the worst case dark, all was well in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I don't remember ever turning on a television. There was no such thing as a computer or a cell phone. You could actually trust other people. And life was absolutely beautiful. My my how things have changed in today's world. Now, like I said on today's show, we're going to be talking about different periods of time from the past and compare them to today. And if you've listened to my show for any period of time, you know I always quote my good friend, America's IRA expert Ed Slott when I say, it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep after paying your taxes that counts. And here's a little stat that I left out about 1971. Do you know what the highest federal tax rate was in 1971? Any guesses out there? You know, in light of all the really cheap prices I just mentioned, you might be thinking they were probably relatively low. And you would be dead wrong. In 1971, the year I was born, the highest federal tax rate was 70%. Now if you don't believe me, just look it up. And compared to the previous 30 years before 1971, that was a real deal. Because you see, the highest federal tax rate in our nation's history was actually 94% back in 1944, the year my father was born. So I want you to stay with us today. We're going to be talking about why you need to look back at history in order to make sure you're prepared for your future. Our number is 866-780 SAFE. We are the Ozarks Retirement Group, and we are retirement income certified professionals. You can visit our website anytime at Ozarksretirement.com. And remember, you can just call us anytime for a free financial consultation. I will also give you a copy of my best-selling book, Bulletproof, the Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan, absolutely free. Our number's 866-780-7233, and there's always someone standing by to take your call. Now, in the first segment of the show today, we took a look back at 1971, the year I was born, so that we could reflect on just how much prices have changed and how much the world has changed over the past 50 years. Now, let's fast forward to when I was a senior in high school. The year was 1989. Let's grab the Wayback Machine and take a quick ride back. Do you remember these things from 1989? George H. W. Bush was inaugurated as the 41st U.S. president. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War took place. There was the massive Exxon spill in Alaska. Do you remember that? The United States invaded Panama to overthrow the dictator Manuel Noriega. Serial killer Ted Bundy was executed in Florida. I remember watching the videotape between he and Dr. James Dobson. I watched it many, many times. It's one of the most fascinating interviews I've ever seen. Nintendo released the Game Boy Portable Video Game System in North America in 1989. You might remember this. Cassette tapes played through Walkman's and Boomboxes were still the dominant form of music. Now, if you have children or grandchildren listening with you right now and you're in a car, please explain to them what a boombox was. It wasn't an explosive, it wasn't a bomb. And I have a question. Do any of you out there still own your boombox? Do you have that packed away somewhere? There were iconic movies in 1989, my senior year of high school. This included Batman, which was played by Michael Keaton, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and Dead Poet Society. The long-running animated series The Simpsons debuted in 1989, along with Disney's The Little Mermaid. The pop charts featured hits from artists like Paula Abdul and Richard Marks. And who could forget Motley Crue and the hip-hop group The Beastie Boys, who were a big reason for why we had boomboxes. Shopping malls and arcades were the top places for young people to hang out. Do you remember the arcade days? The first episodes of Jerry Seinfeld started in July of 1989, and the beginning foundation for the World Wide Web, also known as the Internet, was starting to take place. Now let's talk about the cost of living in 1989, my senior year in high school. The world's population was about 5.2 billion people. The average cost of a new home was$148,800. The median household income was$28,906. Average cost of a new car,$12,000. Cost of a gallon of regular gas,$1.12. Cost of a first class stamp? A quarter. Cost of a dozen eggs,$96. Cost of a gallon of milk,$2.34. And a McDonald's hamburger cost approximately 59 cents. Now, after this episode and thinking about 1971 versus 1989, how many of you would like to go back to live in 1989? Now again, maybe not for the clothes, maybe not for the haircuts. Mine was pretty funny. Or the technology. But maybe for the prices, right? In 1989, I was trying to decide where to go to college. You see, I had offers to play college basketball at two different locations on scholarship. One was to a school in York, Nebraska, and the other one was to a school in Northeast Arkansas. Without a scholarship, the cost of tuition and boarding at a private institution for a full year was approximately$10,000 in 1989. Now, some of you might be laughing and some of you might be think that I'm making this up, but