Waldron Career Conversation with Peter Waitzman '99 & Preena Shroff '26

In this episode of the Weinberg in the World Podcast, host Preena Shroff, a third-year student at Northwestern University, interviews Peter Waitzman, the CEO of Expedition Money and a 1999 graduate of Weinberg College with a degree in Economics.

 

Transcript:

Preena: Welcome to Weinberg in the World Podcast, where we bring stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. My name is Preena Shroff and I'm your student host of this special Weinberg in the World episode.
I'm a third-year student majoring in neuroscience and global health with a minor in data science, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Peter Waitzman, who graduated from Weinberg College in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts and Economics. Peter is now the CEO of Expedition Money, a financial wellness program aiming to provide educational content and coaching to help individuals and families achieve financial independence.
Peter, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Peter:
Well, thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here.

Preena:
Yeah. We are so excited to learn about your work in finance, but would love to start out with maybe how your career path was shaped by your time at Northwestern. So if you can tell us more about your undergraduate experience, what were some impactful classes, extracurriculars or mentorship experiences that you had which impacted your postgraduate career?

Peter:
Yeah. So as you mentioned, I came to Northwestern for economics and got immersed in that student body. So a lot of my friends were economics majors. And something similar that you and I share is that I lived in Ayers CCI at the time, which also had a lot of economics people, especially with its commerce theme.
So from classwork to just the living experience on campus and even my social life were really surrounding me with people that were like-minded. And economics encompasses a lot of different things, but one of the things that I really liked that is a little bit outside the coursework right now is that it connected me with some of my really good friends who are really good friends today, but we were able to do stuff together, whether it was in classes or starting businesses on campus or doing projects together or researching or just sitting around in the lobby and kicking around ideas or reading the Harvard Business Review or whatever, just having people that share some of the same ideas. And a lot of that was some entrepreneurship. I think it was a little too early to think about that at the time. We didn't really think about starting businesses kind of that freshman, sophomore year, but it was just nice to be in that culture.
And then when I started taking classes, people would turn you on to certain things. So one of the classes that I surprisingly liked, it wasn't necessarily in economics, but was the public speaking class. And I remember one of the exercises there was to take a controversial topic and take one side of it and defend it. And I really liked that because what it made you realize is that not everything is going to be a win-win-win situation for everyone. So sometimes you're going to have to take something and you're going to have to do some convincing with it. And it really impressed upon me that you're going to have to be, one, a good communicator when you get out into the real world, make the case for what you're doing, be succinct, get your point across, those types of things, and that's going to be really helpful.
And then all of the economics classes that came on top of that, just to help you understand how the world works and incentives and the market dynamics and all of those types of things really was a nice way to put that puzzle together so that when you came out of school, you had a good perspective, a good base for developing what you wanted to work on or go into your career. And obviously, ultimately, I went that entrepreneurial route.

Preena:
Absolutely. Yeah. It's pretty cool that the residential college system was where you found a lot of those connections right off the bat starting in college. So go Ayers. My unbiased opinion is Ayers is the best residential college.

Peter:
One thing, it's funny you call it Ayers, because Ayers wasn't added on until I was there. So at that time, Mr. Ayers was getting involved and so we put the name on there. So to me, and for people of my vintage, it's still CCI, but I like how some people now know it as Ayers, so very cool.

Preena:
Yeah. So let's talk more about beyond Northwestern and what led you on the career path. So I know you talked about different econ classes that kind shaped your experience. What skills were you able to build upon that have been critical in your field today?

Peter:
Yeah. So one of the things that Northwestern directly led to was going in the economics world, a lot of people come out of college and go into consulting and it can kind of be a natural transition into the real world for people. And I did that for a couple years. So I did two years in consulting before I went into banking and then investment management, and then financial planning. And so the dots, the path there is actually not super uncommon. I don't know that it's a super common path, but it makes a lot of sense, I think, being naturally born out of the economics seed from Northwestern, and a lot of people who go into consulting maybe kind of branch off into different things. But I kind of still follow that financial path. And what that did for me at the time was just give me a lot of exposure to how things work.
So one of the things that I realized from economics is that you get a lot of macro picture, kind of big picture, even if you're doing microeconomics, it's kind of very generalized. But when you get out into the workforce and you start working as a consultant, you kind of understand how business works and the business requirements and those things that go into big projects. But then when I went to the bank as an analyst, you really start seeing real-world stuff. You're looking at data that is moving the needle on the products or services that you provide. And then when I went into financial planning and investment management, you're starting to paint that side of the picture as well. How does this impact individuals and what are the motivations there and the incentives and what are people using, and how does the top level of banking and financial services providers fit into what the consumer needs on the front lines?
And so having that broader picture really helped me then continue to move forward, and that's when I started moving away from the products and services side of things into what is generally more financial wellness. So how do we make people healthier, happier, more fulfilled, maybe chase retirement early, balance life and work better, raise a family, kind of have your cake and eat it too. Just generally be able to live and exist in life, which is very difficult.
I've even said the game is kind of rigged these days. It's really hard to make the amount of money, and you may not feel it now, but we kind of live in a high inflation environment, and there's so many challenges for people. It's either earning enough money or finding a place that's cheap enough to live or having a job that's secure. The myriad of things that really plague people and things that people struggle with.
And so that's why then I started to step back and actually worked... I was working for a large financial services company at the time and they wanted to launch a financial wellness project, something a little bit more encompassing, a little more general. And so I went into the home office and then we started building that and I spent a few years doing that. And then I continued the path of financial wellness and building financial wellness programs for a couple other companies after that. So ended up helping develop financial wellness companies or financial wellness programs for three companies following that, and then went off on my own and built the financial wellness program that I really wanted to build. So that's how I ended up getting there.
So kind of a lot of different steps. It's not necessarily A, B, C, D, but it didn't really deviate as far away as I think a lot of career paths can or they can really pivot. And I certainly embrace that too. And for the people that kind of want to go off and do something that's very different from what they got trained in, there's never maybe the perfect opportunity to do that, so you just want to do it.

Preena:
Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense that you said you had a couple different jobs working in the industry before building upon your own program. So I guess I kind of wanted to ask, maybe the mentorship aspect of that, do you know if there's anyone who specifically provided a particular mentorship experience for you? Or what advice do you have for students who are looking for support along their career paths?

Peter:
Yeah. Mentorship has been one of those things that I think has really evolved over the last couple of years. Not even the last couple of years, but over the last couple of decades. And so when I was a student and then even when I went and left school and actually participated in the mentorship program to Northwestern students at the time, so at that time I was meeting a couple students, and this was fairly early on in my career, there's a lot of value to that.
I feel a little bit like mentorship has changed in a way that on one hand, people who can be and should be mentors and have that life experience and maybe are an expert in their industry or subject matter experts are almost gun-shy about becoming mentors because they're worried about the time commitment, they're worried about, hey, the imposter syndrome of it, even though maybe they shouldn't be. And so it's harder these days I think to have formal mentorship relationships than it ever has been in the past, especially when there isn't structure. It's not part of a company, and sometimes in a company they'll have a mentorship program and they will take this person and pair them up with this person.
And so one of the things that I've talked about is not necessarily putting that pressure on you, because the benefit of having a mentor is awesome, or the benefit of even just having the opportunity to do a Q&A or to pick the brain of someone who maybe has gone the path that you want to go is super valuable. In just a short conversation, you might get some insights of, "Hey, this works, this doesn't," or, "Based on your personality, I think you should try this," or, "Here's a person I want you to meet." And they can be so valuable, so important. Just that short amount of time can save you so much trial and error or so many headaches on your own.
And so without putting that pressure on people, what I say is that you should just feel free to reach out. I know that we have some directories of Northwestern alumni or people that you just meet on LinkedIn or maybe even a connection somewhere else, but, hey, can you make this introduction? Can you sit down with me for 30 minutes? Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Can I just have a Zoom meeting? Can we just talk about some things because I have some questions? And even if you don't establish a formal mentorship relationship, I think just having that connection is really valuable and it opens the door later to having another one. And you actually might have a formal-like mentor relationship that doesn't fall under the category or get the label.
And, actually, to be honest, even now, it's easier than ever, I think, because let's say there is someone in your industry that you want to talk to, you slide into their DMs or send them a message, or social media can make some of these connections sometimes. So just being able to pick their brain, like I said, is really valuable. And if you can have a formal mentor, someone who will stick with you over longer periods of time, awesome too. Awesome too. But sometimes it just helps to take away that pressure of that commitment over a long period of time and just start with that conversation and then see where it goes. Because honestly, sometimes you might move away from that industry or that path or whatever it might be, and there's someone else is going to help you, and not having that formal relationship allows you to feel less commitment to try to just hold onto a relationship and not go somewhere else that might get you some better information too, so kind of my thoughts.

