CFEI® is a financial education credential. It is not a securities license, investment adviser registration, or CFP® certification.
What this is.
I'm Max Cohen, an experienced banker based in New Hampshire. The job means I sit across the desk from people making real money decisions every week: opening accounts, restructuring debt, navigating fraud, figuring out where to put a windfall, and planning the retirement they thought they had figured out and didn't.
Most personal finance content is made by people who've never been on the other side of that conversation. I'm making it while I'm still in it — and while I'm still building my own portfolio under the same constraints my readers have. I'm studying finance and accounting alongside the day job, navigating the same tradeoffs my readers are.
"Most people aren't bad at money — they just never got a clear explanation of how it works. That's the gap this site exists to close."
I'm not going to tell you I'm debt-free and living off dividends in a beach house. I'm in it — building toward financial independence the same way most people realistically can: methodically, without quitting my life in the process.
Free tools. No agenda.
MaxDoesFinance isn't a course. It isn't a membership. It isn't a funnel for anything — there's no product at the end, because there is no funnel.
The tools are free because they should be. A debt payoff calculator, a mortgage analyzer, a balance transfer check — these are math problems with dollar consequences. You shouldn't pay $29/month to find out if a balance transfer is worth it.
The articles and videos are free because the goal is to make the explanation useful on its own — not to hide the useful part behind an email gate, course, or membership. The tools let you take the next step and run the numbers for yourself.
Systems beat willpower.
Good personal finance isn't about discipline. It's about designing a system where the right thing happens automatically — and then not breaking it.
That's what the tools on this site are built around. Not motivation. Not inspiration. Just the math, laid out clearly, so you can make a decision you understand.