“People always assume that it’s so much more, and why would you ever have to work again?” the actor said.

Josh Peck reveals how much he actually made over 4 seasons of Drake & Josh

"People always assume that it's so much more, and why would you ever have to work again?" the actor said.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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June 30, 2026 12:24 p.m. ET

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Josh Peck; Drake Bell and Josh Peck on 'Drake & Josh'. Credit:

Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty; Chris Cuffaro/Nickelodeon

- Josh Peck looked back on his time on *Drake & Josh* and shareed how much he actually made over four seasons.

- "People always assume that it's so much more, and why would you ever have to work again?" the actor said. "But of course, if you made the salary of a dentist or something like that, you couldn't just stop working after four years."

- Peck also recounted how the "financial insecurity" of his childhood affected his outlook on his perspective on money during his time as a child star.

Josh Peck is opening up about the reality behind his child star paycheck over four seasons of *Drake & Josh**.*

The former Nickelodeon actor reflected on how he went from "financial insecurity" to becoming the breadwinner in his family due to his earnings during an appearance on the June 25 episode of the *Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones* podcast.

"I came from a lot of financial insecurity," Peck told host Haley Sacks, aka Mrs. Dow Jones. "I had a single mom, only child, and we sort of oscillated between being lower middle class and then being broke. But she worked in sales, so sometimes we'd have a great year and I was getting a new pair of Jordans, and then other times I'd be calling my grandma to help us pay for dinner because we had zero dollars."

Peck booked his first recurring role on *The Amanda Show* at age 13, where he met future *Drake & Josh *costar Drake Bell. The two went on to co-lead their titular series in 2004, which aired on the children's network for four seasons.

Josh Peck and Drake Bell on 'Drake & Josh'. Nickelodeon

"We started out making $3,000 an episode on *The Amanda Show*," he shared. "By the time we finished *Drake & Josh*, so that was, like, 60 episodes total for the whole show. The median rate, the average rate per episode was about $15,000. So over four years, we wound up making about $900 grand."

However, neither star took home all that money. "Between agent, manager and taxes, we cleared half of that," Peck explained. "We were making about $125,000 a year."

"And people always will say, 'Well, compared to so many other tougher jobs, like who are you to say anything? And I go, 'I'm not,'" the actor added. "The only reason I say it is because people always assume that it's so much more, and why would you ever have to work again? But of course, if you made the salary of a dentist or something like that, you couldn't just stop working after four years."

*Drake & Josh* aired 56 episodes, in addition to two TV movies. Peck noted that the show generated "no residuals," a structure he said was standard for kids' TV at the time. He shared that the cast had little leverage in negotiations because Nickelodeon represented essentially the only outlet for young performers working at that level.

So by the final episode, "we were done."

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With the ending of his major source of income, Peck admitted that he developed a lasting financial anxiety.

"When we finished doing a show when I was 19 years old, I had a little bit of a runway, but I had to get to work," he recalled. "Because that certainly wasn't enough money supporting my mom and I for four years to not have to worry after another year or two."

His experience with financial insecurity made him "very obsessive, in bad ways" about small amounts of money and he "couldn't see the big picture."

Josh Peck in 2025.

Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty

"If you have it ingrained in you that you never want to be broke again, you will run like your pants are on fire for as long as you can. And I have," he reasoned. "And I saw that in myself forever, just a deep financial insecurity that drove everything I did. And would force me to be very obsessive, in bad ways, about these small, little, micro transactions. Where I was really not good at looking at the big picture of things."

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Peck recounted how he would "punish" himself over late fees and quipped how a parking ticket would have "floored" him.

"I would punish myself if, for some reason, I got a late charge of $20 or something. 'Cause it just felt so irresponsible," he admitted.

He credited his mother, his accountant and his Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor, Dan, with helping him build long-term financial habits centered on low-cost index fund investing rather than high-risk swings. Peck said he did not purchase a home until his mid-30s, opting instead to maintain a financial cushion in case work became inconsistent.

"I feel very lucky that at that age I had to figure out what was next," he added.

Watch Peck's appearance on the *Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones* podcast above.

- Children’s Shows

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Source: “EW Children’s”