About LinksVid

LinksVid is a personal finance publication for people living and working in the United States. It started in July 2026 and is written and edited by Daniel Reyes, a former credit union loan officer turned financial writer. Everything here is published in English for a US audience — dollar amounts, IRS rules, FDIC insurance limits, and the account types that actually exist in this country.

What This Site Is For

Most personal finance writing is either too vague to act on ("spend less, save more") or written to sell something. LinksVid is an attempt at a third option: articles that show the arithmetic. Each guide works through real numbers — what a budget looks like against a specific paycheck, what a mortgage actually costs once taxes and insurance are included, what two different assumptions do to a retirement balance over thirty years — so you can substitute your own figures and see where you land.

How a Guide Gets Written

1. Start from the primary source. IRS publications and current-year revenue procedures, FDIC and NCUA rules, SEC investor bulletins, CFPB guidance, and Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Not another blog post.
2. Work the numbers. Every claim about costs, rates, or tax treatment gets an example with dollar figures, and the example is checked against the source before publication.
3. Name the trade-off. Most financial decisions have a cost on the other side. If a strategy is slower, riskier, or requires more work, the article says so rather than hiding it.
4. List the sources. Every guide ends with a Sources & References section linking the IRS, FDIC, SEC, CFPB, or BLS pages the figures came from.
5. Date it and sign it. Each article shows who wrote it, when it was published, and when it was last updated. Rate and contribution-limit figures are the first thing rechecked.

Who Writes and Edits LinksVid

LinksVid is currently a one-person publication. Daniel researches, writes, edits, and fact-checks every article, which means there is no anonymous content anywhere on the site and no writer whose background you cannot check. Before financial journalism he spent six years as a loan officer at a regional credit union, reviewing thousands of consumer loan applications — the experience behind the site's emphasis on what borrowing actually costs rather than what it is advertised to cost.

He holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and completed the coursework for the Certified Financial Planner designation. He is not a CFP, not a registered investment adviser, and does not manage money for anyone. The systems in these guides were tested on his own finances: paying off $28,000 of consumer debt on an entry-level salary, building a six-month emergency fund on variable freelance income, and tracking subscriptions for three years to document the leakage patterns in the frugal living guide. Full credentials are on his author page.

What LinksVid Covers

Guides are organized into 12 topics. Each topic page collects every article in that area, newest first.

• Budgeting — Zero-based, 50/30/20, and envelope systems that survive a real month.
• Saving — High-yield accounts, CDs, sinking funds, and building a cash cushion.
• Investing — Index funds, ETFs, asset allocation, and the mistakes that cost the most.
• Debt — Payoff methods, student loans, and what to do when bills go past due.
• Credit — FICO factors, credit reports, disputes, and responsible card use.
• Income — Raises, side work, freelancing, and growing earning power on purpose.
• Retirement — 401(k)s, IRAs, contribution limits, and the compound math behind them.
• Tax — Deductions, credits, filing rules, and planning that actually applies to you.
• Insurance — Health, life, and auto coverage — what to buy and what to skip.
• Home Buying — Mortgages, down payments, closing costs, and rent-versus-buy math.
• Frugal Living — Spending less on purpose without turning life into a punishment.
• Passive Income — Dividends, REITs, savings interest, and honest return expectations.

How LinksVid Is Funded

The site is funded by display advertising served programmatically through Google AdSense. There are no affiliate links: we are not paid a commission when you open an account, apply for a card, or buy insurance through this site, and no advertiser sees an article before it publishes or has any say in what it says. The full policy is on the Affiliate Disclosure page.

Corrections

Financial rules change: tax brackets are indexed every year, contribution limits move, and rate environments shift. If you find a figure on this site that is wrong or out of date, email the page URL to hello@linksvid.com. Reader-flagged items are checked first, the article is updated if the correction is warranted, and the "Updated" date at the top of the article changes with it.

What LinksVid Is Not

LinksVid is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, bank, credit union, insurance agency, CPA firm, or law firm. Nothing published here is personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice, and no advisor-client relationship is created by reading it or emailing us. For decisions about your own situation, work with a licensed professional in your state. The full text is on the Financial Disclaimer page.

Contact

Questions, corrections, and topic suggestions: hello@linksvid.com.
Business and press: team@linksvid.com. More detail on the contact page.