Episodes

Meet Jeff. Jeff’s main concerns, in his own words: I’m 34, married with a 1-year old, based in Los Angeles (pretty high cost of living), and work for a tech startup. My wife works in law enforcement, but we have different... Read More

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Some might say, a bit of a “potpourri” episode, if you will. There are a couple different things I want to cover,... Read More

Meet Katie. Katie’s main concerns, in her own words: I’m graduating from college in May 2017 and have a job making 72,000 as an engineer. I have no debt, no car payment, and a small amount in an IRA, so... Read More

In this episode, we’re talking about: Family & Money. Now as a husband, father, son, and friend–while I’m no relationship expert, I do have experience in a handful of different ones. Today I’m going to cover the good, the bad,... Read More

Meet Lynette. Lynette’s main concerns, in her own words: My husband (38) and I (34) paid off all our debt, except our mortgage. We have a toddler, and a dog. We’re about to move to another state and will be... Read More

On this episode of the Million Dollar Plan, I answer your questions. Once a month, or every four weeks or so, I like to dive into my mailbox and revisit some of your emails. They intrigue me–I never know what I’m... Read More

Meet Jordan. Jordan’s main concerns, in his own words: I am a school teacher with two children under 4 and a third on the way. I have a net worth of $110,000 but only an income of $50,000 because my... Read More

This week, I’m talking about rules. You need rules to live by. For each component of your life you need to set some personal rules, or standards if you will, that apply to you and your everyday obligations. If you don’t–you are going to struggle through each part of you life. And that..sounds..miserable. Anyways, when I say you need rules, these rules do not have to be you declaring complex, multi-part thesis statements in order for you to gain credit. No. These rules just need to be personal st...

In October of 2016, I talked with Omar about a daunting feat: to retire by 40. When we first talked to him, here were his main concerns in his own words: I think my wife and I could make for an interesting case study. We’re both 30 with aspirations of achieving very early financial independence/retirement by 40. Neither one of us are doctors/lawyers/engineers (I feel like all the high-earners typically are), and started at 22 out of college with a combined income of $47,000 per year (living righ...

This week, we’re talking about The Four Stages of Your Financial Life. In your financial life there are 15, yes count’em, 15 things that you need to do. 15 sounds daunting, doesn’t it? If you write them all down that’s not a quick post-it note, it is a full blown and hardy list. That’s why I’ve broken up your financial life into four stages for you to accomplish those 15 things in. Because how much nicer of a number does four sound than 15. Your financial life starts between the age of 18 to 22 ...

Meet Melissa. Melissa’s main concerns, in her own words: My base pay is $74,800 plus overtime on top of that. I have been saving for a house aggressively since January 2015 at about $700 a paycheck (last month I scaled that down to $500) plus any extra money I made from switching to work the night shift as well as tax refunds. I now have $58,000 saved. $50,000 will be for the down payment and the rest is a catch-all for vacations, car repair, and immediate house expenses when I find one. I am lo...

*important editor’s note: in light of recent listeners’ feedback, it has been brought to my attention last week’s show had too many jokes, too many personal stories, and not enough information. This week, I switched it up a little bit. All information, no jokes. If a joke just happens to slip, at least I can say I tried* I’ve been getting a lot of questions on the blog and during my podcast lately about life insurance. And honestly–not nearly enough of you have the amount of coverage you and you...

Meet Brian. Brian’s main concerns, in his own words: My wife and I are in our early 30’s. We have been on the wrong track financially for years. We got ourselves into some serious financial trouble early on in our marriage. Since then we have made a serious turn around. We have paid off somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-80K in debt in the last 2 years. We are starting to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have paid off her student loans, our car, and all credit cards. We feel l...

This week on the Pete the Planner® Show, I’m going to be talking about: The Reality Gap. Ah, the reality gap–so, this is what I’m really into right now and I’m going to explain and walk you through this concept. But first I want to talk about that there are actually a lot of applications to this, however for the time being, what I want you to focus on is your financial health reality gap. So, if you will, think about your financial life and how you think you’re doing in two different ways: how y...

