The Pete the Planner® Show

Traditional retirement advice has encouraged investors to gradually reduce risk as they approach retirement. But with retirements potentially lasting 30 years or longer, inflation threatening purchasing power, and retirees increasingly responsible for generating their own income, is that advice still appropriate?

“We’ll pay for college” is easy to say when your kid is wearing diapers. What happens when they pick a private school, change majors, or need a fifth year? This week, we tackle three listener questions about how much to save, where parents can draw the line, and what to do when a college promise threatens retirement.

A 53-year-old newly divorced man earns $168,000, kept the family home, and believes his best earning years are ahead of him. From the outside, he appears financially secure.

But he has only $315,000 left for retirement, spends more than his monthly paycheck, carries 22% credit-card debt, and depends on an annual bonus that hasn’t arrived yet. His plan is to maintain his lifestyle, keep the oversized house, and catch up later.

Is this merely a four-year financial squeeze—or has a high income disguised a retirement emergency? We examine the difference between earning a lot and needing a lot, whether home equity counts as a retirement plan, and what it would actually take for him to retire at 65.

After 26 years of marriage, a 51-year-old listener is learning how to manage money on her own. She has a solid income, retirement savings, home-equity proceeds, temporary spousal support—and a persistent fear that one wrong decision could ruin everything.

Millennials are expected to inherit approximately $46 trillion over the next 25 years, making them the largest beneficiaries of the so-called Great Wealth Transfer. But that enormous number hides an uncomfortable reality: much of the money belongs to a very small number of families, many inheritances won’t arrive until recipients are nearing retirement, and millions of millennials will receive little or nothing. Pete explains where the trillions are actually going, why inheritance may widen America’s economic divide and how families should plan for money that may—or may not—eventually arrive.

We’ve all heard “it takes a village," but what if you have to pay for yours? From house cleaners and lawn care to childcare and grocery delivery, outsourcing can give us back time and capacity. But when is it a smart financial choice, and when is “buying back your time” just a fancy way to justify lifestyle creep? We’re talking about what your time is actually worth, what’s worth outsourcing, and when convenience deserves a place in your budget.

What if you lived just a few hundred miles north—but the rules of your financial life were completely different? This week, we cross the border to examine the surprising realities of personal finance in Canada. From mortgages that regularly reset and government-funded healthcare to tax-free investment accounts Americans might envy, college savings incentives, retirement benefits, housing costs, and household debt, we compare how Canadians build financial lives versus Americans. Which country makes personal finance easier—and what could each side learn from the other?

Personal finance advice has a bad habit of sounding pass/fail.

Save 15% for retirement. Have six months of expenses in cash. Put 20% down on a house. Never carry a credit-card balance. Have a will.

That advice isn't wrong. In fact, most of it is excellent. The problem is what happens when the "right" answer feels so far away that people do nothing at all.

This week, we're not lowering the standards. We're building staircases to them.

For some of the biggest financial decisions in your life, we'll identify the best thing to do—and then figure out the next best thing to do when the ideal isn't realistic yet.

The S&P 500 has become the default investment for millions of Americans, but what exactly are you buying when you buy “the market”? We break down how the index actually works, why a handful of enormous companies increasingly determine its performance, how the S&P 500 has transformed over the decades, and whether owning 500 companies really makes you as diversified as you think.

Some financial decisions feel productive without actually making much of a difference. We obsess over coffee, credit scores, investment returns, subscriptions, and finding the perfect savings account while much bigger financial levers go untouched.

This week, we identify the financial distractions that steal our attention from the decisions that actually determine our trajectory. Because being busy with your money isn't the same as making progress.

A financial priority changes the outcome. A financial distraction merely feels like progress.