Saving With Steve with Steve Sexton

About Saving With Steve with Steve Sexton

The Save With Steve Show, hosted by Steve Sexton will help you with ins and outs of money. We talk about financial issues that that could be costing you thousands of dollars and keeping you up at night. We talk about “money”… tax reduction, saving more, how to spending less and get more, 401k’s, risk management, retirement, and everything under the sun that relates to you having a healthier happier relationship with money.

Publisher

Steven M. Sexton

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Nov 2023

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 122 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   Saving with Steve, October 6, 2026

   Saving With Steve with Steve Sexton Year-End Money Moves, Savings Benchmarks and Life Insurance Basics with Peter Colis Steve Sexton talks with Peter Colis, CEO and co-founder of Ethos, about year-end holiday spending, savings benchmarks and how term and permanent life insurance differ, before closing with a solo segment on Social Security timing and bond risk for retirees. Welcoming Peter Colis For Year-End Planning Steve Sexton opens the episode by thanking his listeners and turning to the year-end planning season, which he says arrives quickly. He asks what families should be doing before the holidays to protect one another, and introduces his guest, Peter Colis, CEO and co-founder of Ethos, a life insurance technology company. Sexton describes Ethos as replacing the traditional week-long, medical-heavy application process with a faster online one, and notes that Colis is also a member of the Forbes Financial Council. Colis explains that his interest comes from a belief that family financial security depends on life insurance, which he calls a cornerstone of a family's plan. He says his team saw a chance to make buying coverage simpler and more approachable. Sexton recalls his own experience of a medical exam at his home, with blood work and a long list of questions, and says a simpler process would be welcome. Colis replies that the company has spent about ten years automating the process and says it has protected more than 800,000 families so far. Silent Costs Behind the Holiday Budget Colis tells Sexton that the holiday season tends to expose spending that people never planned for, and he urges listeners to set a strict total limit before the promotions begin. Spending often creeps up in December even when budgets were careful through October, so anchoring to a number early matters. He lists the silent costs that catch families off guard: hosting, peak-season flights, gas for road trips, airport parking, groceries for big dinners, party outfits, wrapping paper, greeting cards and postage, and year-end tipping for the people who help run daily life. Sexton adds that a holiday meal for ten or twelve people can reach several hundred dollars, and that hotels become necessary when relatives' homes are full. He recalls a viewer named Veronica in Texas, who said she never realized how much she spent. Colis also points to timing, noting that shopping now clusters in October and November around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and that waiting too long can mean missing inventory. Q4 Savings Checks and Debt Payoff Targets Colis suggests treating the fourth quarter as a checkpoint, a time to ask whether the family is saving according to its plan and whether expenses fit that plan, especially before New Year's resolutions take shape. He advises reviewing what a financial advisor recommended during the year and checking the hidden fees inside investments, such as high-fee, loaded mutual funds. On debt, he recommends listing every balance with its interest rate, considering a lower-cost promotional card or refinancing, and setting a fourth-quarter payoff target for the most expensive balances. He shares savings benchmarks he attributes to published Fidelity guidelines based on gross salary: one times by age 30 to 35, two times by 35 to 40, three times by 40, six times by 50, eight times by 60 and ten times by 67. He describes the order of priorities as an emergency fund of three to six months of spending in a liquid account, capturing the full employer 401(k) match, and then paying down debt with rates above about 7 percent before expanding discretionary savings. Employer Coverage and Choosing Term Life Open enrollment, Colis says, is a good moment to review whether the family's health plan still fits, including changes such as a new child or a new health need, and to look at dental and vision coverage. He turns to employer-provided life insurance, which he says typically covers less than one times salary, commonly

2. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Saving with Steve, September 29, 2026

   Saving With Steve with Steve Sexton Holiday Budgets, Debt Consolidation, and Bankruptcy Basics with Ashley Morgan Steve Sexton talks with bankruptcy and tax-resolution attorney Ashley Morgan about building a realistic holiday budget, avoiding debt-consolidation and settlement traps, and knowing when Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy makes sense, before closing solo with a warning about rising global bond yields and inflation. Welcoming Ashley Morgan For Year-End Planning Steve Sexton opens the show by thanking his growing audience, noting the program now reaches well over a million listeners in the United States and more than 300,000 overseas, before turning to the topic of year-end planning ahead of the holidays. He introduces Ashley Morgan, founder of Ashley Morgan Law, a consumer bankruptcy and tax resolution firm serving the Washington, D.C. metro area, whose commentary on consumer debt has appeared in Fortune, Newsweek and MarketWatch. Morgan explains that she fell into bankruptcy work almost by accident, taking a job with a boss who ran a consumer bankruptcy and federal criminal defense practice fresh out of law school. She loved the work enough to keep doing it after he became a judge, building her own practice over nearly eight years. She tells Sexton the field rewards her because, unlike drafting a will, she gets to watch clients actually experience relief from crushing debt through payment plans or settlements. Building A Realistic Holiday Budget Sexton asks Morgan how listeners should build a holiday budget as September gives way to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Morgan tells him budgeting scares people because they assume it means restriction, but the real goal is intention: deciding what matters, such as flying home to family, and working backward to find the money, whether by cutting other expenses or picking up extra work. She stresses that most people underestimate their own everyday spending on rent, food and utilities, so building a holiday budget requires first knowing the baseline. Sexton shares a listener's story about discovering a daily six-dollar Coffee Bean habit, taken twice a day, added up to 320 dollars a month, more than her car payment. Morgan says there is nothing wrong with prioritizing coffee, so long as the spender is intentional and adjusts elsewhere, whether by cooking at home, carpooling to save on gas, or reviewing recurring subscriptions and insurance policies that quietly drain money every month. Sinking Funds And The Year-End Financial Checkup Morgan urges listeners to start budgeting for holiday spending as early as January, setting aside roughly 160 dollars a month toward a 2,000 dollar Christmas fund rather than relying on credit cards, and to buy gifts early while watching for sales and coupon codes instead of waiting for inflated December discounts. She recommends sinking funds for periodic expenses and suggests people paid biweekly bank an extra paycheck during the two months a year that produce three paychecks. Sexton recalls Jenny from Ohio, whose family saved 350 dollars a month simply by swapping which spouse drove the gas-guzzling truck. Turning to the broader year-end checkup, Morgan tells listeners now is the time to maximize 401k and IRA contributions, use remaining health savings account funds, and catch up on estimated tax payments before April. On debt payoff, she describes an internal six-month rule: if balances have not moved after six months of the snowball or avalanche method, the plan needs rethinking. Debt Consolidation, HELOCs And Settlement Risk Sexton asks Morgan to explain debt consolidation heading into the new year's debt hangover. Morgan distinguishes true consolidation, where credit card balances are rolled into one loan such as a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, from debt settlement programs, where a company collects payments into an escrow-like reserve and later negotiates with creditors. She warns that consolidation o

3. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Saving with Steve, September 22, 2026

   Saving With Steve with Steve Sexton Year-End Money Checkups, Holiday Spending Plans, and Guilt-Free Boundaries with Chevonne Roman Steve Sexton talks with money wellness expert Chevonne Roman of Heal Plan Invest about conducting an emotional year-end money checkup, building a realistic holiday spending plan, and avoiding common money traps, before closing with his own warning about long-term bond risk as US debt nears $40 trillion. Welcoming Chevonne Roman For Year-End Planning Steve Sexton opens the show by thanking listeners for helping the program pass a million audience members in the United States and nearly 300,000 overseas, then turns to the topic of year-end financial planning before the holidays arrive. He introduces Chevonne Roman, money wellness expert and founder and chief money strategist of Heal Plan Invest, whose work has been featured by Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq, CNN, CBS, Fox, Essence and Black Enterprise. Roman explains that after a decade as a financial advisor with a Fortune 100 investment firm, where her job was to make already wealthy families richer, she felt an unshakable pull to leave despite friends telling her she was insane to abandon a stable income. She recalls evenings and weekends spent quietly applying the same planning framework to families who were not wealthy, and describes sitting in advisory meetings where every question was directed at the husband, which convinced her to build a firm centered on women, hearts and money together. Conducting An Emotional Year-End Money Checkup Sexton asks Roman to unpack the year-end money checkup she recommends every listener start immediately. She tells him to begin without judgment, reflecting on what happened financially over the past year: which decisions felt strong, which created anxiety, and how the household responded when the refrigerator broke, the dishwasher failed, or a child left for college. Only after that emotional inventory, she says, should anyone move to the numbers, reviewing the budget, net worth and retirement accounts. Roman pushes Sexton to widen the lens beyond money entirely, asking whether every member of the family felt safe and experienced more joy than sadness over the year. She frames the checkup as a reflection of the whole family's life, with money representing just one piece, and insists that starting with feelings rather than spreadsheets is what makes the rest of the planning process actually stick going into the holidays. Building A Realistic Holiday Spending Plan After the break, Roman lays out how to build a realistic holiday spending plan that covers meals, travel and gift buying rather than gifts alone, insisting the plan be written down rather than kept in someone's head. She urges listeners to type their situation into ChatGPT or Claude for tailored ideas, and Sexton shares that he asked an AI for gift ideas with a fifty-dollar budget for a forty-two-year-old and got eight strong suggestions, one of which the recipient later called the best gift he had ever received. Roman insists the spending plan include the giver too, whether that means a year-end massage or a staycation. She then turns to the emotional weight of the season, telling Sexton that anyone anticipating difficult family dynamics should consider booking a therapist before the holidays begin. Sexton recalls a friend who scheduled a November therapy session specifically to prepare for a strained in-law relationship and came away far better equipped to handle it. Avoiding Holiday Money Traps And Setting Boundaries Roman's next tip is to fund the holidays ahead of time rather than swiping cards impulsively, suggesting a prepaid or secured card, dedicated gift cards, or a single savings account fed by a monthly transfer earmarked for holiday spending. Sexton adds that friends who keep a standing Christmas checking account, contributing roughly ten to twenty percent more each year than the last, arrive at November already funded a

Inside a recent episode

Saving with Steve, November 28, 2023

Published 29 Nov 2023 · Transcript excerpt

[…] TIPS are government bonds, things of that nature. They are based off the inflation. And basically what's happening here is when inflation goes up, so does the interest rate. When the inflation goes down, so does the interest rate. TIPS can help balance out your fixed income or bond portfolio since they're indexed to inflation. TIPS are backed by the US federal government. They're one of the safest investments for your money and an effective way to diversify your investments while also supplementing your future retirement income. Because the price for TIPS go up and down with the consumer price index. […]

Who has been a guest on Saving With Steve with Steve Sexton

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Melissa Murphy
• Renee Bauer
• Joseph Lombardi

Podcast Authority Score: 45 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

78

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

27

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