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Errata

The public list of every factual error we've published on ClearMoneySchool: what was wrong, what's now correct, and when we fixed it. We don't silently edit and pretend the error never happened. Some entries are policy corrections rather than factual errors; we log those here too. Own the change, document it, move on.

Last reviewed June 16, 2026

The standard: every figure correction becomes a public entry here. Changing a number without logging it is a standards violation, not a convenience.

The correction feed is the subscription, no email needed. Follow it: RSS · JSON.

Why this page exists

A finance education site that pretends to be infallible isn’t trustworthy, it’s just untested. We’d rather show our work. Every fix to a published lesson, calculator, or fact gets recorded here so readers can see how the site has evolved.

Spotted an error in a lesson, calculator, glossary entry, or Market Pulse article? Email [email protected] and we’ll fix it. Every correction lands on this page, dated.

  1. BeforeThe article stated in two places that the Strait of Hormuz handles approximately one-third of global seaborne oil trade, attributed to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and cited the agency home page rather than the page carrying the figure. It also opened on the premise that a US-Iran de-escalation had put the strait back on track to reopen, and stated that the cost of moving grain into the Gulf just got cheaper.
    AfterBoth share figures now read more than one-quarter of total global seaborne traded oil, with the EIA's 21 million barrels per day and about 21 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption added for 2022 and the first half of 2023, cited to the specific EIA page. The reopening premise is now stated in the conditional throughout, the title and summary no longer present a reopening as imminent or complete, and an editor's note records that the reopening did not follow and that the strait remains closed as reported. The shipping arithmetic is unchanged.
    Why2026-08-11. Two separate problems, caught in the same pass while checking the Hormuz oil-share figure against EIA for a proposed new article. First, a sourcing error present at publication: EIA states more than one-quarter of seaborne traded oil, not approximately one-third, so the cited source did not support the cited number. Second, a premise overtaken by events: the article was published June 16, 2026 on the expectation of a reopening, the memorandum signed the following day did not result in one, and the piece had been live for roughly eight weeks telling readers a reopening was on track and that grain shipping costs had already fallen. A dated article is a snapshot and is not rewritten to hide its premise, so the conditional analysis and its arithmetic stand as published; only the tense of the two sentences asserting a completed or imminent reopening, the title, and the summary were changed, with the editor's note carrying the current status. Two further attributions on this article, the 3,500-mile Cape of Good Hope detour and the marine fuel price, are also credited to EIA and could not be verified on any EIA page reached during this pass; they are unresolved and flagged for a follow-up citation review rather than corrected here.

    Primary source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important oil transit chokepoint (November 21, 2023)

  2. BeforeFour claims across three live Market Pulse articles cited a high-yield savings rate of about 4.20% (one gave 4.0% to 4.5%) to the FDIC.
    AfterThe cpi-falls article now cites the FDIC national savings average of 0.38% and states that the FDIC publishes no high-yield figure. The remaining claims on gold-silver-fed-rate-expectations-july-2026 and savings-apy-mortgage-rate-gap-may-2026 are staged for resolution against a named-bank source and are unchanged pending that pass; no rate on those articles was altered.
    Why2026-08-01. Cross-article FDIC savings-rate mis-citation. Four claims across three live Market Pulse articles (cpi-falls-first-time-2020-energy-july-2026; gold-silver-fed-rate-expectations-july-2026, two claims; savings-apy-mortgage-rate-gap-may-2026) cite a high-yield savings rate of about 4.20% (one cites 4.0% to 4.5%) attributed to the FDIC. The FDIC does not publish a high-yield savings rate. Its national savings average is 0.38%, and the 4.38% figure the cited rate sits near is the 12 CFR 337.6 national rate cap, a regulatory ceiling on undercapitalized institutions, not a market rate. On gold-silver-fed-rate-expectations-july-2026 the mis-sourced rate also fed a Real Cost compounding example ($10,420 at one year, roughly $12,290 at five). Correction posture applied to all four: high-yield rates are either cited to a named bank with an as-of date, or dropped in favor of the sourced 0.38% national average; the FDIC rate cap is never used as a market rate. Related: glossary high-yield-reward-checking and lesson checking-vs-savings carried the pre-correction FDIC deposit-insurance URL and are corrected in the same pass. Figures resolved by Joseph; no rate replaced from memory or from an aggregator.