Preena:
Absolutely.

Peter:
And just likewise, people had questions for me. I'm always happy to respond to emails or to set up a meeting or grab a cup of coffee or whatever it might be, because I really want people to get the right information. I want to be an open book. I want people to not make the same mistakes I did and have better efficiency and more fulfillment and all these other things. And obviously that's why I put together my program. But trying to get people to short circuit that, find that wormhole to their delta quadrant as fast as possible, I think that's really meaningful to people when life can be so chaotic anyway.

Preena:
Yeah, I think what I'm gathering from what you're saying is communication is really important, and just getting better, getting practice, talking with people, getting to know the background of other people and take from that what advice they can provide for you.

Peter:
And you never know what short conversation... I totally agree with you because even for you and me, we just had a short in the line conversation once, and you never know where those relationships are going to go and those connections and the conversation that you have that you might find you have a similar thread in life or whatever that might be, sometimes those things can be really meaningful and last a lifetime. So for sure. Yeah. Don't underestimate any moment.

Preena:
Yeah. So speaking of communication route, I know you started out as a content creator. How would you say your experiences as in the content creator back when you were starting off your career, how can that be applied to students navigating social media today? And then what challenges might you anticipate if you had started your career, for example, next year?

Peter:
Yeah. Man, this could be a huge all encompassing conversation. I think what I want to boil it down to today is the common denominator of the value of attention, the value of having a platform and the value of having visibility. Because it's not just about, say, marketing a product. Honestly, when a business is trying to use social media, they're usually trying to get their products and services out there, build their reputation, expand their brand, all these other things. But I think one of the things that we undervalue as an individual, and we talked a little bit about communication, that social media can be such a powerful way to expand the reach of our communication. So if we have that communication.
And whether it's finding a job or raising your visibility in the industry, or making a connection for other people, or trying to make an impact on your community or your movement or whatever it is, you can have a great message, great skills, but if no one's there to hear you, it's like, does a tree make a sound if it falls in the forest? But if you can figure out how to leverage social media to expand your reach, that can be so powerful.
I'll tell you what. Right now, economy's a little slow, people are trying to find jobs. A few years ago there were graduates, wonderful, talented students looking for jobs, and an advantage was to have some of your content already out there, some of the things that you wrote about, opinion pieces, papers that you wrote for school, whatever it might be, just things you were passionate about. Even if it wasn't expansive and Mr. Beast level of type of content, just having some of that could be a differentiator when you're out looking for a job or reaching out to someone to be a mentor or to get a volunteer position.
And it doesn't have to just be social media. It can be a book. I've written some books in the past. Those have helped get my message out. It can be doing workshops or presentations or online webinars or whatever you want to do, but don't underestimate the power of the technology and especially these free platforms where I think because they're free, a lot of people are already using them, we say, "Hey, I want to be known for what I do," but sometimes you have to be your best advocate. You're the person advocating for yourself and putting that out there and leveraging the platform.
So when I think about content creating, it's not just about trying to get attention for no reason, but what's the purpose? And then for a lot of people, I think that can be your own satisfaction. So like a charity or a cause you're committed to, but it can also be just for your professional advancement or improvement or the next position or speaking engagement or whatever it might be.

Preena:
Right. So for you, it was your passion for finance and helping others achieve financial wellness and also sort of helping you build your platform to engage with others.

