How did the idea for Planwell come about?

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A few years ago, I was looking to buy a new home in the Bay Area, but wanted to make sure that my family’s home budget also accounted for our other important financial goals – such as saving for retirement and college savings for our young daughter. I also wanted to travel every year and create great family memories. It was important to not have a huge mortgage that would consume a huge chunk of the household budget.

 

When I consulted a financial planner to figure out the right home value for her family, I found that they just wanted to sell us high-cost funds, rather than help us plan our finances thoughtfully. I spoke to several friends and found that others also had unsatisfactory encounters with personal financial planners.

 

On the other hand, mortgage lenders approved a high mortgage amount – but of course that did not take into account our family’s financial goals and seemed geared towards just pushing the highest mortgage amount possible while protecting the lender’s risk.

 

It seemed like there was a lack of unbiased financial planning options.

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Our solution: Use technology to give people the financial planning tools to manage their own finances. 

 

After several years working for Amazon, Facebook and an early-stage startup, I decided to start my own company to build the financial planning tools that I always wished she had.

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Planwell is proud to offer its first super personalized tool, a home affordability calculator.

 

It is designed for people to plan their home-buying while accounting for all their financial and life goals.

 

We will be shortly introducing more tools to help plan for college, retirement and many other goals.