    Primary source: FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps (Savings national deposit rate 0.38%, national rate cap 4.38% under 12 CFR 337.6)

  3. BeforeThe FDIC deposit-insurance sentence cited https://www.fdic.gov/resources/deposit-insurance/, which states only "$250,000 at each FDIC-insured bank."
    AfterThe same sentence now cites https://www.fdic.gov/resources/deposit-insurance/understanding-deposit-insurance/, which states "FDIC deposit insurance covers $250,000 per depositor, per FDIC-insured bank, for each account ownership category." The sentence itself and the $250,000 figure are unchanged.
    Why2026-08-01. high-yield-savings-real-math-august-2026. The FDIC deposit-insurance sentence states coverage "up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category." The $250,000 amount and per-bank coverage are correct and confirmed at the issuer, but the source URL originally cited states only "$250,000 at each FDIC-insured bank" and does not carry the full per-depositor/per-ownership-category formulation. Citation corrected to the FDIC deposit-insurance coverage page that states all three elements. No figure changed; source precision only.

    Primary source: FDIC, Understanding Deposit Insurance

  4. BeforeThe New Mexico holiday dates cited a 2026-07-24 release PDF on tax.newmexico.gov.
    AfterThe same dates now cite https://www.tax.newmexico.gov/news-alerts/tax-holiday/, the department's tax-holiday landing page, which states them in plain text. The dates themselves are unchanged.
    Why2026-08-01. sales-tax-holiday-what-it-saves-august-2026. The New Mexico holiday dates are correct and confirmed. The original citation pointed at a release PDF that does not reliably yield extractable text on re-fetch, making the citation fragile to verify. Citation swapped to the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue tax-holiday landing page, which states the dates in plain text. No figure changed; source stability only.

    Primary source: New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, Tax Holiday

  5. BeforeThe article stated that Alphabet did not update its full-year 2026 capital-spending plan, leaving the April range of $180 billion to $190 billion in place, and that it did not disclose its cloud backlog, which stood at $460 billion three months earlier. A section headed "The question the report answered, and the two it did not" was built on those two absences. The article also stated that the stock rose slightly in after-hours trading.
    AfterAlphabet raised its full-year 2026 capital-spending guidance to $195 billion to $205 billion, up from the April range of $180 billion to $190 billion, citing an acceleration in delivering capacity to meet demand, and disclosed a cloud order backlog of $514 billion. The stock swung after hours and ended down about 5% on the raised guidance. The bullet, the section heading, and the paragraph have been rewritten to report the raise and the backlog as the two numbers behind the selloff.
    WhyThe article was drafted from Alphabet's earnings release and did not account for the disclosures made on the earnings call the same day, where both the raised guidance and the backlog were given. The result was a section asserting the opposite of what happened. Caught on July 25, 2026 while cross-checking Alphabet's capex figure against a second Market Pulse article covering the same quarter, which had reported the raise correctly. The article's central point, that the 300 percent earnings jump was mostly investment gains rather than the operating business, is unaffected and stands.

    Primary source: Alphabet Inc., Q2 2026 results and earnings call, July 22, 2026 (full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance raised to $195 billion to $205 billion; cloud backlog $514 billion)

  6. BeforeAfter the June 2026 fix to this entry's definition, its worked example still applied the old $10,000 SALT cap to an explicitly 2026 scenario: "$8,000 in state and local taxes (under the $10,000 SALT limit)." That contradicted the entry's own definition, which had already been corrected to the raised cap.
    AfterThe example now reads the 2026 SALT cap of $40,400 from the reference registry, and the definition was moved from the 2025 cap to the 2026 cap, so the entry is consistent for 2026 end to end. The worked math is unchanged: $8,000 of SALT is fully deductible under either cap, so the $25,000 itemized total and the roughly $2,140 tax saving still hold. The history that the cap rose from a $10,000 TCJA floor is accurate and is kept.
    WhyThe June 20, 2026 correction repaired the definition but not the example in the same entry, so one live number stayed a year and a policy behind. Caught in the full-site factual audit on July 18, 2026. Both figures now interpolate from the registry rather than sitting in the prose.

