Retirement Retirement Planning

Robert Kiyosaki Warns Retirees About Making This Big Mistake With Cash

His debt and inflation math checks out, but his fix may not fit retirees.

By Chris Lewis, CEPF , Edited by Laura Hohenstein

Updated Nov. 12, 2026

Add Us On Google

Robert Kiyosaki, author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad," has spent decades warning that holding cash is a losing bet. In 2026, he sharpened that message on his own X account, posting as the national debt closed in on $40 trillion that "Savers of cash are the BIGGEST LOSERS!!!!"

His suggested fix is to trade dollars for gold, silver, bitcoin, and ethereum. Some of the data behind his warning holds up. However, the suggested fix might be troublesome, especially for retirees who keep cash on hand so they don't have to sell investments at a loss during a downturn. Here's what checks out, what doesn't, and what could be weighed when you're looking to earn interest on your money.

Now Available: The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income

Many successful investors eventually reach the same moment. The saving is done, the portfolio is built, and the question quietly changes from how much can I grow this to how much can I take out? Get that second question wrong and decades of good investing can come apart in a handful of years.

That is exactly what The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income helps answer.¹ <p class="">Investing in securities involves a risk of loss. Past performance is never a guarantee of future returns. Investing in foreign stock markets involves additional risks, such as the risk of currency fluctuations. Guides are provided by Fisher Investments. The publisher may be compensated when readers request a guide.</p> It covers what your retirement could actually cost, which income sources are worth using, and the withdrawal math that decides whether the money lasts. It is free today from Fisher Investments. Read More Here ›

Kiyosaki's warning got louder as the debt neared $40 trillion

His core message says the dollar is losing value, so holding too much of it is a mistake. In an August 2026 post on X, he called savers of cash the biggest losers and pointed to the national debt heading toward $40 trillion. In that post, he also pointed to forecasts from author and investor Jim Rickards of $200 silver and $10,000 gold.

The debt milestone is real. The US debt topped $40 trillion in August 2026, days after that post, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's reading of Treasury data. It has kept climbing. Treasury's own daily statement put total debt outstanding at about $40.25 trillion on Oct. 5, 2026.

Kiyosaki has repeated versions of this warning for years. In 2026, he has paired it with calls to buy gold, silver, bitcoin, and ethereum. News reports of a March 2026 post said he predicted the biggest bubble bust in history and set post-crash targets of $35,000 gold, $200 silver, $750,000 bitcoin, and $95,000 ethereum.

Shopping for cheaper auto insurance? Enter your zip code here to get started.

The dollar really has lost buying power since 2020

Here's where his math has real support. Using the government's Consumer Price Index, a dollar from January 2020 could buy only about 76% as much by September 2026, the most recent month with data. That's a loss of roughly 24% in buying power, even bigger than the 22% figure you often see quoted.

For instance, something that cost $100 in January 2020 costs about $132 now. Cash sitting idle in an account earning next to nothing has quietly lost real value over that stretch.

That's the credible half of the argument. Inflation is real, and it eats away at money that isn't earning a competitive return. Where the case runs into trouble is the next step: what to do about it.

Near-zero savings yields are a real problem

If your savings account pays almost nothing, you are losing ground. The national average savings account paid 0.38% APY in the FDIC's national rate data as of October 2026. The FDIC collects rates from banks each week and publishes a simple average.

Online banks pay far more. A NerdWallet survey of top online savings accounts in June 2026 found yields as high as about 4% APY, roughly 10 times the national average. Rates move, so the current number is worth checking before you open anything.

That gap adds up. On a $20,000 balance, the difference between 0.38% and 4% works out to about $720 in a year, before you even count what inflation takes out of the balance.

This is the legitimate problem buried inside Kiyosaki's warning: too much cash sits in accounts paying almost nothing. But the answer to that is a better-paying account, not giving up on cash.

Released: The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income (Sponsor)

Most people spend their entire working lives focusing on one thing: growing a pile of money. Then they retire and discover the skill they actually need is close to the opposite. Turning that pile into steady income, year after year, through good markets and bad, without ever running out. It may be the least discussed and most consequential transition in personal finance, and plenty of otherwise careful investors walk into it with no real plan.

That is exactly what The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income helps answer.¹ <p class="">Investing in securities involves a risk of loss. Past performance is never a guarantee of future returns. Investing in foreign stock markets involves additional risks, such as the risk of currency fluctuations. Guides are provided by Fisher Investments. The publisher may be compensated when readers request a guide.</p> It is a free guide from Fisher Investments covering what your retirement will really cost, where the cash flow should come from, and how much you can safely withdraw each year. Learn More Here ›

A retiree's cash reserve exists to prevent a forced sale

For retirees, cash isn't dead money. It's protection. A cash reserve pays the bills during a market slump so you don't have to sell stocks or bonds while they're down. Advisors call that danger sequence-of-returns risk, which is just the risk of hitting a bad market in your first years of retirement.

This matters more than it sounds. Selling investments in a downturn locks in the loss. There's less money left to bounce back when markets recover. A cash cushion breaks that cycle by covering near-term spending while the rest of the portfolio rides out the swings.

Many retirees are short on that cushion. In EBRI's 2024 Spending in Retirement Survey, 59% of retirees said they had three months of emergency savings, down from 69% in 2022. In EBRI's 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, fewer than 7 in 10 retirees said they had enough savings to cover an emergency expense, down from 74%.

Research from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found only 58% of older households have enough cash to cover a year of unexpected expenses. Another 16% could cover a year only by pulling from retirement accounts such as a 401(k) or IRA.

Swapping that reserve for gold, silver, bitcoin, or ethereum would undercut its whole purpose. Those assets could swing hard in a short time. A retiree who needs money during a slump in crypto or metals prices could be forced to sell low, which is the exact outcome a cash reserve is meant to prevent.

Kiyosaki's price calls have been big and inconsistent

His own 2026 gold forecasts show why his predictions are hard to act on. Reports of a January 2026 post say he floated $27,000 gold. In March 2026, reports say he set a $35,000 target, to be reached a year after the crash he expects. In May 2026, he pointed to a $100,000 gold call from Jim Rickards.

Those numbers don't line up with each other, and they sit far above where gold has actually traded. They also depend on a crash that he has been predicting, in one form or another, since at least 2022. That reads more like a long-running worldview than a dated forecast you could check.

The fix for idle cash doesn't mean giving up cash

The practical answer to a near-zero yield involves moving idle cash somewhere that pays competitive interest without giving up safety or quick access.

High-yield savings accounts, mostly from online banks, were paying close to 4% APY in mid-2026, against that 0.38% national average. Money market funds and short-term Treasuries are two more options to look at. Treasury bills are backed by the U.S. government and come in short maturities, so the money isn't tied up for long. Bank deposits are insured up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, for each ownership category.

Each of these keeps money liquid and low-risk, unlike gold, silver, bitcoin, or ethereum, while still earning far more than a traditional bank savings account. How much to keep in cash versus investments depends on your own spending needs and timeline, and a financial professional could help you sort that out.

Make Money: 8 things to do if you're barely scraping by financially

Bottom line

Kiyosaki is right that inflation has chipped away at the dollar and that near-zero savings accounts cost savers real money. He's on much shakier ground telling retirees to trade their cash cushion for volatile assets, given how far apart his own price targets are and how long he has been calling for a crash.

For many retirees, the stronger move isn't dropping cash. It's making that cash earn something, through a high-yield savings account, a money market fund, or short-term Treasuries, while keeping the reserve in place for the moment markets turn down.

More from FinanceBuzz: