Questions & answers

The things people ask most. If yours isn’t here, the about and disclaimer pages cover more.

Is this financial advice?

No. Everything here is educational — it explains concepts and shows how the math works in worked examples you can check by hand. It is not individualized financial, tax, or legal advice, and using the site doesn’t create any advisory relationship. For decisions about your own money, talk to a licensed professional. See the full disclaimer.

Why is it free?

Because the people who most need this are the least able to pay for it, and charging would defeat the point. There’s nothing to buy, no premium tier, and no products we earn commissions on. The project is being set up as a nonprofit — more on the about page.

Do you track me or collect my data?

No accounts, no email capture, no analytics, no cookies. Your progress — completed lessons, quiz scores, flashcard schedule, streak — is saved only in your browser’s local storage and never leaves your device. Clear your browser data and it’s gone. The one thing we ever receive is a suggestion you choose to send — and even then, we can’t tell who sent it. See privacy.

What order should I take the courses in?

If you’re new to investing, start with Simple Steps for a Retirement Portfolio — it assumes nothing. From there, the stock courses (fundamental and technical analysis) and income investing each stand on their own; take whichever fits what you want to do. Credit and Credit Building and Grant Writing sit outside that sequence entirely and assume nothing from the others — the first is often what pays off soonest if borrowing is expensive for you right now, and the second is about money you don’t pay back at all. The “where do I start?” quiz on the home page can point you.

Is there something for young kids?

Yes — the kids’ corner is a K–5 space with short lessons, read-aloud cards, and simple games about money: what it is, needs versus wants, and saving, spending, and giving. It saves progress separately from the main site, only in the browser, the same no-account way as everything else here.

Are the numbers current?

The concepts don’t change; specific figures do. Contribution limits, tax thresholds, and interest rates move over time, so where a lesson uses one we flag that it changes and tell you to check the current official number rather than trusting a figure you memorized. We cite the sources behind time-sensitive facts as we build them out. Where a lesson works through a real company, its figures are a snapshot from one specific date — labelled as such on the page, and deliberately not updated.

Do the examples use real companies or investments?

Mostly fictional ones — tickers like UVWXYZ with hypothetical numbers, so a lesson teaches a method that works at any broker. A few lessons work through a real, named company instead, because some things only real filings can teach: a company reporting two different earnings figures for the same year, for instance. Where that happens, the lesson says so on the page, every figure comes from the company’s own public filings, and all of them are a frozen snapshot from one date we tell you. A lesson written at several reading levels sometimes works through a different company at the younger ones — whichever level you are reading, you get that company’s notice and that company’s one date. A few pages also name a real fund — the name and nothing else, never a single figure — so you can recognize it when you meet it in the real world; those pages carry a notice saying exactly that, right where the name appears. Those are never recommendations. We have no relationship with any company we name — not sponsored, not endorsed, not affiliated, not paid, and they have no involvement in what we write. A company shows up because its published numbers happened to fit the arithmetic a lesson teaches, and we deliberately stop short of a buy-or-avoid conclusion. The calculators use no real data at all: every number in them is one you enter or one we invented to show the shape of the math.

Can I use this in my classroom or program?

That’s exactly the kind of use we’re hoping for. The material is free to read and learn from. The precise terms for reuse and redistribution are still being settled as the organization forms — see the terms, and check back as they firm up.

How do I save my progress across devices?

Because we don’t have accounts, progress lives in one browser at a time. On your progress page you can download your progress as a file and restore it in another browser — the no-account way to move it around or keep a backup.

I found an error. How do I report it?

Please do — accuracy matters here. Send it through the suggestion box: no account, no email, takes a minute, and a real person reads every one. And treat every figure as something to verify against an official source before you act on it — that habit outlasts any single fix of ours.