    Primary source: 26 U.S.C. 164(b)(7), state and local tax deduction limit ($40,400 for 2026), as amended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. 119-21)

  7. BeforeThe Real Cost section called a $7,000 per year IRA contribution a "maxed" contribution. $7,000 was the 2025 limit, not the 2026 maximum.
    AfterThe line now reads the 2026 IRA contribution limit of $7,500 from the reference registry, so "maxed" is accurate. The percentage-based figures that follow (5 to 15 percent of the balance, $50,000 to $150,000 on a $1 million balance) do not depend on the annual amount and are unchanged. A separate worked scenario elsewhere in the lesson uses $7,000 as an illustrative single contribution, not a claimed maximum, and is left as written.
    WhyA live page called a stale figure the maximum. Caught in the full-site factual audit on July 18, 2026. The amount now interpolates from the registry so the next contribution-limit change moves it without an edit.

    Primary source: 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500

  8. BeforeThe end screen projected the leftover card debt forward one year as the balance compounding at about 27 percent, but captioned it "if you only pay interest." Those disagree. If you only pay the interest each month, the balance stays flat; the compounding figure is what happens if you pay nothing.
    AfterThe caption now reads "if you pay nothing on it," which matches both the math and the verdict line, which already described the debt as compounding against you. On a $3,000 balance the projection is about $3,805 after a year of paying nothing. Paying only the interest would instead hold the balance at $3,000 and cost about $805 in interest over the year.
    WhyA wrong caption on a live interactive whose whole purpose is teaching how card interest compounds. The number was right for the "pay nothing" case and the words described a different case. Caught in the full-site audit, calculator and game math pass, on July 17, 2026. The projection is now a tested pure function so the number and its meaning cannot drift apart again.
  9. BeforeThe lesson printed six 2025 figures under 2026 headings. It gave the HSA contribution limits as $4,300 self-only and $8,550 family, and the qualifying HDHP thresholds as a $1,650 self-only or $3,300 family deductible with out-of-pocket maximums of $8,300 and $16,600. It also said a 35-year-old who maxes the self-only HSA for 30 years at a 7% real return reaches roughly $430,000 by 65.
    AfterCorrected to the 2026 figures: $4,400 self-only and $8,750 family contribution limits, and HDHP thresholds of $1,700 and $3,400 deductible with out-of-pocket maximums of $8,500 and $17,000. The 55+ catch-up of $1,000 was already correct and is unchanged. The 30-year projection is now roughly $447,000, and the year-one tax saving at the 22% bracket is $968 rather than $946. All six figures now read from the reference registry rather than sitting in the prose, so the next IRS update moves them without an edit.
    WhyThe lesson also cited the wrong document. Its sources listed Revenue Procedure 2025-32, which is the general 2026 inflation-adjustment procedure, but carried Revenue Procedure 2025-19's publication date; someone swapped the number. The HSA and HDHP amounts live in 2025-19. The link resolved, so nothing looked broken, but a reader who clicked it to check the figures would not have found them. Caught in the full-site audit on July 17, 2026. Two disclosures are owed here. First, the correction shipped earlier that day and went live without an errata entry; this entry closes that gap rather than pretending it did not happen. Second, the registry always held the right values. The lesson had hardcoded its own copies, which is why the two drifted apart without any gate noticing.

