Editorial Standards & Fact-Checking Policy

Snowballr publishes calculators and educational guides about personal finance. Money decisions affect people's lives, so accuracy matters more than traffic. This page explains exactly how we research, write, review, and correct our content.

Our editorial mission

We exist to make money math visible and verifiable. Every claim on this site should be traceable to a primary source, every formula should match what a financial textbook teaches, and every recommendation should be hedged with the real-world caveats that financial influencers tend to skip.

We do not chase viral takes, contrarian hot-button claims, or speculative market calls. If a topic does not survive the "would I bet my own retirement on this advice?" test, we either rewrite it or do not publish it.

Who writes our content

All articles are written and reviewed by the Snowballr Editorial Team, an independent group of writers and software engineers with a focus on personal finance, retirement planning, and consumer protection. We are not licensed financial advisors and we do not pretend to be — every article on the site says so.

The team operates under a single rule: publish only what we would tell a family member who asked us the same question. That rule is why our debt content recommends the snowball method even though the avalanche method saves slightly more interest, and why our retirement content recommends index funds even though picking individual stocks is more entertaining.

How we source claims

Every quantitative claim on Snowballr links back to one of these primary sources:

• Historical market returns — NYU Stern (Damodaran dataset), Yale Shiller dataset, Vanguard research, BlackRock factsheet data, Morningstar Direct.
• Inflation and CPI — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).
• Tax brackets, contribution limits, and rules — IRS publications (Pub. 590, Pub. 560, etc.), the most recent IRS Notice for that calendar year.
• Mortgage and HYSA rates — Freddie Mac PMMS for mortgage rates, FDIC for deposit rates, individual bank disclosures (linked in-line where rates are quoted).
• Retirement withdrawal research — Trinity Study (Cooley, Hubbard, Walz, 1998 + updates), Bengen 4% rule (1994), Morningstar State of Retirement Income.
• Investor protection — FINRA BrokerCheck, SEC IAPD, FBI IC3 annual reports, FTC Consumer Sentinel.
• Academic research — peer-reviewed journals where the underlying claim is behavioral (e.g., Northwestern Kellogg 2016 study on debt-payoff completion rates).

We do not use other content websites as primary sources. If we cite a number we read on another finance site, we follow that site's citation chain back to the original dataset and link the original instead.

Our fact-checking process

Before any guide or calculator goes live:

1. Math verification — every formula is verified against a financial-math textbook reference (Brealey, Myers & Allen Principles of Corporate Finance, or the formula derivations in CFA Level 1 curriculum). Calculator outputs are spot-checked against at least one independent calculator (e.g., Investor.gov, Bankrate).
2. Number sourcing — every percentage, dollar amount, and date in the article is matched to a primary source link in our internal source ledger. A claim without a sourced number gets either a source or a deletion.
3. Hedging review — claims about future returns are rewritten to use historical-average framing ("the S&P 500 has historically averaged ~10%"), never forward-looking promises.
4. Conflict-of-interest scan — we check that no recommendation in the article links to a product we receive compensation for. If we ever add affiliate links in the future, we will disclose them in-line and update this page; we currently do not have any.
5. Plain-English review — articles are read aloud once before publication. If a paragraph doesn't survive being read out loud to a non-finance friend, it gets rewritten.

Review and update cadence

Personal finance has a fast-decaying half-life. Tax laws change yearly, contribution limits change yearly, mortgage rates change weekly, and what counts as a "competitive" HYSA rate changes monthly. To keep articles useful, every published guide gets reviewed:

• Monthly — articles tied to changing rates (HYSA, mortgage, current contribution limits).
• Quarterly — articles tied to specific calendar-year rules (tax brackets, IRA/401(k) limits, RMD ages).
• Yearly — evergreen explainers (Rule of 72, debt snowball, compound interest, sequence-of-returns risk).
• On material change — out-of-cycle review when a law changes (SECURE Act 2.0, SAVE plan changes, etc.).

Each guide's top byline shows a "Last reviewed" date that reflects the most recent editorial pass, not the original publish date. If you see a date older than the cadence above, we're late — please email us.

Corrections policy

We make mistakes. When we do, we correct them in the open:

• Factual errors are fixed in-line as soon as we confirm them, and a short "Corrected on [date]: [what changed]" note is added at the bottom of the article when the change is non-trivial.
• Math errors that change a calculator output are fixed immediately and a note is published at the top of the affected calculator until the next monthly review.
• If you find an error, please email funplay486@gmail.com. We reply within 1–3 business days, and we do not retaliate against, ignore, or hide good-faith corrections.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure

Snowballr is funded entirely by display advertising via Google AdSense. We have no sponsorship deals, no affiliate links, no referral fees, no paid product placement, no "preferred broker" arrangements, no white-label calculator licensing deals, and no financial-product company relationships. We do not sell user data.

When we link to a third-party tool (FINRA BrokerCheck, the SEC IAPD, Investor.gov), it is because the tool is the authoritative reference for the claim being made — we receive nothing for sending you there. If this changes, we will disclose it in-line and update this page within 7 days.

What we do not do

• We do not publish stock picks, crypto picks, fund picks, or "buy this now" recommendations.
• We do not predict market direction or quote forward-looking returns as if they were guaranteed.
• We do not personalize advice. Calculator inputs are user-supplied; the output is math, not a plan.
• We do not write sponsored content. There is no editorial calendar driven by paying clients because we have none.
• We do not use AI-generated content as the primary author. AI tools may assist with grammar, code, or brainstorming, but every published claim is human-verified against a primary source.

Reader feedback and accountability

Our reader email is the same as our corrections email: funplay486@gmail.com. We read every message. If you spot a sentence that feels off, a number that doesn't match its source, a claim that needs a hedge, or a missing caveat — tell us. We log every correction request and we publish a running tally of corrections issued each year in our annual transparency note (link added at the end of each calendar year).

Related transparency pages

• About Snowballr — who we are and how the site stays free
• Protect your money — fraud prevention and how to verify advisors
• Privacy — what we collect and what we don't
• Terms — site terms of use

Snowballr is provided as-is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. Consult a licensed fee-only fiduciary advisor whose registration you have verified through FINRA BrokerCheck or the SEC IAPD before making decisions involving your specific financial situation.