I Was a CFP. Here's Why I Built a Tool to Replace Myself.

I Charged $2,500 for a Financial Plan

For years, I worked as a fee-only financial planner. Hourly. No commissions, no assets under management, no trailing fees. Clients paid me directly for my time and expertise, and in return they got a comprehensive financial plan. Monte Carlo simulations, Social Security claiming analysis, tax-efficient withdrawal sequencing, insurance review, estate planning checklists.

A typical engagement ran 15-20 hours. The deliverable was a 40-60 page document. Most of them cried at some point. Not because the news was bad. They cried because for the first time in their lives, someone had shown them the math.

That engagement cost $2,500. At $2,500, I was actually cheap. The industry average ranges from $2,600 to $10,000.

I Could Only Help 40 Families a Year

A solo hourly financial planner has approximately 1,800 billable hours in a year. Realistically, about 40 comprehensive engagements per year. Forty families.

Meanwhile, my phone rang. A lot. Most of them, when I told them the cost, would pause. Many did not book.

The ones who did not book are not bad with money. They are the schoolteacher with $400,000 in a 403(b) who knows she needs a plan but cannot justify spending a months take-home pay. The people who needed financial planning the most were exactly the people who could not access it.

Everyone Is Using ChatGPT as Their Financial Advisor Now

Fast forward to 2024, and suddenly everyone has access to AI. People are pasting their financial details into ChatGPT and asking, Can I afford to retire?

I find this terrifying. General-purpose AI models hallucinate. They make up numbers. I have tested this extensively. The outputs range from approximately correct but dangerously imprecise to completely fabricated numbers presented with total confidence.

What If the Math Was Deterministic and the AI Was Contextual?

The insight that finally made this project work is the separation of calculation from explanation.

A deterministic financial engine runs all the math. Monte Carlo retirement simulations with 10,000 scenarios. Social Security optimization using current law. Tax-efficient withdrawal sequencing.

These engines are pure math. No AI inference. The same inputs always produce the same outputs. Every calculation path is covered by automated tests.

Then the AI layer takes those computed results and explains them. In plain language. The AI never generates a financial number.

What AI Financial Plan Actually Does

Eight analysis modules: retirement readiness (Monte Carlo), Social Security optimization, tax strategy and withdrawal sequencing, insurance analysis, asset allocation, college funding, estate planning, and budget/cash flow.

It runs 10,000 retirement scenarios in seconds. It evaluates every Social Security claiming combination for both spouses. It identifies Roth conversion windows you did not know existed.

What it does not do: manage your money. It does not execute trades, open accounts, or move assets. We designed AIFP as financial education, not investment advice.

This Is Attempt Number Four

This is my fourth attempt to solve this problem. The first was one-on-one planning. The second was the course. The third was myFinancialAnswers in 2014.

Between attempt three and attempt four, a lot happened. The startup failing was not free. There was credit card debt. There was a 12-year gap.

This time, the technology is ready. The engines are built. The tests pass. The AI explains without hallucinating, because it is explaining real calculations.

I do not know if attempt number four will succeed in the market. I do know it succeeds at the thing I have been trying to do since I charged my first client $2,500 and wished I could have done it for $89.