Peter:
Yeah. And so I actually have a number of YouTube channels, and one of them is called Expedition Money Snacks, where it's just one-minute-long videos, very short kind of TikTok format, but here's a concept, here's an idea, maybe you haven't heard of this, or maybe it's a quick bit of news. I try to make things that are very bite-sized. And then I have my Expedition Money. That's more long-form. And those can be 20, 30 minute videos where I deep dive into a topic.
So what you want to do is not necessarily put everyone into the same box. People are going to consume in different ways, and which you want not necessarily is put yourself center, but you want to put their consumption desires front and center, and you want to try to serve to them because if you're not getting the attention, if you're not getting that content in front of people, then it doesn't really matter. I can create a lot of content and no one wants to consume it, and so then it's not really having an impact. But if I can craft it in such a way that, hey, it's fun or it's interesting or it's bite-sized, whatever it is, then at least we have a chance at maybe having that deeper conversation. We might have a chance at talking about more developed or nuanced or complex financial topics later. So just trying to keep that door open and keep the information top of mind for people front and center.

Preena:
Right. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I think we can kind of turn or pivot a little bit to more so the expedition money side of things. I guess a couple of questions I had regarding your program is why did you decide to make your own program instead of continuing to partner with financial service organizations?

Peter:
Yeah, it's a really good question. It's actually a pretty easy one for me to answer, and that's because every time I was at a company, there are usually some guidelines that the company has for some reason. Maybe it's company policy, maybe it's the type of products and services that they're in, and they don't want to necessarily create content or tools that maybe aren't in their wheelhouse. And I've done it for financial services companies, I've done it for HR benefits companies, and the reasons are different. And so in many ways, every time I was building a program, there was just something out of bounds in that program. And I really felt like a true comprehensive effective financial wellness program would embrace everything.
So, for example, one of the big topics and one of the topics I've talked about for years is side hustles. So if you're familiar with the term side hustle, it's kind of like moonlighting, maybe doing something part-time, something as a hobby, as a passion project in addition to your day job. But a lot of people in the industry don't like talking about side hustles because, hey, they think, well, as an employer, I don't want to believe that my people have side hustles. I want to believe that they're fully fulfilled here. Or as a financial services company, we don't want people becoming entrepreneurs because that muddies their taxes or whatever it might be. And so side hustles have been kind of a third rail topic in a lot of ways.
And for the last couple of years I actually was on the speaking circuit a lot doing a presentation called Go from Getting By to Getting Ahead: Why Side Hustles Must Be Part of the Financial Conversation and trying to get financial services companies to embrace the topic of side hustles. Because for a lot of people, they're 9:00 to 5:00. The math does not necessarily equal everything that they need out of life. It doesn't equal taking care of their living expenses today. It doesn't put their kids through college, it doesn't put enough money away for savings and retirement and fun and all these things. So there's this gap, this delta that we need to address, and sometimes side hustles can do it.
And so one of the things that I wanted to do was build that program that didn't have anything that was off of a reservation, per se. We could talk about anything that would help people get ahead financially, find financial independence, whether it's money hacks or rethinking, like the tiny house movement or minimalism or create a budget or whatever it might be. And so that's really why I did the program, so that I could have creative control over it and put in all these topics. And so that's the genesis of what I did.
Now, not to say that any of those programs that I helped build or any of the other programs out there aren't good, because they're wonderful. And if you can find what you need in any of those programs, absolutely use them. But that's what I wanted is just something even more comprehensive and more encompassing than the programs I'd seen out there before.

Preena:
For sure.

Peter:
With that, there are a number of drawbacks. You're owning everything from A to Z. For a lot of people that are involved in, say, The Garage or trying to figure out entrepreneurial problems at school or in business, there's a lot of other things that you have to take into account when starting a business that are above and beyond just building the business. So it makes it more complex, but I think there can be a lot of reward on the back end too.

Preena:
Yeah. Yeah. It's really incredible that you were able to build a platform that addresses all those concerns that you kind of had when you were coming out of college and maybe starting to build your finances as well.

Peter:
And the reason I did was because when I came out of college, I came out of college with student debt. I know that different schools have different policies around that now, but I came out with student loans. I started working right away because I had to. I didn't come out with a lot of money and I was kind of chasing my tail, especially the first few years out of school. I was working to just have my lifestyle. And it was really at that moment that I was like, "How do I get out of debt?" So I think I had in many ways a typical story. And from that, I found these tools, and that's where one of my first books comes from, Get Rid of Debt Fast, and that was my journey on that. And then getting stability, investing in your career, figuring out how to get promoted, getting to the next level and building that career and side hustles and all these other things.
So all of this is really based on my journey of what I found worked. So it's not necessarily just theoretical. I wasn't an ivory tower kind of guy, silver spoon, "Oh, here's what the masses need and I'm blessing you with my knowledge." This is really kind of lessons that I took that helped me get from the bottom rung to the middle rung.

