What this site is — and isn’t

MJBurrows is an independent UK personal finance publication. The site exists to take the financial information that affects ordinary people’s wallets — tax, pensions, mortgages, savings, ISAs, crypto, investing, the broader UK economy — and translate it from jargon-heavy industry-speak into plain English.

The site is journalism and education. It is not financial advice. The distinction matters and runs through everything below.

What the site publishes:

• News articles covering UK financial events, policy changes, and market activity
• Long-form guides explaining UK personal finance topics
• Calculators and tools that help readers estimate their own positions
• A weekly newsletter summarising the above

What the site does not publish:

• Personal financial advice for individual readers
• Specific product recommendations (“open this account”, “buy this fund”)
• Trading signals or buy/sell calls on individual securities
• Sponsored content disguised as editorial
• Political campaigning or party-political opinion

Editorial independence

This site has one owner: Matthew Burrows. There is no parent company, no investor group, no advertising sales team, and no commercial sponsor that influences what gets published or how.

Decisions about what to cover, how to frame it, when to publish, and which sources to trust are made by Matthew Burrows alone, in line with this policy.

If a commercial relationship is ever introduced (see Commercial model below), it will be disclosed clearly and confined to clearly-marked promotional placements. Editorial content will never be available for purchase.

Never advice

This is the strongest line in this policy. Nothing on this site — not in articles, not in calculators, not in guides — is financial advice.

The site provides:

• Information about how UK financial systems, products, and rules work
• Education to help readers understand the concepts and trade-offs involved in financial decisions
• Tools that produce estimates based on inputs the reader provides

The site does not provide:

• Personalised recommendations for an individual’s circumstances
• Advice on which products to buy, hold, or sell
• A substitute for the work of a regulated financial adviser

Calculator outputs, guide projections, and article analysis should be treated as starting points for understanding — not as instructions for action.

Sourcing

For tools, calculators, and guides, every number, every rule, every threshold traces back to a primary source. The sources used most often:

• HMRC — for tax thresholds, rates, allowances, and the rules behind them
• gov.uk — for UK government policy, benefits, regulations, and official guidance
• Bank of England — for monetary policy, interest rates, and central banking data
• Office for National Statistics (ONS) — for economic, labour, and demographic data
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) — for regulatory matters and the regulated-adviser register
• Companies House — for company registration data
• Departmental publications (DWP, Treasury, etc.) — for sector-specific official data

In news and analysis pieces, sourcing is selective rather than exhaustive — major facts are cited, and where I am sharing my interpretation rather than reporting verified data, that is flagged in the article.

Where a third party is the source of market data — including Twelve Data, Yahoo Finance, and CoinGecko, which provide ticker and asset-price data on the site — the attribution appears in the footer and on relevant pages.

Image and media sourcing

Images on the site are either created or commissioned for MJBurrows, licensed from stock providers (typically Unsplash, Pexels, or similar Creative Commons / royalty-free sources), or used under fair-use convention for editorial purposes (such as screenshots of public documents). Where attribution is required by the licence, it appears alongside the image or in the article footer.

Verification and accuracy

Every published article is fact-checked before it goes live. Numerical claims are checked against their primary source. Quotes are checked against the original speaker or document. Where a claim depends on inference rather than verified data, the inference is flagged in the text.

Tools and calculators are tested against worked examples drawn from official guidance. Where HMRC publishes a worked example for a particular tax scenario, the calculator’s output is cross-checked against it.

Where a claim cannot be verified to the standards above, it is not published. Speculation, when used, is clearly labelled as such — not presented as fact.

Errors do happen. When they’re spotted — by readers, by me, or by anyone else — they are corrected promptly. See Corrections below.

How AI is used (and how it isn’t)

Artificial intelligence is part of the working environment in 2026. It is treated as a research and drafting assistant, not as the author of any content on this site.

Where AI may be used:

• Research summaries (for example, condensing a long official document so I can read the relevant parts faster)
• Initial structure or outline of a draft
• Spell-checking, grammar suggestions, and copy-editing assistance
• Code generation for site features (calculators, tools, infrastructure)

What remains human:

• The decision of what to publish
• The judgement on what claims need sourcing
• The voice, framing, and tone of every piece
• The fact-checking pass before publication
• The final review and sign-off

Every published article is read, edited, and approved by me before it goes live. AI is not the author of any article, calculator, or guide on this site. If this changes — if AI ever takes on more than an assistant role in producing published content — the change will be disclosed openly on this page.

