Privacy policy
Last updated 9 October 2026
The short version. Your answers stay on your own device unless you buy a plan. If you do, we keep your answers so your plan works, plus your email so we can send you the link. We don't sell your information, we don't use advertising or tracking cookies, and we don't send marketing emails.
Who we are
The Big Trip Budget is run by Alex Thomson, a sole trader based in the UK. Alex is the "controller" of your personal information, which means he decides how it's used and is responsible for protecting it.
Contact: hello@thebigtripbudget.co.uk
Postal address: [business address to be added before launch]
What we collect and why
| Information | Why we use it | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Your questionnaire answers, before you buy | To work out your free result. These are kept in your browser's storage on your device and are not sent to us. | Not applicable: we don't receive them |
| Your answers, and your first name if you gave one, when you buy | To build your plan and keep it working at your private link. Your answers include things like your take-home pay band, savings, home costs and pension contributions. | To perform our contract with you |
| Changes you make to your plan, and checklist items you tick | So your plan remembers them on any device | To perform our contract with you |
| Your email address, name, billing country and payment status, from Stripe | To confirm your payment, send you your plan link and order details, check you have a UK billing address, and handle any refund | To perform our contract with you |
| Basic sales records: date, amount and order number | To keep accounts and meet our tax obligations | Legal obligation |
| Emails you send us | To reply and help you | Our legitimate interest in answering your questions |
| Technical information such as IP addresses | Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, uses this to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. Our error logs record plan reference numbers, not your answers. | Our legitimate interest in running a secure website |
We never see your card details. Stripe handles them on its own secure checkout pages.
We don't use your information for marketing, profiling or automated decisions, and we don't sell or rent it to anyone.
Cookies and browser storage
We don't use advertising, analytics or tracking cookies. The site uses your browser's storage to remember your answers, your checklist ticks and whether you prefer light or dark mode. This only does what you ask the site to do, so it doesn't need your consent, and you can clear it at any time in your browser settings.
Cloudflare may set a short-lived security cookie to tell people apart from bots. Stripe sets its own cookies on its checkout pages to prevent fraud; its privacy policy explains how.
Who we share it with
We use a small number of trusted providers to run the service. They only process your information on our instructions and must keep it secure.
- Cloudflare: hosts the website and the database where bought plans are stored.
- Stripe: takes payments. Stripe is also responsible in its own right for some information, for example to meet anti-fraud and financial rules.
- Resend: delivers the email with your plan link.
Some of these providers may process information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations or the UK's approved contract terms for international transfers.
We'd only share your information with anyone else if the law required us to.
How long we keep it
- Answers from checkouts that weren't completed: deleted within 3 days.
- Bought plans: kept for 3 years from the date you bought, so you can come back to your plan, then deleted.
- Refunded orders: deleted 90 days after the refund.
- Basic sales records: kept for 6 years, as tax rules require.
You can ask us to delete your plan sooner at any time.
Keeping it safe
Your plan sits behind a private link containing a long random code that can't realistically be guessed. Anyone who has the link can see your plan, so please don't share it. The site only works over an encrypted connection, and only we can access the database.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- get a copy of the information we hold about you
- ask us to correct it
- ask us to delete it
- ask us to limit how we use it, or object to how we use it
- ask for your information in a format you can take elsewhere
To do any of these, email hello@thebigtripbudget.co.uk from the address you used to buy. We'll reply within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Age
Plans are for people aged 18 or over.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we use your information, we'll update this page and change the date at the top. If a change affects plans you've already bought, we'll email you about it.