you heard me correctly. It was$10,000 a year for tuition and room and board at a college for a full year in 1989. To retire in 1989, you would have needed about$200,000 saved, which was roughly 10 times the national average wage at that time, which was approximately$20,000. Now, on today's show, we're going to continue to talk about looking back into history to make sure that you're prepared for your future retirement. And I want to tell you this. I'm the CEO of the Ozarks Retirement Group. My son and I are both retirement income certified professionals. Our number's 866-780-7233. You can always visit our website at Ozarksretirement.com. And I just want to let you know this. As we compare what life's been like throughout the decades over time, one of the things that is a constant in a mainstay is taxes. If you don't have someone to help you with tax planning, and your financial professional is just an investment person who just sells stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, you're going to find out, especially as you listen to this show, what the most important part is. It's not how you're invested, it's what you're able to keep after paying your taxes. I was one of the very first graduates of the Tax Planning Certified Professional Financial Designation Program through the American College in 2025. We focus on keeping our clients' money safe while helping them avoid unnecessary taxes and fees. And that's exactly what we've been doing for our clients all over this great nation for many years. If you would like to find out why we're sought after by people from all over the U.S., just call us and ask for a free financial consultation. Our number is 866-780-7233, and there's always someone standing by to take your call. Now, friends, in the first two segments of the show, we looked back at 1971, the year I was born, and 1989, the year I graduated from high school. It's always good to look back to the past to learn lessons from where you've been, and if not from to learn from your own mistakes, to learn from the mistakes of others. Now, let's fast forward just to the turn of the century to one of the most memorable years in our nation's history. Does anyone know what was happening in 2000 and in 2001? 2001, George W. Bush was elected the forty-third president of the United States. The internet was relatively new and not like it is today. Most people still use dial up internet. I know I did. How many of you remember what it sounded like when you would dial up the dial up internet? You remember how long you had to wait for it to start and connect? How frustrating you would be whenever it wouldn't work, or when you were trying to send something and it would disconnect? Do you remember how long it took to send and receive messages, even an email? Apple released the first iPod in 2001 and Microsoft launched Windows XP. This would change the world forever. Notable celebrity events in 2001 included the divorce of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It also signified the start of the relationship between former child pop stars Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Do you remember that? And then, of course, who could ever forget the events that took place on September the 11th of 2001? The things that took place on this date changed our world forever in many, many ways. It affected us emotionally, spiritually, and economically. While the primary cause of the market tumbling in 2001 was due to the dot-com bubble burst that started in 2000, the September 11 attacks caused an immediate and sharp drop in stock market value with a$1.4 trillion loss in market value in the immediate aftermath. Let's take a look at what life was like financially in 2001. The world's population was approximately 6.19 billion people. The average cost of a new home was$212,000. The median household income? The average cost of a new car,$21,474. The cost of a gallon of regular gas,$1.47. Cost of a first class stamp,$34. The cost of a dozen eggs? Cost of a gallon of milk? And a McDonald's hamburger cost approximately$89. Now to retire in 2001, during one of the biggest crashes we ever experienced in our market, you would have needed about$329,000 saved, which would be roughly 10 times the national average for wages at that time, like we've talked about. But remember, the people who retired in 2001 experienced something very few people had ever experienced before the total collapse of the stock market. They experienced something that retirement experts call the sequence of returns risk. Now we talk about this a lot on this show with a lot of people who have PhDs behind their neck. And I talk about it in my bestselling book, Bulletproof, the Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan. The sequence of returns risk is critically important to the survival of your retirement income plan. What happens when you retire and start taking money from your retirement accounts when the markets are in a downward spiral? Well, you experience something I call the quadruple whammy. That's when you take distributions from your accounts while experiencing losses, while paying fees on that account to the financial professional who's helping you, while paying