Peter Finn - Private Wealth Advisor

03/03/2026

Thanks to Jillian Olson and the Washington Policy Center for the great interview on why free-markets matter from a business owner and financial advisor's perspective.

Policy, IRL | Young Professionals SeriesWhat does policy actually look like in real life?Policy, IRL is a candid conversation series spotlighting young profe...

01/30/2026

So this happened today. I'm curious to see if any of the bullion brokers goes under as a result. If they are smart, they are only accepting most transactions when they are pairing buyer and seller and pocketing both premiums, but if they are accumulating inventory for even a couple of days, it could break them.

01/16/2026

I had two couples meet with me on the same day with similar stories: both left their corporate jobs and staked everything on launching businesses in 2008.

The first drained savings, including retirement, to start a restaurant. This was a disaster as their restaurant failed and they lost everything. They later launched a successful catering business and are now debt free. The second couple started a medical equipment repair business. The husband saw in his corporate job how medical equipment manufacturers were providing maintenance services and then intentionally "obsoleting" perfectly good equipment by stopping the production of replacement parts in order to force customers to buy new models. He figured he had the ability to do the repairs and the resourcefulness to source the parts from third parties, and he could make a living for himself doing this while saving universities and hospitals huge sums of money. Their business was successful from the start and has also led to them being debt free and working as much or as little as they want.

I took a couple of days to think one why one business failed and the other succeeded. It probably wasn't a matter of personal ability as the first couple did succeed with their second try. The economic downturn definitely impacted the restaurant more severely than the medical equipment repair business, but I felt like there was more to it, though, hence the couple of days of thought.

It finally hit me that the biggest difference between the two was the matter of differentiation. When you schedule a lunch meeting with someone, you will go back and forth over where to eat. You will decide on burgers vs thai, then you will pick a place within the chosen category. If you arrive and it turns out the place you picked was close, you will again choose from a multitude of options. Notice that if you strip away the superficialities, there's no difference between two restaurants: they offer the same thing, for about the same price, with about the same experience. This makes it very hard to start a restaurant and generate the margins you need to be successful because you can't compete on price except to put yourself closer and closer to bankruptcy.

The equipment repair was niche. No one was doing what they were doing, and their prospective customers were left with a pretty easy decision: give in to the rent-seeking behavior of the manufacturer and spend $100,000+ on new equipment, or pay this repair business a small percentage of that to keep existing equipment running. There wasn't an existing industry of repair businesses since the manufacturers provided that service themselves, and it was only the owner's experience working for one of those companies that let him see the opportunity.

This is a good reminder that the most reliable path to success is making ourselves valuable to people in ways that others aren't and constantly looking for needs that aren't being met and finding a way to meet them.

12/02/2025

Not a lot of Thanksgiving weekend purchases this year, but they were good ones!

10/30/2025

It was an honor to be one of two panelists at the Washington Policy Center Young Professionals finance forum. Topics included what steps young people should take to secure their financial future, how regulations impact the financial industry, and why it's important to have a financial plan in place as early as possible.

09/17/2025

A common misconception is that a person must choose whether or not to invest their wealth. The truth is, all of your wealth is either invested or spent, regardless of whether you realize it.

We think of wealth in dollars,ut you could just as easily store it in yen or euros. You default to dollars because of where you live, but you still actually do have that choice. When you have money sitting in a bank account and you believe it is "safe", you are still invested... in dollars.

Now ask yourself, "if I could put my wealth in a hypothetical place where it would never be eroded by inflation, market crashes, etc, would I choose to move it all into dollars?" If you have your money sitting in a bank account or some other cash equivalent, that's exactly what you are doing. When you think about it this way, does the bank feel as safe as it did before?

Leaving your wealth in dollars is still an investment decision, and it's worth re-evaluating whether you are making the right one.

09/04/2025

The office finally has its first plant! It took several trips to Home Depot looking for recommended plants before finally learning that they keep the indoor plants...inside the store

09/03/2025

Kaitlyn and Alexander started their first day at their new Catholic classical education school!

We are grateful to St. Charles in Spokane for providing the kind of education that will help our kids grow in their closeness to God, pursuit of virtue, and achievement of excellence in academics and every other area of life.

As a reminder, 529 education savings plans can be used for private elementary and high schools.

05/27/2025

Thanksgiving turkeys are a great example of how a black swan event works. It was all obvious in hindsight, but the turkey's experience and underlying assumption that it was living in a world which was predictable based on said experience, led the turkey to a false conclusion.

Thankfully, most black swan events don't have such severe consequences, but still... don't be a turkey =)

05/23/2025

Schools are closed and Brittney is with Arthur at the NICU.

Take the day off? Work from home?

No, thank you!

05/21/2025

I met with an interesting man from Kyrgyzstan yesterday. He provided a different perspective on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, through which he lived.

I asked him, "When there is chaos and uncertainty, like with the collapse of the Soviet Union, people like you who are entrepreneurial tend to do really well; you see opportunities others do not and take advantage of them quickly. Why did you decide to leave instead of staying?"

He explained that in Kyrgyzstan, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster. He recalled that the weapons and ammunition factories immediately closed, leaving 100,000 people unemployed, along with computer-related factories that had employed another 25,000 people. These were just two examples, and the country's population at the time was 4 million.

He said he had the same thought about this being a great time for a man like him, so he moved to Russia and immediately started putting his enterprising spirit to work. He was contacted right away by the city's mayor who was in with the mafia and was told he needed to pay bribes in order to keep himself safe.

As a Christian, he asserted he only owed taxes to legitimate authorities, and he would not consent to being robbed. They started following him 24 hours a day and shooting at his vehicle. At that point, he set his mind on moving to America.

Today he is 62 and living in Spokane. He has 5 children, 10 grandchildren, and runs a successful small business employing 20 people. His main financial goal is to give as much as he can to his descendants. "Whenever my children need to buy a house, they call me and ask if I can co-sign on a loan; I write them a check to buy the house in cash instead." He is completely debt free and has been self-employed one way or another ever since coming to America 30 years ago.

The biggest takeaway from the meeting was that while he did say the fall of the Soviet Union was an economic disaster for all its members, he said the real disaster was the spiritual decay that had occurred for decades under socialism. "Socialism hates Christ, and it is only in Christ that we can have justice and prosperity."

05/19/2025

https://www.wsj.com/business/making-money-wealth-boring-8cc6c2cd?mod=finance_lead_pos2

Almost every decamillionnaire I've met has a story like this. Some examples I've personally seen include manufacturing fire suppression equipment for mining companies, mobile medical document shredding, and a metal roofing and siding business.

If you want to get rich, the most reliable way seems to be finding a niche (often business-to-business) service and focusing on being the very best at that in your region.

The road to riches is paved with cup holders, burgers and miles of elementary school carpeting for many medium-size regional businesses, a sector with growing importance to the U.S. economy.