Education only. No advice, ever.
ClearMoneySchool does not provide individualized investment, tax, or legal advice. We never recommend specific stocks or funds, never tell you what to do with your money, and never represent ourselves as a fiduciary. We give you the framework and the tradeoffs, then the decision is yours. For decisions about your own money, talk to a fiduciary financial planner who knows your situation.
Primary source, or it does not run.
Every cited number, percentage, dollar limit, or rule traces back to a primary source: the IRS, SSA, FTC, CFPB, FDIC, BLS, the Federal Reserve, or the Treasury, where one exists. We show our work like journalists: cite the source, link it, and show the math. If we cannot source a claim, we do not publish it.
The Real Cost Method.
Wherever it fits, we view a spending or investing decision through what it actually costs over decades, compounded. Percentages are easy to misread. Real dollars over real time are not. That lens is the spine of how we explain money.
Every lesson ends with what it is NOT.
Each lesson carries an explicit "What this lesson is NOT" section: an honest statement of the limits of what we just taught. We would rather tell you where a lesson stops than let you over-apply it. Lessons also carry a "most useful between ages X and Y" tag, so you know whether a piece is written for your stage.
Disclosed review.
Major lessons that touch payroll, complex tax or retirement strategy, or anything fiduciary-adjacent are reviewed by a credentialed professional (a CFP or CPA, or an HR or loan-officer reviewer for payroll and mortgage mechanics), with the reviewer disclosed on the page. Where a review is still pending, we say so on the page rather than imply one happened.
Corrections are owned, not hidden.
When we get something wrong, we log it on the public errata page with the date, the change, and the reason. We do not silently edit and pretend the error never happened.
How we use AI.
We use AI to help draft, never to publish. Every word is reviewed and edited by a human, Joseph Citizen, before it goes live. The full policy is on the AI disclosure page.
Voice.
Direct, calm, and plain. We treat readers as adults, use real numbers and real examples, and avoid hype, jargon, and filler. We acknowledge when finance is genuinely confusing or unfair rather than defending the system.