Real Personal Finance

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Your financial plan might be able to hit a specific retirement number, but can it handle two completely different timelines? In this episode, Scott and Nick explore a nuanced situation facing many couples: what happens wh...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  There’s a specific kind of excitement that takes over the markets when a company promises to change the world. It starts with an article shared between colleagues, moves to a text message to your financial advisor, and en...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  A layoff often feels like a sudden explosion, leaving a wake of disorientation and immediate worry about how to sustain your household. While the initial shock can feel paralyzing, the path to regaining control starts by...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Most people nearing retirement have heard of the famous "4% rule," but few actually understand how to apply it to a shifting financial landscape. It’s easy to look at a static portfolio balance and assume you&ap...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Most tech and biotech executives we know have too much of their net worth in one stock. They know they should do something about it, but they usually end up just closing the tab on their stock comp page. In this episode,...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  There's a tab a lot of tech professionals have open right now. It's from Fidelity or E-Trade, it shows how much company stock they're sitting on, and most of them close it without doing a thing. Because the...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Your plan might be able to handle market volatility, but it might not handle your income disappearing. In this episode, Scott breaks down the uncomfortable blind spot facing many high earners—what happens if your paycheck...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  You did everything right. You maxed your 401(k) for decades, watched the balance grow, and felt good about where you were headed. Then someone showed you a tax projection for retirement and it was a lot bigger than you ex...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Most people don’t actually want retirement, but they do want relief. Relief from the schedule. Relief from the pressure. Relief from feeling like they can’t step off the treadmill. But what if the question isn’t “When can...

There’s a common belief people have about money: you build it, you protect it, and whatever’s left gets passed on at the end. But what if the timing matters more than the total? As lifespans stretch into the 90s and portfolios grow beyond what many families will realistically spend, the question starts to change. Would a gift mean more when your kids are buying their first home, raising young chil...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Deferred compensation tends to enter the picture when work is going well and income has outgrown the basics. Cash flow feels stable, taxes start to sting, and suddenly there’s a new option on the table that promises flexi...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Taxes tend to fade into the background until something feels off, like a larger bill than expected, a penalty you didn’t see coming or a moment where you wonder whether you handled the year correctly or just got lucky. In...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  There’s a moment many people reach at the start of a new year where the question shifts. It’s no longer just about saving more, earning more, or optimizing the plan, but it becomes something deeper. Is the life you’re bui...

Curious about your retirement savings? Our How Much Do I Need To Retire? quiz gives you an idea of where you stand and a starting point to think about your long-term planning. —  Retiring early sounds simple when you only look at the balance sheet… until it doesn’t. In this episode of Real Personal Finance, Scott and Nick walk through why the real question isn’t “Is two million enough?” but “What...

It’s wild how fast a year goes by, and when you finally look back, the gap between what you meant to do and what actually happened is bigger than anticipated. The trick is that most financial progress relies less on skill and more on removing willpower from the equation. In this episode of Real Personal Finance, Scott and Nick sit down to talk through the small systems that can move your money in...

The holidays have a way of bringing money and meaning into the same conversation. In this episode of Real Personal Finance, Scott and Nick lean right into that. Between family gifting, charitable giving, donor-advised funds, and changes to deduction rules, this episode walks you through the most practical ways to support the people and causes you care about. It’s a great moment to pause, think abo...

Most people wait until tax season to think about taxes, but by then, the window’s closed. Scott and Nick talk about how the best planning happens now, when there’s still time to adjust what’s already in motion. They get into some of the details that help shape your future: RMD timing, Roth conversions in the “golden window,” how bunching charitable gifts really works, and what happens when you acc...

A lot of people are under-utilizing their corporate benefits, unintentionally leaving money on the table. Open enrollment is a great opportunity to review your company’s benefits plan to ensure that you’re taking full advantage of everything they offer.  In this episode, we walk through some of the most common areas you can optimize your benefits, such as HSAs, FSAs, life insurance, disability, ES...

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has some pretty great enhancements for business owners, but you have to know what you’re looking for in order to get them. Whether it’s the extension of Qualified Business Income, the 100% Bonus Depreciation, or Enhanced Qualified Small Business Stock, the bill has something for businesses of any size. In this episode, we walk you through six key provisions of the OB...

“How much money do I need to save in order to retire – what’s my number?” It’s one of the most common questions financial advisors get, and we understand why. People want a goal, something they can work toward to help them feel more at peace about how they’re saving. As is often the case in financial planning, when people ask for their number, the answer goes deeper than dollars and cents. It’s no...

People often think of their 401(k) as the set-it-and-forget-it retirement account. You set your contribution amount, get your employer match, and leave it alone. But what if your company gives you pre-tax, after-tax, and Roth IRA options? It’s a nice problem to have, but things can get complicated pretty quickly. In this episode, we’re answering a listener question from someone in just such a pred...

Whether you know him as “The Sketch Guy” from his decade-long run as a NY Times columnist or you’ve heard him on a podcast, if you’re interested in the world of finance, you probably know who Carl Richards is. He has also written multiple books, including The Behavior Gap , The One-page Financial Plan , and his forthcoming book of sketches, titled simply Your Money .  In this episode, we sit down...

Disclaimer: At approximately 12:09 in this episode, the income thresholds were misstated. The correct information is that the phase-out applies to incomes above $500,000 for single and married filing jointly, and $250,000 for married filing separately. With the OBBBA now signed into law, we’re sitting down to walk through the good, the bad, and the ugly. The biggest takeaway is that the new bill h...

Do you ever feel like you're behind on retirement? A 41-year-old listener with over $230,000 saved and a 50%+ savings rate, certainly did. In this episode, we explain why starting late doesn't mean finishing last, especially when you're making such incredible strides! We dive into the numbers, the idea of being "behind" and the importance of the right mindset during this p...

We all know we should probably save some more, but when we pass the piggy bank phase and have larger amounts of money, things get a little more complicated than just dropping some coins every once in a while. In this episode of Real Personal Finance, Scott and Nick get into a little detail that most people skip: “where” and “how” matter as much as “how much” when it comes to saving. Key takeaways:...