taxes on the distributions that you take out. Friends, distributions plus losses plus fees plus taxes will wipe you out and end your retirement. This is exactly what we help our clients avoid. They simply never have to worry about this happening to them. You know, I've been hosting Safe Money Radio for almost two decades now. Both my son and I are retirement income certified professionals, and our number is 866-780 SAFE. We invite you to visit our website anytime at Ozarksretirement.com, and you can also call us at 866-780-7233. When you visit the website, you can schedule a free consultation right there on the opening page in the top right hand corner. You know, I was one of the very first graduates of the Tax Planning Certified Professional Financial Designation Program through the American College in 2025. We focus on keeping our clients' money safe while helping them avoid unnecessary taxes and fees. And that's exactly what we've been doing for our clients all over this great nation for many, many years. If you'd like to find out why people seek after us from all over the United States, just call us and ask for a free financial consultation. Our number's 866-780-7233, and there's always someone standing by to take your call. Today we've been taking a look back into history to see what life was like and to see what the cost of living was like. All the way back in 1971, 54 years ago, the year I was born. We also talked about 1989, the year I graduated from high school. In the last segment, we talked about 2001, one of the most memorable years in our nation's history, the September 11 attacks, and the downfall of the stock market and what that did to retirees all across this country. Now let's fast forward to another year. Let's take a look at another one of the most memorable years in our nation's history, 2008. Do you remember how you felt in 2008 and in the years that followed? Here's a quick look back at what was happening during that time. Smartphones like the second generation iPhone were hot new products. Though many people still relied on their flip phones for their calls and their texts. Do you remember how hard it was to text on a flip phone? Do any of you still have one of those? Broadband internet was widespread and YouTube was gaining popularity for sharing videos. MySpace was the leading social platform because Facebook and Twitter were still in the early developmental stages in 2008. With the economy struggling, people sought cheaper forms of entertainment, which led to an increase in movie ticket sales. Movies were very, very popular in 2008. The year was dominated by global financial crisis, triggering the collapse of the housing market and risky lending practices. This culminated in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September of 2008. Do you remember that? This crisis led to millions of job losses in the United States with unemployment rates doubling. Many people were unable to afford their mortgages, resulting in a surge of home foreclosures. The government had to step in and bail out major financial institutions that were on the brink of total economic collapse. Now let's talk about the costs in 2008. The average cost of a new home was two hundred and eighty-four thousand six hundred dollars. Median household income fifty one thousand dollars. The average cost of a new car, twenty three thousand five hundred dollars. Cost of a gallon of regular gas, three dollars and thirty-one cents. Cost of a first class stamp, forty-two cents. Cost of a dozen eggs, one dollar and ninety-nine cents. Cost of a gallon of milk, three dollars and eighty cents. A McDonald's hamburger cost approximately eighty-nine cents in two thousand and eight. To retire in two thousand and eight, the amount of money you would have needed to survive depended one hundred percent on how you were invested. Were you one hundred percent exposed to the markets? Well, if so, you probably lost more than fifty percent of the value of your retirement accounts, just like my father did. Now I've told this story many times over my many years on Safe Money Radio, and I've written about it in my best-selling book, Bulletproof, The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan, and I'll give you a copy of that absolutely free. Just give us a call. You see, my father was a financial professional for more than 50 years. And in 2008, when he was 63 years old, he was an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch, and 100% of his retirement was invested in the stock market. To put it bluntly, 2008 crushed him financially, and it changed the way he lived the rest of his life. He was an anti-annuity person. Merrill Lynch did not sell them, they did not promote them. In fact, they would tell you to never buy an annuity. My father soon after the crisis of 2008 retired from Merrill Lynch, came to work for me, and in 2011, because of the experiences he had in 01 and in 2008 at age 56 and 63, he decided to purchase three different fixed-indexed annuities. This also changed his life forever. He decided he would never again go through the collapse of his financial portfolio because of being overfunded and unprotected in the stock market. And because he made