Privacy Policy
FinLitSimplified ("we") runs finlitsimplified.org, a free financial literacy education site. This page explains what information the site collects, where it lives, and how to get it removed. The short version: we collect only what the features you use require, we count visits with Google Analytics but never tie those counts to your account, we do not run ads, and we never sell or share your information for marketing.
What we collect
Newsletter. If you subscribe, we store the email address you enter. Nothing else. Creating a simulator account also adds the account's email address to the mailing list. Every newsletter carries an unsubscribe link that removes your address straight away, with no sign-in and no reply needed. You can also email support@finlitsimplified.org and we will remove you by hand.
Accounts. If you create an account for the stock market simulator, we store your username, your password as a salted cryptographic hash (never in plain text), the date the account was created, and, if you give one, your email address and whether it has been verified. An email address is optional at signup: without a verified one an account simply has no password recovery. Any address you do give is also added to the newsletter mailing list described above. If you change the address later, we email a code to the new one and keep the old one on the account until that code is entered, so an address only replaces the one on file once you have proved you can read it.
Google sign-in. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your Google account ID and email address so we can recognize you on your next visit. We never see or store a password for these accounts, and we cannot access anything else in your Google account.
Activity on the site. For signed-in users we store learning progress (glossary terms marked known, glossary part-test scores, and practice question scores) and simulator activity (your simulated portfolio, trade history, and when you last reset your portfolio). The simulator uses pretend money only; we never collect real financial or payment information.
The simulator leaderboard is public. Every simulator account is listed on it, including one that has never placed a trade: your username, portfolio value, returns, cash, largest holdings, most recent trades, and how many times and when you reset your portfolio are visible to anyone who opens the leaderboard. Creating an account is therefore enough to put your username on a public page. Nothing else about your account appears there: not your email address, and not your learning progress. If you would rather not be listed, email support@finlitsimplified.org and we will delete the account.
Site traffic
We use Google Analytics to see how many people visit the site and which pages get read. It tells us how many visits a page got and roughly where in the world they came from; it does not tell us who you are. To do that it sets its own cookies and receives your IP address, the pages you open, and general details about your browser and device. We never send it your name, your email address, your account, or anything you do while signed in, so the two cannot be matched up. We look at the totals to decide what to write next, and that is the whole purpose.
If you would rather not be counted, Google publishes an opt-out browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, and any ad blocker will also stop it. Nothing on the site breaks if you block it.
Cookies and local storage
Signing in sets one session cookie so the site remembers who you are, and Google Analytics sets the cookies described above to tell a repeat visit from a new one. There are no advertising cookies, and nothing here follows you to other websites. The site does not keep your learning progress on your device: if you are signed in it is saved to your account, and if you are not, it is held in the page's memory for that visit only and is gone once you close or reload the page. If you used the site before this change, any progress your browser had already saved is uploaded to your account the next time you sign in and then removed from the browser.
Where your data is stored
The site is hosted on Vercel, and all account, progress, and newsletter data is stored in a Redis database provided by Upstash. Access to that database is limited to the site itself and the site owner.
Third-party services
The site relies on a small number of services to work:
- Vercel hosts the site and serves its pages.
- Upstash provides the database described above.
- Resend delivers account emails such as verification codes and password resets to the address you provide.
- Google handles authentication if you choose to sign in with Google, and Google Analytics counts site traffic as described above.
- Stock quotes shown in the simulator are fetched by our servers from public market data sources. Those requests never include anything about you.
Each of these providers processes data only to provide its service to us. We do not share your information with anyone else, and we do not sell it to anyone, period.
How long we keep it and how to delete it
Account data is kept for as long as the account exists. To delete your account and everything tied to it, or to be removed from the newsletter, email support@finlitsimplified.org from the address on the account and we will remove it.
Children's privacy
The site is meant for students and general audiences learning about personal finance. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, email support@finlitsimplified.org and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
If our practices change, this page will be updated and the date at the top revised. Meaningful changes will be noted here rather than applied silently.
August 15, 2026. Resetting a simulator portfolio now keeps the trade history instead of erasing it, so those trades stay stored and stay eligible to appear on the public leaderboard. The leaderboard also shows how many times an account has reset and when each of those resets happened.
August 12, 2026. Added Google Analytics to count site traffic, and wrote up what it collects in the section above. The site carried no analytics at all between its move off Squarespace and this date.
Contact
Questions about privacy or your data: support@finlitsimplified.org.