How we research before we publish

Personal finance is a field where unsourced opinions travel faster than facts. We've designed our process to slow ourselves down before we hit publish.

The five-step research process

1. Start with a real question someone asked us

Every article starts from a real question — from a reader email, a forum post, a search-trend pattern, or a conversation. We never write to fill a calendar slot. If we don't have a real question, we don't have an article.

2. Read the primary sources first

Before we read what anyone else has written about a topic, we read the source: the RBI master direction, the Income-Tax Act section, the IRDAI circular, the SEBI regulation. We screenshot the relevant page and link to it in the article.

3. Run the numbers ourselves

Every claim involving money is checked in a spreadsheet by the writer and then independently re-checked by a second reviewer. If the article is calculator-led, the calculator math is unit-tested in code.

4. Test against a 'would I do this myself?' filter

Before publishing any product or strategy recommendation, the editorial team asks the same question: 'Would we do this with our own money?' If the answer is no, the article either changes or doesn't run.

5. Date-stamp and schedule the re-review

Every article has a 'last updated' date. Rate-sensitive pieces (savings rates, loan rates, FD tables) re-review monthly. Strategy pieces (how to think about insurance, the case for index funds) re-review every 12 months.

What we will never do

• Publish a product recommendation we haven't personally used or interviewed real users about for at least three months.
• Run a 'top 10 X' list ranked by anything other than honest editorial judgement.
• Hide negative product information to protect an affiliate relationship.
• Use stock numbers ('SBI offers up to 7%') without naming which deposit product, what tenure, and what the post-tax number looks like.