those purchases back in 2011, my mother still has guaranteed lifetime income, now several years after my father has passed. And she will receive the paychecks from those three annuities for the rest of her life. And friends, I can tell you this my mother will probably live 20 plus more years. Many people that see her in pictures with me think she's my wife and it's my mother. She looks like a teenager. She is the energizer bunny and she will go, go, go for many, many years. This is the type of protection that we help provide for our clients. The stock market isn't bad, but being 100% invested in the market, unless you have a very rare situation, is not best for most people. You need to hedge your bets. You need to have variety, and you need to have a portfolio that involves several different types of accounts. There simply must be protection there outside of Social Security, and the rare number of you who have a pension, you're going to have to self-fund. And that means you're going to need an instrument like an annuity that has a guaranteed income stream. You see, people don't realize this. Social Security is an annuity payment. A pension from anyone is an annuity payment. And the annuity you get from an insurance company is, of course, an annuity payment. People who say they don't like annuities don't realize they're saying, oh, I'd like to give up my Social Security and my pension. Here, take them back from me. They are annuity payments. It's anything that pays you for the rest of your life, no matter how long you live. However, different than a pension and different than Social Security, when it's structured correctly, as it is in 99% of all cases, from an educated professional, you own the asset. The insurance company does not keep your money. You have named the beneficiaries, a spouse, children, grandchildren, charities, and 100% of the money that's left in your accounts passes on to your intended heirs. However, if you've outlived the money, when any other asset and custodian would have closed your account, the insurance company will continue paying you forever when you've run out of money in the annuity. If you run out of money in your brokerage account, do you think your broker's going to continue to send you a check every week? I assure you he's not. If you run out of money in your CD or your bank account, do you think the good old friends down at the local bank are going to keep sending you withdrawal payments every single month? They will not. But the insurance company will. 2008, 2001 should be times that remind us there's got to be a better way to do things financially than the way we did things in 01 and 08 when we experienced total financial meltdown. Friends, our numbers 866 780 SAFE. I'm a retirement income certified professional and a tax planning certified professional. I'm also a certified financial fiduciary and a certified annuity specialist. We help people all across this great nation. And if you want to know why, just go to our website at Ozarksretirement.com. Read the reviews that we have on Google. Ask for a free financial consultation. We'll be more than happy to meet with you, and I'll give you a copy of my best-selling book absolutely free. Our number is 866-780-7233, and there's always someone standing by to take your call. Friends, to recap the first parts of the show, you know we've been talking about looking back into history to learn from our mistakes and to learn from the things that have happened historically so that we can be prepared for the future. One of the ways to be prepared for the future is to know what's happened in the past and not want to repeat mistakes from the past. So we talked about the year I was born, 1971. We talked about the year I graduated high school, 1989. We talked about years of financial crisis in this country, 2001 and 2008. Now let's talk about life in the world of 2025 and beyond. Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States. Netflix is the largest streaming service by subscriber count, and it's known for a wide variety of original content. Disney is a very popular service with a strong library of content from Disney to Pixar to Marvel and Star Wars and you know all of what they do. They dominate the industry. Then there's Amazon Prime videos, a major player in the game. It's often bundled with Amazon Prime memberships. How many of you have an Amazon Prime membership listening right now? Speaking of Amazon, who needs to ever leave their home in 2025 and beyond? You practically don't. Everything can be delivered right to your door. There's Amazon Prime deliveries, there's DoorDash, there's Uber Eats. And you know this has dramatically changed the cost of things like FedEx and UPS because everybody has everything delivered. They want it and they want it now. Remember the days of ordering something and having it show up three or four weeks later? We are in an instant satisfaction world. Life has certainly changed. The world of shopping in person versus ordering everything online from food to birthday presents to Christmas presents has completely changed our world. Here's some other things. Life in 2025 is defined by an accelerating fusion of technology and daily routines, complex