Editorial Policy

Finance content has a structural honesty problem. Most of it is funded by referral fees from the products it discusses, which means the recommendation and the revenue are the same event. That arrangement can still produce good writing, but you have no way to tell from the outside.

This page exists so you can judge ours from the outside.

How we make money

Display advertising, and nothing else.

Ads are served by advertising networks. We are paid for impressions and clicks. That is the entire revenue model.

Specifically, we do not take money from:

• Affiliate or referral links
• Sponsored posts or paid placements
• "Best of" listings paid for by inclusion
• Lead generation for advisers, brokers, or lenders
• Courses, ebooks, coaching, memberships, or paywalls
• Newsletter sponsorships

The separation

Advertisers have no input into what we publish. We do not know in advance which ads will appear on a page, we do not accept editorial requests from advertisers, and no article has ever been commissioned, altered, or withheld because of an advertiser.

The practical test of this is whether we publish things the finance industry would rather we did not. We do:

• Long car loans are a bad deal, and the extended term is the mechanism that makes them look affordable
• Minimum credit card payments can take over twenty years and cost more than the original balance
• Most actively managed funds underperform their benchmarks, and their fees can consume a quarter of your final result
• Loyalty is penalised by insurers and telecoms, and the fix is to leave

Each of those topics is commercially valuable. Each is written the way the evidence points.

If we ever adopt a different revenue model, this page will say so before it happens, and any affected content will be labelled.

How an article is written

1. The topic comes from a real point of confusion. Usually something I got stuck on, something a reader emailed about, or a question where the existing explanations online contradict each other. We do not write to a keyword list.

2. Mechanics are checked against primary sources. Regulator guidance, published lender terms, fund prospectuses and factsheets, official tax and pension documentation. Where an article states how something works — how a grace period is lost, how utilisation is reported, how payment allocation is ordered — that comes from the underlying rules, not from other blog posts.

3. Every number is calculated. Amortisation tables, compounding projections, fee drag comparisons, interest totals — all computed for the article. Where a projection is used, the assumed rate and period are stated in the text so you can substitute your own and disagree.

4. The limits get written in. This is the part most finance writing omits, and we treat it as mandatory. Every method has a range where it works and a range where it does not:

• The 50/30/20 rule is arithmetically impossible on low incomes and far too generous on high ones — the article says both.
• Avalanche beats snowball — by $330 in the worked example, and the article shows the $330 rather than implying it is transformative.
• Budgeting cannot fix an income below the local cost of living, and the article says so directly.

An article that only describes where a method works is not finished.

5. Nothing is generated and published unreviewed. Every article is written and checked by a person before it goes live. We do not spin, rewrite, or republish other people's work.

Corrections

We would rather fix an error than defend it.

If something here is wrong — a number, a rule, a changed threshold, an explanation that misleads — email us, ideally with a source. We check it, and if it is wrong we correct the article itself and note what changed and when.

We do not quietly delete mistakes or edit them away without acknowledgement. A correction note stays in the article.

Dating and updates

Every article carries its publication date, and updated articles carry an update date. This matters more in finance than in most subjects, because rates, tax thresholds, contribution limits and product terms change frequently.

We review the most-read guides periodically and update figures that have gone stale. We do not re-date an article to make it look fresh — the date reflects when the content actually changed.

Products and providers

We rarely name specific banks, brokers, cards, or apps, and this is deliberate rather than lazy.

Rates and terms change constantly, a product that is excellent in one country is unavailable in another, and any specific recommendation is stale within months. More importantly, naming products is exactly where affiliate incentives distort finance content, and the cleanest way to stay clear of that is to explain the category and how to evaluate it — then let you compare current options yourself.

So instead of "open account X," our articles say what to check: the expense ratio, whether the rate is introductory, what the fee is after the promotional period, whether access is instant.

What we are not

We are not a regulated financial adviser and we do not provide personal recommendations. The disclaimer sets out what that means in full, and it is worth reading once.

The short version: articles explain how things work. Decisions about your money need someone who knows your circumstances — ideally a fee-only adviser, paid by you rather than by commission.

Advertising standards

We aim to keep advertising unobtrusive: no interstitials that block content, no auto-playing audio, no pop-ups covering the article you came to read. Ad slots are placed in fixed positions with reserved space so the page does not jump while you are reading.

We do not control which specific ads appear — that is decided by advertising networks based on the page and, unless you have opted out, on your browsing. An ad appearing here is not an endorsement. If you see an advertisement on this site that seems misleading or predatory, please tell us; we can block categories and individual advertisers, and we do.

Reader data

We do not run a mailing list, we do not have accounts, and we collect no personal information directly. Advertising involves third-party cookies, which is covered honestly in the privacy policy.

Holding us to this

If you think we have broken any of the above, say so. This page is a commitment, and a commitment nobody can check is worth nothing.