    Primary source: IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-19: HSA and HDHP inflation-adjusted amounts for 2026

  10. BeforeThe FSA term and the Source Ledger both gave the 2026 dependent care FSA limit as $5,000, or $2,500 for married filing separately. A Market Pulse article published July 7, 2026 gave it as $5,500, or $2,750, and derived every figure in the piece from that number, including a headline saving of about $1,400.
    AfterThe 2026 limit is $7,500, or $3,750 for married filing separately, raised from $5,000 by Public Law 119-21. The FSA term now reads its figures from the reference registry, and its worked example saves about $2,224 rather than $1,480. The Market Pulse article was withdrawn rather than corrected: its $5,500 matched no source in either direction, so its thesis and all of its arithmetic rested on a number we could not trace to any document. Its URL still resolves and now carries this note.
    WhyThe registry cited Publication 503, whose edition prints the 2025 amount. The citation was honest and the document was simply the wrong one for the year we claimed. The deeper cause was a note in the registry saying the figure was statutory and therefore fixed. Statutory amounts do not drift with inflation, but they do change when Congress amends the statute, which is what happened. That belief was encoded as an inflation review trigger, the one watch that can never fire on an act of Congress, so no watch ever looked. A reader who trusted the term would have set aside $2,500 a year less than the law allows, worth roughly $550 to $900 in lost tax savings. Caught in the full-site audit on July 17, 2026.

    Primary source: IRS Publication 15-B (2026), Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits: dependent care assistance exclusion

  11. BeforeThe worked example read: "$60,000 salary, $3,000 in pre-tax 401(k) contributions, standard deduction of. Taxable income lands somewhere around $42,000." The sentence broke off because an internal marker flagging the deduction as unverified was removed before the figure was ever filled in. The arithmetic behind it quietly assumed a $15,000 deduction, which was the 2025 amount.
    AfterThe example now names the 2026 single standard deduction of $16,100 and lands at $40,900, with $19,100 kept away from the brackets. Every figure reads from the reference registry, and the term now cites the IRS release that prints the deduction.
    WhyThis was the only published term still carrying an unresolved verification marker. The other fifteen were correctly held back from publication; this one was not, and the scrubber that strips those markers before they reach a reader did its job, which left the sentence with no object. The marker was visible to anyone who looked at the source and invisible to every reader. Caught in the full-site audit on July 17, 2026.

    Primary source: IRS releases tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026 (Revenue Procedure 2025-32): standard deduction $16,100 single

  12. July 13, 2026

    Glossary: EPS

    BeforeThe EPS entry's worked example stated Apple reported $97.3 billion in net income and $5.99 in diluted EPS for fiscal year 2024, on about 16.3 billion shares.
    AfterCorrected to Apple's actual fiscal 2024 figures from its Form 10-K: about $93.7 billion in net income and $6.08 in diluted EPS, on roughly 15.4 billion diluted shares. The example's conclusion, a P/E near 38 at a share price around $230, is unchanged.
    WhyThe net income, EPS, and share-count figures did not match Apple's 10-K. Caught during the glossary figure-sourcing audit on July 13, 2026, when every cited number was checked against its primary filing before a citation was added.

    Primary source: Apple Inc. Form 10-K, fiscal year ended September 28, 2024

  13. BeforeThe private-equity entry described the 2007 TXU buyout by KKR, TPG, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners as a $48 billion deal.
    AfterCorrected to roughly $45 billion, the figure supported by TXU's merger filing, with about $40 billion of it financed by debt. The rest of the example, including the 2014 bankruptcy as the largest US private-equity buyout failure, is unchanged.
    WhyThe $48 billion figure overstated the deal; the merger agreement press release puts it near $45 billion. Caught during the glossary figure-sourcing audit on July 13, 2026.

    Primary source: TXU Corp Form 8-K, agreement and plan of merger press release

  14. June 20, 2026

    Glossary: Itemized deduction

    BeforeThe itemized-deduction entry listed the SALT (state and local taxes) cap as $10,000.
    AfterCorrected to the current $40,000 cap for 2025, raised from $10,000 by the 2025 tax law, now read from the centralized 2026 reference data file. The dedicated SALT Deduction glossary entry already carried the correct figure.
    WhyThe general itemized-deduction explainer was not updated when the SALT cap changed, so a live number was wrong. Caught during the Source Ledger figure audit on June 20, 2026.