global events, and significant economic uncertainty. Artificial intelligence known as AI has become more integrated into technology and into the workplace, while social media trends show a move forward to a more authentic, community-focused engagement. AI is moving so quickly. Now, to many people, they consider it a helpful tool, to an autonomous agent that can help execute complex tasks without the need for any human input at all. I know many people who have had their books written for them by AI. I know many, many people who have their radio shows written by AI. And maybe that speeds up their life and benefits them. I don't use it. I don't want to use it. I write every single word of every single show. I believe being authentic and real is the way to go. But I'm also at my office at 8 p.m. on a Sunday night recording this, and most people simply are not willing to work that hard. AI is moving from being a helpful tool to many other things in life. There are AI-powered assistants that are becoming more and more common. They will help you anticipate your needs and manage tasks like shopping and health appointments and everything under the sun. And friends, this is no shocker. The economic outlook for 2025 is marked by slow global growth, persistent inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty. While the stock market might look great, I hear from people in all different industries just how much things seem to be slowing down in late 2025. Now let's take a look at some of the personal struggles with the high cost of living and why this is a major topic of conversation. If you missed the early parts of the show, go to the podcast, go to YouTube, type in Brad Pistol, Safe Money Radio. You can find this and you can rewind back and listen to the comparables from 1971 to 1989 to 2001 to 2008, because now we're going to share the cost of 2025, and you will see what an unbelievable increase there's been since the last segment. The average cost of a new home in 2025,$416,900. Median household income,$83,592. Average cost of a new car, for the first time ever in our nation's history, it surpassed$50,000. It's currently$50,080 for the average cost of a new car. A gallon of gasoline, three dollars and six cents. Cost of a first class stamp, seventy-eight cents. Cost of a dozen eggs, three dollars and fifty-nine cents. Cost of a gallon of milk, four dollars and seventeen cents. A McDonald's hamburger, two dollars and nineteen cents. The amount of money that you would need to retire in 2025 varies, but a common estimate is one point two six million dollars. Now some sources suggest a higher amount. In order to be safe, you need one point five million. The required amount, of course, obviously depends on your location, your lifestyle, and other factors like health care cost and desired income. While some states require way over two million and other states under one million. There's a big, big difference in living in California or New York or Florida and living in Springfield, Missouri. A big difference. But we're just talking about national averages here. So here's what I would like to do. I would like to offer you expert advice from people who know what they're talking about. Friends, I've been hosting Safe Money Radio for almost two decades. I have five different financial designations, and I'm connected to the study groups, the educational groups, and the brightest minds on the planet. You know, these people have been guests on my show all throughout this year, and you can't find a guest lineup on any podcast like what ours is. It's the best of the best. I'm going to be talking about some of our guests in this last episode, but I just offer this to you. If you're listening right now and you're thinking about just how much life has changed in recent years, and you think, wow, this is too much to try to navigate on my own. We uh we really can't swing from the hip or try to figure out our own financial planning. There's just too much involved. Then I would say you need to be working with someone who works with people all across the country. Do your research, read the reviews, find out how they are respected from other people. There is a reason why I was one of the Springfield Business Journal Trusted Advisors of the Year. Friends, our number's eight six six seven eight zero seven two three. You can call us anytime there's always someone standing by to take your call. Just give us a call and ask for a free financial consultation, or go to Ozarksretirement.com and schedule your own free consultation right there on the website. 