Terms of Service
These terms are an agreement between you and FinLitSimplified ("we"), the operator of finlitsimplified.org. By using the site you accept them. The short version: everything here is free educational material, none of it is financial advice, the simulator uses pretend money, and if you create an account we expect you to use it honestly. If you do not agree with these terms, do not use the site.
1. What the site is
FinLitSimplified is a free financial literacy education site. It offers articles, a glossary, practice questions, financial calculators, a newsletter, and a stock market simulator that uses virtual money. There is nothing to buy, no ads, and no premium tier. We are not a bank, a broker-dealer, an investment adviser, or any other kind of regulated financial institution, and nothing on the site creates an advisory or fiduciary relationship between you and us.
2. Not financial advice
All content on the site, including articles, glossary entries, practice questions, calculator results, simulator data, and tool recommendations, is for general education only. It is not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or other asset. Content may be incomplete, simplified, or out of date. Before making any real financial decision, consult a licensed professional who knows your situation. You are solely responsible for what you do with your money.
3. Who may use the site
You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If you are under 18, you should have a parent or guardian's permission to use the site. Anyone may read the public pages. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle the data of users under 13 who reach us anyway.
4. Accounts
Creating an account is optional. Most of the site works without one; an account saves your learning progress and lets you use the simulator. If you create one, you agree to:
- Provide an email address you actually control.
- Keep your password to yourself. Anything done through your account is treated as done by you, so tell us right away at support@finlitsimplified.org if you think someone else has access.
- Create one account for yourself, not accounts for other people.
- Pick a username that is not offensive, misleading, or an impersonation of someone else. Usernames appear publicly on the simulator leaderboard.
We may suspend or delete an account that breaks these terms, abuses the site, or sits behind activity we reasonably believe is automated or fraudulent. Where practical we will warn you first, but we do not have to. You can delete your own account at any time by emailing us, as described in the Privacy Policy.
5. The simulator
The stock market simulator is a game. The money in it is virtual, has no cash value, and cannot be bought, sold, transferred, or redeemed for anything real. No real securities are traded, no real orders are placed anywhere, and simulator results say nothing about how a real portfolio would perform: real markets involve fees, taxes, order slippage, and liquidity limits that the simulator does not model.
Prices in the simulator come from public market data sources and may be delayed, approximate, or occasionally wrong. We may correct errors, adjust or reverse simulated trades affected by bad data, reset portfolios, or change how the simulator works at any time. The leaderboard shows every account's username and simulated performance publicly, whether or not it has traded; if you do not want to appear on it, do not create an account, or ask us to remove yours. Each portfolio on the leaderboard is priced from what that account's own browser last saved rather than from a server-side replay of its trades, so the standings are taken on trust. Exploiting data errors or using automation to climb the leaderboard is not allowed, and we may reset or remove accounts that do it.
6. Calculators
The calculators produce estimates from simplified formulas, and some rely on rates, limits, and tax figures that change from year to year. Their output will not match a real quote, statement, or tax return. Treat every result as a rough illustration, nothing more.
The calculators are for education only. They are not financial, tax, investment, or legal advice, and no result is a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Check anything that matters with a qualified professional before you act on it. We accept no liability for any decision made using these tools.
7. Acceptable use
When using the site you agree not to:
- Break any law, or use the site to help someone else break one.
- Probe, disrupt, or overload the site, or try to get around its security, authentication, or rate limits.
- Scrape, harvest, or bulk-download site content or market data, or access the site with bots or other automated tools, except for ordinary search engine indexing.
- Redistribute, resell, or republish the market data shown on the site. It is licensed for display here, not for reuse elsewhere.
- Misrepresent who you are or your affiliation with anyone.
8. Our content and your license
The articles, glossary, practice questions, graphics, code, and everything else that makes up the site belong to FinLitSimplified or are used with permission, and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, revocable license to view and use the site for your own learning. Teachers and students may also use reasonable amounts of site content in a classroom, free of charge, with credit to FinLitSimplified. Any other copying, republishing, or commercial use needs our written permission first.
If you believe something on the site infringes your copyright, email support@finlitsimplified.org with the material in question, where it appears on the site, proof that you own the work, and your contact information. We will review it and remove infringing material promptly.
9. Third-party sites and tools
The site links to outside resources, including recommended calculators, embedded videos, and the sources behind our market data. Those sites have their own terms and privacy policies, we do not control them, and a link or recommendation is not a guarantee of anything. Your use of them is between you and their operators.
10. Newsletter
Subscribing to the newsletter, directly or by creating an account, means we may email you site updates. How that address is stored and how to unsubscribe are covered in the Privacy Policy.
11. Availability and changes
This is a free service run by a small team. We may change, pause, or shut down any part of the site at any time, including accounts, saved progress, and simulator portfolios, without notice or liability. We do our best to keep the site up and your data intact, but we make no promise of uninterrupted service and we recommend you not treat the site as a system of record for anything important.
12. Disclaimer of warranties
The site is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the site will be error-free, secure, or always available, or that its content, market data, and calculator output are correct or current. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
13. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, FinLitSimplified and its operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of money, profits, data, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of the site. That includes, without limitation, any financial decision you make after reading site content or using the simulator or calculators. Because the site is free, if we are ever found liable despite this section, our total liability to you for all claims combined is capped at fifty U.S. dollars ($50). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain liability limits, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
14. Indemnification
If your violation of these terms, or your misuse of the site, causes a third party to bring a claim against us, you agree to cover the losses and reasonable legal costs we incur as a result.
15. Disputes and governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict of law rules. If something goes wrong, email us first at support@finlitsimplified.org; most problems can be fixed without lawyers. Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Massachusetts, and both sides consent to those courts, except that either side may use small claims court where its rules allow. Any claim must be filed within one year of when it arose, to the extent the law permits that limit.
16. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms as the site evolves. When we do, we will update this page and the date at the top, and meaningful changes will be noted here rather than applied silently. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the new terms; if you do not accept them, stop using the site and, if you have an account, ask us to delete it.
17. Everything else
These terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about the site. If a court finds part of them unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a provision right away, we are not giving it up. You may not transfer your rights under these terms to anyone else; we may transfer ours if the site changes hands, and these terms will still protect you.
18. Contact
Questions about these terms: support@finlitsimplified.org.