About FinlyLife

I started thinking about FinlyLife last year after being invited to one of those fancy dinners that financial advisors host. I received a flyer in the mail inviting me to a dinner at a nice restaurant — no cost, just come and listen.

Of course, it was ultimately a pitch for their financial services company.

To be fair, they shared some very interesting charts, planning strategies, and success stories from their clients. But like most things in life, there’s no free lunch — or in this case, no free dinner. Financial advisors typically charge around 1% of your total assets every year as their fee.

If you’re familiar with market returns, you know that even a simple 1% fee becomes a meaningful drag over time and can make it harder to beat the market. Warren Buffett famously said that most people should simply invest in low-cost index funds and they will match the market over the long term.

That said, there are real advantages to using a financial advisor. A good advisor understands your full financial picture and your life circumstances. They can tailor advice to your unique situation, and you can ask important questions like:

• Am I saving enough for retirement?
• What about paying for college?
• Could I retire at 59 instead of 65?
• What would that mean for travel or lifestyle in retirement?

There are countless questions that come up as you start thinking more seriously about your finances.

I came home from that dinner with the realization that I wanted the insight of a financial advisor — but I didn’t want to pay such a steep ongoing fee.

With technology as advanced as it is today, and with AI capable of analyzing enormous amounts of data, I started wondering: why couldn’t I simply talk to a system like ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI assistant to help think through these decisions?

But to truly get answers you can trust, the AI needs the right context and structure around your financial data, and it needs guardrails to ensure the guidance stays accurate and grounded.

That’s why I created FinlyLife.

I worked extensively to design the models and algorithms so they operate within the boundaries of your data and provide thoughtful, reliable guidance. My goal was to build something that feels like a thoughtful planning assistant with your best interests in mind — not someone focused on generating fees.

I’m also taking a modern approach and working alongside an AI agent named Merlin, who helps validate ideas, analyze scenarios, and expand on possibilities quickly. He’s been incredibly helpful in building and refining FinlyLife.

And yes — I use the app myself. You could say I’m eating my own dog food.

What I’ve found is that it’s extremely valuable to have a system I trust that already understands my financial picture and can help me think through decisions in real time.

I hope you enjoy using FinlyLife as much as I do.

If you ever have suggestions, ideas, or features you’d like to see added, please feel free to reach out anytime.