Meet John. John’s main concerns, in his own words: My wife and I just welcomed our second (and last!) child. We have a comfortable lifestyle – both have stable jobs, we purchased a new home back in 2015, and save a respectable amount each month. However, the ‘unknown’ for us is if we are saving enough for our own future and our children’s. We have just under $18K in savings across our combines savings accounts, which we contribute a little of $1K to each month. $11K of that is an untouched Emerg...

Meet Serena. Serena’s main concerns, in her own words: I’m starting a new job, so I feel like I’ll finally be earning enough to open an individual retirement account (in addition to my employer’s pension plan); however; I still have a lot of student loan debt. With these competing priorities, I’m worried about how my husband and I are going to save enough money to buy a house in a few years.

Meet Dylan. Dylan’s main concerns, in his own words: We are both in law enforcement and live together with two children under three years of age. She was out of work for a year and a half with child care and we have 26K in credit card debt and a 178K mortgage and about 15K in medical bills. My power percentage is 32. We have almost identical incomes at 71K each and she puts in 15% (75k current total) and I put in 12% (200k current total) into separate 457b (Deferred Compensation). We have pensio...

This week, I cover the top three signs of financial stability. Over the course of my career, I’ve seen thousands of different financial situations—good and bad. These three signs have consistently been apparent in the good ones. * At least three months’ of expenses saved. An emergency fund. Seems simple enough right? From my experience, it can sometimes take people years to keep that amount in a savings account. You really need to go out of your way to make sure this is a lump sum completely sep...

M$D: Done. Meet Aurora. Aurora’s main concerns, in her own words: We are a dual income, one child family, who already has a million dollars saved for retirement. Our emergency fund is only at $26K and we don’t really budget our income (almost $250K). Should we reduce down our future savings to boost our lifestyle now or work to really budget our money better?? In fairness, we take two nice vacations each year but still feel strapped for cash monthly. Our power percentage is 34% but we’d like to ...

If you’re like most people, you haven’t been able to avoid all the discussion surrounding healthcare in the past few weeks and months. To cut through all the static, I brought on Paul Ashley from First Person Benefit Advisors onto my show to ask the most pressing questions. Since the Affordable Healthcare Act was passed in 2010, Republicans have wanted to repeal and replace it. But what does that mean? What does it look like in our every day life? We talk about the real differences between Obama...

I’m dedicating this entire episode to Barb! Barb, a wonderful audience member from a speech I gave last week in Michigan, asked the best question I’ve heard in years. What do you do when, 10 to 15 years from retiring, you realize your Power Percentage isn’t where it should be and you aren’t sure if you can turn the ship around? Whoa. Am I excited to tackle this one. This episode is the turn around episode and we take on more Power Percentage challenges. To answer Barb’s question, I start with di...

M$D: April 29, 2047 Meet Kendall. Kendall’s main concerns, in her words: We have a daughter with autism that we’re anticipating needing to care for the rest of our lives. Waiting for the state to set up ABLE account for her. Want to make sure we’re doing everything else right. I stopped working because of all the therapies. Contemplating going back to work part time in a lower paying field with flexibility but in the back of my mind thinking I may need to homeschool as she gets older. But, not w...

This week, I dig into more of your questions. These are the ones I tackle: “Hello Pete, I’m a 23-year-old and I work as a chemist making $50,000 a year. I’m currently contributing 6% to my employer-sponsored Roth 401(k) and maxing out my Roth IRA. I also recently started investing in a taxable account with my tax return and end-of-the-year bonus money. I have $26,000 in student loan debt and $10,000 in a car loan. The interest rates are 5.2% and 2.45% respectively. I currently make the minimum p...

M$D: January 22, 2039 Meet Renee. Renee’s main concerns, in her words: I feel like we have all of the pieces but I’m not sure how to prioritize. My husband and I will probably gross around $85-$89k this year (ballparking numbers for his travel stipend, overtime, and minus some unpaid maternity leave for me). I make 31k and his base pay is $49k. We owe $5k on a car that we’re aggressively paying down and owe $70k on our home in a 15-year mortgage. We have no other debt. We have 3 months of expens...