866-780-7233. There's always someone standing by to take your call. Friends, to wrap the show up, we talked about 1971, 1989, 2001, 2008, and 2025. There was some massive changes in the amount of money that you needed to retire on in 1971 versus the more than$1 million they're estimating in 2025. As we close the show, I want to read something that I did just for fun to go in and say, well, let's see what some other people with these things called opinions say about retiring in Missouri, since that's where we host the show from. To retire comfortably in Missouri in 2025, you will likely need approximately$770,000 to up to$870,000 in savings, depending on your lifestyle, which can be estimated on your current income. Now, income in Missouri is somewhere between$54,000 and$74,000. So basically you can take those numbers and multiply them by a factor of 10 and get your approximate need for retirement years. But this specific amount varies. And here's the thing it's going to be that upper end of$771,000 if you plan to live for about$14.1 years. Now, you may think you're not going to live that long, but you certainly don't want to underestimate this and deal with the number one fear of all retirees, which is running out of money before running out of life. It would be better to predict a longer amount of time and have money left over for your heirs and charities and things like this. Now,$771,000 is the approximate if you plan on living for 14.1 years, but there are several factors to consider. Things like your lifestyle, your personal spending habits. This is definitely going to impact the amount of money you're going to need. A comfortable lifestyle will cost more than a basic one. Your retirement age. Hey, retiring later will lower the total amount of savings that you're going to need, and you'll have more time to save and a shorter period to fund your retirement years. Social Security. Obviously, this is a big one. Do you file at 62? Do you file at 67? Do you file at 70? You need to work with an expert who can give you good advice on this. Not just shop talk, not talk uh at lunch after church, not talk on the golf course at the 19th hole, someone who truly knows what they're talking about. Healthcare. It is always number one or number two in the cost in retirement. It's either going to be your health care or your housing, and it's important. And then, of course, there's inflation. Inflation will erode the purchasing power of your savings over time. It's very important to have a plan that includes a way to deal with the incredible increase of costs. Friends, as we wrap up this show, I want to tell you retirement planning isn't something that you guess at. You don't swing from the hips. You don't make decisions because you went to some dinner seminar and someone bought your food, and because you listened to them for 30 minutes and they were funny, they deserve what you spent 40 years of your life planning for and saving for. You need to make sure that this person knows what they're talking about. And that's why we have guests on this show like America's IRA expert Ed Slott. World-renowned economist Tom Hegna, don't worry, retire happy. People like Dr. Wade Powell, who's written books like How Much Can I Spend in Retirement? Safety First Retirement Planning and the Retirement Planning Guidebook, Navigating the Important Decisions for Retirement Success. We look forward to 2026. It's going to be here before we know it. And here's the thing all of these incredible guests are going to be back on our show in 2026. This is the source for the best retirement planning advice in the world. Listen to us, follow us, go to YouTube, subscribe to Safe Money Radio with Brad Pistol. And if you want our expert advice and help, call us anytime. We will meet with you absolutely free. Our number is 866-780 Safe. I'll give you a copy of my best-selling book, Bulletproof, The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan When We Meet. And yes, everyone of you who call and schedule an appointment, I will personally meet with you. I will not pass you off to some other employee or some other person. You will be meeting with me. Call us anytime at 866-780-7233. And there's always someone standing by to take your call. Well, I'm about out of time, and I would like to thank you for listening to Safe Money Radio. If you're serious about your financial future, give me a call, and together we'll get your retirement savings on the fast track to accumulation while reducing exposure to market losses. Thanks for listening, and until next time at the same time, I'm Brad Pistol, reminding you to stay safe so you can step into a secure future.

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Call Brad Pistol now for your complimentary safe money book and safe money information kit at 866-780SAC. That's 866-780-7233.

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Safe Money Radio! I safe South.

How Much You Need To Retire Now

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The preceding information does not represent tax, legal, or investment advice. Surrender charges apply to base contracts. Optional lifetime income benefit writers are used to calculate lifetime payments only and are not available for cash surrender or in a death benefit unless specified in the annuity contract. Fees may apply. Guarantees are based on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the insurance company. No information presented today should be acted upon without meeting with a qualified and licensed professional. Obviously, by calling us now, you are just taking the first step towards protecting your retirement. It's important that you read all insurance contract disclosures carefully before making a purchase decision. Rates and returns mentioned on this program are subject to change without notice.