MONEY MAGIC

Noted economist and New York Times bestselling author Laurence Kotlikoff distills his best personal finance advice to increase your spending power and enhance your standard of living.

Every financial decision we make about our education, careers, jobs, lifestyles, marriages, retirement ages, Social Security, taxes, or investments affects our living standard - the income we get to spend and enjoy over our lifetimes. Yet, most of us make these decisions with no clear idea about their living-standard impact. We typically rely on crude rules of thumb or take questionable advice from friends and family, media gurus, self-described experts, and advisers who are frequently little more than self-interested salespeople. We end up losing boatloads of money, feeling unhappy, and putting ourselves at risk. This book puts an end to that vicious cycle.

Money Magic provides readers of all ages and income levels with a clear framework for making financial decisions that will enhance their living standards, lifestyles, or both. It examines universal money questions, including whether to switch jobs, where to live, how much house to buy, how to divorce, when to retire, when to take Social Security benefits, when to tap 401(k) accounts, whether to pre-pay mortgages, whether to downsize, whether to annuitize, whether to do a Roth conversion, and how to invest.

Drawing on the hard-nosed science of economics, years of research, and modern technological tools, Money Magic offers flexible, practical advice to help readers make costless financial moves that will leave them far richer, happier and safer than they might have dreamed.

Laurence Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the Econometric Society, Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., and Director of the Fiscal Analysis Center. Professor Kotlikoff has written 19 books and hundreds of professional articles and Op-Eds (there are no options as we didn't publish him previously; previous publishers include Business Weekly Publications in Taiwan and Thinkingdom Media Group in China). He is a New York Times best-selling author and a frequent television and radio guest. His columns have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg, Forbes, Yahoo.com, Fortune, and other major publications. In 2014,The Economist named him one of the world's 25 most influential economists.