Eli Wright
Owner and editor, The Penny Plan. Engineering manager by profession. Every guide on this site is published under his editorial responsibility, and his name is the byline on all of them. Contact: info@thepennyplan.com · LinkedIn
Eli is not a financial adviser, accountant, or attorney, and nothing on this site is personalized financial advice. That limit is deliberate and it shapes everything here. The Penny Plan exists to do one thing: explain how everyday money topics work, in plain English, from primary sources, so readers can reason about their own situations and know what questions to bring to a qualified professional.
Why this site exists
Most personal finance writing fails in one of two directions. It is either written for people who already speak the language, or it is written to sell something. The gap in between is enormous: someone with a normal question, like whether a 401(k) loan gets taxed twice or what actually happens to a credit score when a card is closed, and no easy way to get a straight answer.
The Penny Plan is an attempt at that middle ground. Explain the mechanism. Show the arithmetic. Name the official source. Stop before the sales pitch.
The background behind the tools
Eli’s professional background is engineering, not financial advising. He manages engineering work and has more than a decade of experience checking calculations, documenting assumptions, and reviewing technical work before it is released. That quantitative background is most relevant to The Penny Plan’s calculators and decision tools: formulas should be visible, inputs should be defined, edge cases should be tested, and an estimate should never be presented as a guarantee.
It does not make Eli a financial professional, and the site does not claim otherwise. It does mean the tools are approached as models that readers should be able to inspect, reproduce, and challenge. The Methodology page documents the formulas, limitations, source authorities, and privacy model.
Research standards and responsibility
- Guides should answer a useful question and provide a calculation, comparison, or procedure the reader can inspect.
- Factual claims need relevant primary sources. The Sources page is a reference directory; the sources on an individual guide must support that guide’s specific claims.
- Calculated examples should disclose their assumptions and arithmetic. A qualitative checklist should be described as a checklist, and illustrative numbers should not be presented as observed results.
- Time-sensitive figures need an applicable date and a reference. Links and publication timestamps do not automatically make a rule current.
- Drafting and editing use AI assistance. Eli remains responsible for what is published, but the byline is not evidence of independent financial, legal, or tax review. The Editorial Policy explains the standards and correction process.
Independence
This site may display third-party advertising. No advertiser has any say in what gets written or what an article concludes, and nothing here is a paid placement or a sponsored recommendation. The Penny Plan does not sell financial products and has no relationship with any bank, lender, insurer, or broker.
Corrections and updates
If something on this site is wrong or out of date, report the page and affected claim through the Contact page or by email. The correction process calls for checking that claim against its source and fixing the explanation on the page. Guides display an “Updated” date for content changes; it does not certify a full source review. A specific verification statement should say what was checked and when.
What this site will never do
No stock picks. No “guaranteed” returns. No get-rich-quick framing. No pretending general information is personal advice. For decisions that carry real weight, a qualified professional who knows your full picture beats any article, including ours. See the full Disclaimer.