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$5,000 a year can slip away between the county, Medicare and your monthly bills, only because nobody filed the form. And on a $2,000 benefit, the age you claim Social Security moves your check by $1,080 a month. The Playbook gives you the numbers, the form and the exact words, for all 50 states.
PRINTABLE PDF · 14 CHAPTERS · UPDATED FOR 2026
Social Security first, because it is the biggest check you will ever draw, then property tax and the monthly bills. Every chapter tells you who may qualify, the exact form, the office that takes it and the words to say. Your state is on one page, and a 30-day plan gets every form that applies to you filed in four weeks.
What you get for $27:
Instant access · Pay once · Yours forever
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Nothing ships, and there is no account to make.
The honest math
Take one retired homeowner on Medicare and a fixed income. The left column is one year where nobody filed the forms. The right is the same year with the Playbook open.
Ch. 9, 13, 14 · 2026 Medicare figures · home value, tax rate, usage illustrative
Net savings, per year: $5,638
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Real pages from the real book. This is exactly what opens on your phone at the county counter. The type is set big on purpose.
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Reader results
Five households, five states. Each one asked one question they had never asked.
Composite stories drawn from reader and viewer feedback.
I’m 72 and I thought I already knew everything about my retirement benefits. I found two programs I’d never heard of, and it was plain enough that I knew right away which one applied to me.
After my husband passed, the benefits paperwork buried me. Hank writes like somebody sitting at the table with you, not like a government letter. Chapter 5 told me exactly what to ask Social Security, and I asked it.
I paid taxes my whole working life and figured I was getting everything I qualified for. Chapter 9 showed me a form my county had never once mentioned. I only wish someone had laid it out this clearly years ago.
I’d claimed at 62 years ago, so Chapter 1 was mostly a lesson for my son. Part Three made up for it: two calls, and two of my monthly bills came down.
My wife never worked for pay long enough to think she had a benefit coming. Chapter 4 said to ask anyway. The man at the Social Security office ran it, and she does.
About the author
I am sixty-nine and I live outside Knoxville, Tennessee. For thirty-eight years I ran the hardware store in our town, and sooner or later half the county came through the door with a letter from Social Security or the tax office they couldn’t make sense of. When I retired, I started reading what those offices actually publish. Nobody pays me to pass it on.
I did not write these rules, and I am not a financial advisor. Social Security, your state and your county wrote them, and every chapter names the form and the office that takes it. What I did was start with the decision that moves the most money, when to claim, put the rest in order behind it, and write down the exact words to use at the counter.
What is in it: Social Security, property tax, and the bills you pay every month. What I leave out on purpose: investments, which age you should claim at, and anything that needs a lawyer.
The people who save aren’t smarter or better connected. They just had the list, and they asked.
Hank
PRINTABLE PDF · 14 CHAPTERS · UPDATED FOR 2026
Instant access: the Playbook opens on the very next screen, and the same link is emailed to you. Read on any phone, tablet or computer. Print at the kitchen table if you want. 14-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.
What you get for $27:
Instant access · Pay once · Yours forever
Common Questions
Mostly, and I’ll tell you which parts aren’t. The three property-tax chapters won’t help you. Everything else will: all eight Social Security chapters and the bills chapters work the same for renters. LIHEAP helps renters too, and in many states the circuit breaker does as well. Your state’s page tells you.
Turn to your state in the State Benefits Directory. It takes about a minute. Ten large states get a full card with the program, the form, the office and the deadline. The other forty are in the quick tables, with enough to know exactly what to ask for, and whether your state taxes Social Security.
Some of it on your next bill. A utility discount or a fee waiver usually shows up right away. A property-tax exemption lands with your next assessment, and a Social Security claim follows their schedule. I start the book with Social Security anyway, because that’s where most of your money is.
Not at all. Most of these programs have a starting age and no cutoff, so you save from the day you file, at 72 or at 85. On Social Security I’ll be straight with you: the delayed credits stop at 70, so some moves have passed. The chapters tell you plainly what’s still open.
It’s a PDF, and you don’t need to be. After you pay, you tap one button and the whole Playbook opens on your screen. The same link goes to your email, so next week you can open it on your phone from there. If you’d rather work on paper, it prints cleanly at home.
You can’t really lose it. The link stays in your email, so search for my name and tap it again. If that doesn’t work either, write to support@hankmercer.com and I’ll send you a fresh one.
Fourteen days, no questions asked. Send an email and you get a full refund. The Playbook stays yours either way.
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Write to me here and I answer. Every message comes straight to me.
Last call
$27 once. Instant access. 14-day money-back guarantee. Five parts, every state, the exact form for each.
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