Editorial Policy

First Quarter Finance (FQF) is a personal finance blog that puts you, the user, first.

We research and analyze your questions and concerns related to money.

The following guidelines were designed to keep us accountable to you and our profession.

Journalistic Integrity at First Quarter Finance

Detailed Disclosure Policy

We show an abbreviated version of the following in every post that contains links from which we could possibly earn a commission.

When you buy/reserve/sign up through a link, we may earn a commission. There’s never a cost to you. We give your best option(s), regardless of if a company pays a commission. Writers are not aware of who we partner with so we avoid bias.

Content

Our main goal is to consistently provide you with the best information available.

We also strive to make our content as user-friendly as possible.

We publish content around the clock — and our content is maintained by a staff of editors who keep the information current. We update information as necessary. We adhere to an update schedule. We also update on an as-needed basis if something needs updating before the usual time.

If the publish or date last updated date isn’t recent, this doesn’t mean it’s out of date. It simply means the content is evergreen (i.e., doesn’t go out of date often).

You’ll find that our original reporting covers everything from how to pay by check to rental cars to gift cards.

We employ professional writers, editors, and reviewers with the appropriate skill sets to help bring you the most trustworthy information. We always encourage you to seek the one-on-one help of a certified professional. Although we largely avoid topics requiring the expertise of certified professionals.

You can find out more about our capable team on our About page.

Accuracy

We believe if something isn’t cited, it isn’t true. We follow strict academic-level standards to ensure what we write is unbiased, comprehensive, actionable, and credible.

Policies and facts can change over time, so we work with a review schedule to continually review and update articles as necessary.

The average article has received 40+ updates since publication. The date field only gets updated if we have reviewed the article entirely and confirmed everything is up-to-date.

Additionally, the companies we cover often monitor our articles. This means both users and organizations hold First Quarter Finance to high standards.

Some companies and/or their reputation management firms ask for the information we provide to be taken down or reworded. They don’t like customers to know they charge high interest, have a poor reputation, or that their service is difficult to cancel. First Quarter Finance stands firm in our agreement with the First Amendment. Therefore, we do not let companies dictate what we can and cannot say.

Our editors ensure our content is ethical and appropriate for all ages. You can comfortably share our content with family, friends, and coworkers. If we do not publish anything that’s even borderline not family-friendly or borderline unethical.

We are constantly improving our workflows to keep the friction between you and your task to a minimum. But we are human and can’t make warranties regarding the accuracy of the information. If you have a question, comment, or concern about an article, please let us know right away by using our Contact page. We review our content often, but we very much value your attentiveness.

Sources

You shouldn’t have to question where we get our information, so we include attribution throughout our content.

That sometimes looks like a link to a company’s return policy on its website. Other times, we’ll state that we spoke with company representatives.

We don’t just ask the question once — all of our writers lean on multiple sources to confirm their findings. Writers are required to cross-check their sources and prove to you that they’ve done so.

Artificial Intelligence and Authorship

First Quarter Finance does not publish AI-generated content or use AI-generated imagery in place of stock photography.

All of our content is researched, written, and updated by our qualified staff of professional writers and editors.

While we acknowledge the transformational potential of artificial intelligence, we also acknowledge its limitations in separating fact from fiction. We believe that human verification of facts is essential to providing the best-quality personal finance content possible.

Our writers and editors remain committed to citing root sources and conducting firsthand research to create content that is original, accurate, and credible.

Advertisers

Advertisers have no influence on our content. We do not accept content from outside of our small editorial team.

All of our content is created and edited by our qualified staff. This ensures you get answers with no hidden agendas.

You may be accustomed to viewing online articles that try to coerce you into doing or thinking something that’s not in your best interest. That does not happen at First Quarter Finance because we are ethical.

All affiliate partnerships are disclosed at the top of the page. Affiliate link opportunities are included only after the article has been written. This keeps writers from giving preferential treatment to a paid company, even if they were to do it without ill-intent.

Writers do not know who we have an affiliate relationship with and who we do not. This ensures First Quarter Finance is supported but also that our content is not biased. Furthermore, we partner with very few affiliates.

Only about 1% of our posts include at least one affiliate link. Of that 1%, the majority go to Amazon.com.

You can find out more about our relationship with advertisers in the Advertising Policy section of our Privacy Policy page.

Feedback

We embrace negative feedback and we take your feedback seriously — especially if an article does not address your question or needs updating.

To express any questions or concerns, please use our Contact page, or write to us at:

More Holdings LLC
2626 Throckmorton St, #1333
Dallas, TX 75219

Beyond these guidelines, all staffers are required to sign an ethics contract which details our commitment to journalistic integrity. A breach of the contract is grounds for termination.

We’re working hard for your continued trust.

If you’d like to find out more about us, please see our About page.