Authorship

All content on this site is written by Matthew Burrows. There are no other staff writers, no external freelancers, no ghostwriters, and no syndicated content.

If contributors or guest writers are introduced in future, they will be named on the articles they contribute, with their credentials disclosed and their relationship to the site made clear.

Commercial model and disclosures

As of April 2026, MJBurrows generates no revenue. The site and the newsletter are funded entirely by Matthew Burrows’ personal time and personal investment.

The site does not currently carry:

• Display advertising
• Affiliate links
• Sponsored content of any kind
• Paid product placements
• Pay-for-coverage arrangements

If commercial relationships are introduced in future — the most likely route is newsletter sponsorships — they will:

• Be clearly labelled where they appear (e.g. “SPONSORED” tags)
• Be confined to clearly demarcated placements, separate from editorial content
• Never influence editorial decisions about what to cover or how
• Be disclosed in this policy as soon as they exist

Coverage of any company, product, financial instrument, or service will never be available for purchase under any circumstances.

Conflicts of interest

The credibility of independent personal-finance coverage depends on readers being able to trust that what’s written isn’t shaped by what the writer privately stands to gain. Two specific commitments cover the most common conflict scenarios.

Personal investments

Where I write about a specific company, financial product, asset, or sector that I personally hold a position in, that interest is disclosed in the article.

I do not currently hold positions that materially conflict with general UK personal-finance coverage. The broad-market index funds, savings accounts, and pensions that most readers will encounter in coverage are also held by me as a UK resident — that’s not the kind of holding that creates a meaningful conflict.

If I take a position in a specific stock, fund, cryptocurrency, or other asset that the site covers in its own right (as opposed to the general categories above), the relevant article will disclose this at the top.

I will never short or take positions designed to profit from negative coverage published on this site.

Gifts and hospitality

I do not accept gifts, hospitality, paid trips, free products, or any other form of compensation from companies, products, or entities covered on this site.

Where modest hospitality is offered as part of legitimate professional engagement (a coffee at an industry event, for example), it does not influence editorial coverage and is not solicited.

If anything of more significant value is ever offered, it is declined.

Editorial boundaries

There are things this site does not do — and these limits are deliberate, not accidental:

• No specific product recommendations. No “best buy” lists for savings accounts, mortgages, ISAs, investment funds, insurance products, or any other financial product
• No trading signals. Coverage of stocks, funds, ETFs, commodities, or cryptocurrencies is educational and contextual — it does not tell readers what to buy, sell, or hold
• No party-political commentary. Political decisions are reported when they affect UK residents’ finances, but reporting is factual and non-partisan
• No undisclosed relationships. Any commercial relationship that affects coverage will be disclosed
• No fabricated quotes or unverified claims. If a claim cannot be supported, it does not get published

Corrections

Errors are corrected publicly and promptly.

If you spot an error anywhere on the site, please email contact@mjburrows.com with:

• The URL of the page
• The specific claim or figure that is wrong
• The correct information, with a source if possible

I aim to acknowledge correction reports within two working days and to publish corrections within five working days of confirmation. Significant corrections are noted on the affected article so readers know the page has been updated and why.

The full corrections workflow — including how corrections are logged, what gets noted on-page, and how to escalate if you disagree with a response — is documented on the Corrections page.

Updates and review cadence

Published content is reviewed for accuracy on an ongoing schedule:

• Calculators are reviewed at least quarterly, plus event-driven updates when HMRC publishes new rates (annual Budget, Autumn Statement, new tax year)
• Guides are reviewed at least twice a year, with major rewrites whenever the underlying regulation changes
• Tax-year-sensitive content is prioritised for review at the tax-year transition each April
• Articles are not generally re-edited after publication unless a correction is required, but where a piece’s claims become outdated by subsequent events, an update note is added

The “Last reviewed” date on each piece reflects the most recent honest check of that content. The date is not a marketing stamp — it changes only when the content has actually been re-checked.

Reader contact

For editorial enquiries — corrections, story tips, press requests, reader questions — the address is contact@mjburrows.com. The contact page is at /contact/.

I read every email myself and respond within one to three working days where possible.