    Primary source: IRS 2025 Instructions for Schedule A (Form 1040)

  15. June 20, 2026

    Finance trivia: jumbo loans and the conforming loan limit

    BeforeGave the 2026 FHFA conforming loan limit as about $806,500 for most areas and up to roughly $1.21 million in high-cost areas.
    AfterCorrected to the FHFA 2026 values for a one-unit property: a $832,750 baseline limit for most areas and a $1,249,125 ceiling in high-cost areas.
    WhyThe figures shown for 2026 were actually the 2025 values. A current-year YMYL number was wrong and live, so we own it here. Caught during the Source Ledger figure audit on June 20, 2026; both figures now read from the centralized 2026 reference data file so the same stale-figure error is harder to repeat.

    Primary source: FHFA Announces Conforming Loan Limit Values for 2026

  16. BeforeThe fee-disclosure Real Cost example stated that a 0.50 percentage point expense-ratio drag on a $50,000 balance costs approximately $38,000 over 30 years.
    AfterRecomputed under the site's Real Cost convention, where a $50,000 lump sum compounds annually at the net rate (7% minus the expense ratio), the 30-year difference between a 6.95% and a 6.45% net return is about $49,000. The four-year figures in the same example are unchanged.
    WhyThe original 30-year figure understated the compounded difference. Caught during the same Real Cost number audit on June 4, 2026 that corrected the private-markets fee-drag example, applying the same locked convention.

    Primary source: SEC Investor.gov compound interest calculator

  17. BeforeThe Real Cost fee-drag example stated that $50,000 plus $500 a month at 7% before fees, over 30 years, grows to about $640,000 at a 0.10% expense ratio and $596,000 at 0.60%, a gap of $44,000.
    AfterRecomputed under the site's Real Cost convention, the same inputs reach about $992,000 at a 0.10% expense ratio and $882,000 at 0.60%, a gap of roughly $110,000. The total contributions ($230,000) and the conclusion, that the fee gap is real and large, are unchanged.
    WhyThe original ending balances understated the contributions and were too low. Because this example pairs a $50,000 starting balance with $500 monthly contributions, the site's Real Cost convention compounds the whole balance monthly at the net rate divided by 12, contributions at end of month, with the net rate equal to 7% minus the expense ratio (matching the SEC Investor.gov compound interest calculator). Under that convention the corrected figures are about $992,000 and $882,000. Caught during a Real Cost number audit on June 4, 2026.

    Primary source: SEC Investor.gov compound interest calculator

  18. May 13, 2026

    Site copy aligned to business model

    BeforeThe homepage, methodology page, and footer said "no ads, no affiliate, no sponsorships, ever" and "no premium tier." The actual business model includes a small number of affiliate relationships (Wealthfront, SoFi, and Empower applications are pending), a Premium tier launching later in 2026 for deeper content, and the option of disclosed sponsorships in later years if the right partners materialize.
    AfterThe methodology page explains where revenue comes from, what we will and will not accept, and what stays free. The homepage and footer match. Affiliate relationships are disclosed on every page where they appear. The 50 core lessons, the glossary, and the calculators stay free.
    WhyThe original "ever" language was aspirational. The current language is what we can actually keep. We would rather promise something we can hold than something we cannot. Logged here because the principle in differentiator #6 applies to policy corrections too, not only factual errors.
  19. BeforeListed the 2026 IRA contribution limit as $7,000 ($8,000 for age 50+) and the Roth IRA single-filer phase-out range starting at $150,000.
    AfterUpdated to the correct 2026 figures: $7,500 IRA contribution limit, $1,100 catch-up for age 50+ (total $8,600), Roth IRA phase-out for single filers $153,000 to $168,000.
    WhyAn external editorial review caught that the 2026 IRA limit had increased from $7,000 to $7,500, the first catch-up increase in years. Our lesson hadn’t been updated when the IRS published Notice 2025-67 in November 2025. We’ve also added inline source citations to the lesson and built a centralized 2026 reference data file so this kind of stale-figure error is much harder to repeat.

    Primary source: IRS: 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500

See the editorial standards we hold ourselves to: Methodology.
Last reviewed June 16, 2026 · Education only. ClearMoneySchool does not provide individualized investment, tax, or legal advice.