Let Me Pay You to Do Financial Planning!

A nudge with a kicker

You are among the15K subscribers to my newsletter. Few of you are users of MaxiFi Planner. This is my company’s economics-based financial planning tool, which you see advertised in my newsletters, podcasts, and the Financial Riddler. The software can answer otherwise unanswerable questions — questions that are fundamental to your financial welfare. See the examples below.

Behavioral finance teaches us that people need helpful nudges to help themselves. For example, if you default employees into a 401(k) plan, far more will stay in the plan than if you invite them to join. This is not just a nudge. It’s a shtupn (Yiddish for shove.) It’s dropping your kid at the dentist’s saying, “I’ll pick you up when they call me.”

I tried to nudge all of you gently in March by offering a 20 percent discount on MaxiFi. Fewer than 150 of you signed up. Clearly, you think financial planning is a trip to the dentist or that I’m trying to line my pockets. Not so. Conventional financial planning is, indeed, a trip to the dentist — an expensive one where you can easily lose your teeth. But economics-based financial planning is a ticket to a higher living standard and far smarter lifestyle decisions. As for my lining my pockets, I’m the only company President you know who doesn’t take a salary — haven’t in 30 years. My goal is to help people like you and pay my wonderful employees/friends as much as possible.

So, to help you help you and help you help my company, which could use your help, I’ve come up with a stronger nudge. I’ve decided to pay you all to do financial planning using MaxiFi. This offer is good through the end of May.

Here’s the deal. You buy MaxiFi Planner for $109 or MaxiFi Premium for $149. (MaxiFi Premium helps with risky investing.) If, in using the tool, you can’t increase your lifetime spending by at least $500 compared to your initial planning/thinking, email me at kotlikoff@gmail.com with your phone number. I’ll call and suggest how to do so. If I don’t succeed, your payment will be refunded and you’ll keep the software for free.

I’m an extremely busy dude, so I don’t make this offer lightly. But the tool is called MaxiFi for a reason. It’s designed to find safe ways for you to materially raise your living standards. So, I’m not pushing you to go to the dentist. I’m pushing you to go to Ben and Jerry’s and have a cup of Phish Food.

By the way, I don’t expect you’ll raised your lifetime spending by just $500. I expect you’ll raise it by far more. Some people can find ways to generate tens of thousands of dollars in higher lifetime discretionary spending using MaxiFi. Just getting Social Security right can be a bonanza. This offer extends to your parents and children. If you are a parent (gen something), get your kids (parents) to my ice cream pallor.

Warning! If you use the program, you will get addicted. We have thousands of addicted users. Check out these testimonials.

If You Aren’t American

Run MaxiFi by entering your earnings after tax. Also, enter an after tax rate of return under Settings and Assumptions. Also go there to turn off all U.S. taxes and Social Security benefits. Do so by specifying immediate 100 percent cuts in federal and state taxes and Social Security benefits. Also enter your projected government pension.

MaxiFi Can Answer Any and All of your Financial Questions. Here are Examples

1. Does borrowing $85K to attend college H beat borrowing $20K to attend Y?

2. Does quitting my Kansas City job with its low salary, great benefits, and low housing costs beat an offer in Seattle with its high salary, lousy benefits, and high housing costs?

3. Can we afford another child especially if one of us stops working for while?

4. How much does retiring two years early impact my sustainable living standard?

5. What’s the most we (I) can spend each year while maintaining (our) my living standard?

6. How much life insurance do I need to ensure survivors the same living standard?

7. Should I contribute to a Roth IRA or a deductible IRA?

8. Does it pay to cash out some 401(k) money and buy a townhouse as an investment?

9. How can I invest in the stock market with no risk to my basic living standard?

10. How do we (I) maximize our (my) lifetime Social Security benefits?

11. Can I lower my lifetime taxes via Roth conversions? If so, how exactly?

12. How much will our living standard drop if we get divorced?

13. Would downsizing and moving to a low-tax state raise our lifetime spending a lot?

14. If I retire early and wait to take Social Security, how bad are the cash constraints?

15. Does taking IRA withdrawals early and Social Security late beat the opposite?

16. What’s the sustainable living standard price of buying our dream boat?

17. Does my financial planner’s advice remotely line up with MaxiFi’s suggestions?

18. I’m newly widowed, should I take my retirement or widow(er)s benefit first?

19. I’m receiving a pension from non Social Security employment. Is my Social Security benefit correct or did they over pay and leave me exposed to a claw back?

20. Should I rent or own given today’s crazy high housing prices and mortgage rates?