Preena:
Yeah. So what are some key financial tips that you give to students like us today?

Peter:
Oh, it really probably depends on where students are, but one of the things that I would say is that it's, I think, really important... In some ways, you're not going to be able to avoid debt. Some students are going to come out with some credit card debt or student loans or a car loan. Some students are going to come out of school and they're not going to have any money. So if you want to get an apartment and put furniture in it and all these other things, you're going to have some debt.
What I would say is that tackle the debt relentlessly because it's kind of like wading in the ocean. If you've ever been to the ocean and there's kind of even calm waves, there's always this wave action. And if you've ever been in the water and been okay and then gotten splashed with the water and breathed in at the wrong moment, all of a sudden you're kind of choking on water a little bit, and it's really hard to recover from that, even though it's not like a life-threatening thing. But all you want to do is take a pause, you want to kind of have a timeout.
And the problem is if you get behind on that debt, the bills keep coming, the wave action keeps coming, and it's really hard to reset and refocus, and it can easily get away from you. So one of the things that I really work with people right now on is, all right, what do we have, and then what creative strategies can we use to get you out of these a lot faster? And in many ways, many normal debt programs say, "All right, it's going to take five, six years to get rid of this." Well, with some of these new tools, you can get out of that debt in three months or four months or 60 days or a few weeks. And so what can we do to do those things? Because those can make a really meaningful difference and get people into some breathing space so that you can focus on your career, so that you can focus on doing a good job, expanding your skills, getting out there, finding a mentor, and start getting ahead.

Preena:
Okay. Yeah. So would you say it's about putting money in the right places? So when you have some sort of income, just knowing where to allocate that accordingly? Or is it more of like a spending saving balance?

Peter:
Yeah, I'd say it's all of the above because you're absolutely right. What it comes down to is, I think for a lot of us in the typical model is I get paid, I take some of this money, I cover my living expenses, I put some of this money in savings, I allocate some of this to debt, and that can be fine. That strategy in its simplicity can work.
But there are also ways to say, "Hey, mathematically, what is the best thing for me to do? Is it to allocate this money here or is it better to put a bigger slice of that over here so that I can get rid of my debt faster or slower?" I mean, it depends on interest rates and all these other things, but the idea is what is the most optimal thing I can do with every dollar that I'm bringing in? Like you said, where can I put that? As opposed to just doing things out of habit that are general rules that we've learned. And so those can make a big difference.
In some cases, people have average life and kind of the typical rules work just fine, but for a lot of people, there's something unique, there's a certain way we're earning money. Maybe we have a fluctuating income or you're in sales or whatever it might be, and so how do we take what is unique to your life and then use that as an advantage to get you closer to where you want to be?
And so usually you have to take a look at that, and that can be through financial coaching, you can find a professional to do that, but a little bit of help there can make a big, big difference. So a big, big difference in either paying off your house or paying off your car or putting money away. A lot of people want to travel.
One of the things I've been talking a lot about is how to take a gap year. How do you take a year off from work? Maybe you work a couple years and maybe you want to take a year off, do a little travel, see the sights, have a social life, kind of get away from it all, reset, write your book, whatever it might be, Instagram 365 days of beautiful living. And so how can we practically do those things? And it can be done. But it has to have some intention. It has to have a little bit of a plan to make that happen. You can't just want it to happen and then expect, oh, look, fortunately everything I did the last year is going to make this happen, because that rarely ever works.

Preena:
Right. Yeah. For sure. Well, it was really great talking with you and learning about your career path and all the advice you have for students who are going through it right now. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Peter:
Thank you, Preena. It has been a pleasure doing this. And to all of the current students out there like you, keep pushing forward. I am super excited to see what you guys are going to do for the Northwestern community and the world in general. So keep on keeping on.

Preena:
Yeah. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Weinberg in the World.