Financial Disclosures
As stated on my front page, I am still an Amazon affiliate, although I no longer actively post Amazon affiliate links in my newer articles. I did not, however, remove Amazon affiliated links from some of my older articles. Basically, that means you should treat any of the Amazon links you see throughout my blog pages or posts as monetized.
If you chose to purchase the item I link to on Amazon, Amazon will pay me a small compensation for funneling them the business. With that said, the large majority of products I link to on this blog are products I have used, read, watched, listened to, enjoyed, and/or believe in. Except for Star Wars Episode III, which was awful. Purchasing that would be an epic waste of money. In fact, none of the prequels were good, so if you see links in the blog to those, just know I am probably making fun of them. Should you mistakenly purchase one of the prequels through an Amazon link from my blog, I am sorry, but on the plus side, I will still receive compensation!
I have no other financial arrangements associated with this blog and do not receive any payment or special favor from any of the blogs, news articles, or podcasts I link to. Should that situation change, I will update this page with the pertinent information.
Not a Trained Professional
Also, as stated on my Golden Albatross page, I am not a certified financial advisor, planner, accountant, or anything else. I am just a guy who read a lot of books, blogs and listened to numerous podcasts. I am simply providing general financial information for my audience in a fun and memorable manner. While I consider many financial issues and situations in my articles; I have not considered yours specifically. Therefore, you cannot hold me liable for your financial actions (like purchasing Star Wars Episode II).
Due to the number of major financial mistakes I’ve made throughout my life (whose tales I regale you with on this site) you’d be wise to conduct your own research and come to your own conclusions. I won’t be insulted if you do. You can always seek professional advice as well, but I would advise to only use professionals who adhere to the Fiduciary Standard in writing. I would also advise you use the fee-only compensation method. Fiduciary fee-only financial advisors or planners have the least conflicts of interest, and have a legal obligation to put your best interests first.
Privacy Policy
Other than asking for email addresses in my contact forms, I don’t actively collect data on my users. Nor do I take any of that data, and sell it onward. Again, as stated on the front page of the blog, other than a few Amazon links in my older articles, I chose not to monetize the grumpusmaximus.com blog. Thus, I don’t sell or provide email addresses, or any other user data, to third parties.
The email addresses I collect, and that you as a user actively provide me when you click on a contact form, are used to keep in touch with my readers. In other words, I use them to send readers updates on my latest articles. If you signed up previously for emails, and no longer want to receive them, then send me an email at grumpusmaximus@grumpusmaximus.com and I will remove you from my mailing list.
That said, as someone who uses the internet you should be aware that you leave a digital trail every time you surf the internet. This includes, but is not limited to, the country your IP address originates from, the type of browser you use, and the links you click while on my page. Google, WordPress, and other companies I connect with in order to run my blog track data like this routinely. They also make it available to websites owners to see and use.
It’s useful data for someone like me, because it helps me judge the popularity of the various topics I write about. Sumo, the company whose application I use to collect email addresses, specifically provides me a snap shot of this type of data when you subscribe to my email list. If that disturbs you, or doesn’t meet your expectation of privacy for this website, please contact me and I will remove you from the email database Sumo keeps on my behalf.
Protect Yourself
Of course, there are ways to limit the data trail you leave on the internet through the use of VPNs, no tracking policies, and in-browser private pages. If this is important to you, I highly recommend these, and other tactics, to maintain as much privacy as possible. It doesn’t hurt my feelings if you show up as a user from Kuwait when in actuality you are sitting in Minnesota.
I hope all my readers understand the attempts I go to to keep your data private, but also understand the limits that a one-man personal finance blog runs into when using heavily automated tools like WordPress, Sumo, and Google Analytics. My ability to protect your data is only as good as their efforts to protect your data in most cases. However, I’m doing what I can, so if you have questions, comments or concerns, please contact me at grumpusmaximus@grumpusmaximus.com.
With that enjoy the blog!
— GM