The Budget Compass

Privacy policy

We ask you for nothing and store nothing. Here is the full account, including the parts our hosting and advertising partners control.

Last updated

This policy explains what happens to information when you visit moneyguidance.site (the "site"), operated by The Budget Compass ("we", "us"). It is written to be read, not to be skipped.

The short version: we do not ask you for personal information, we have no accounts, no newsletter and no forms, and our calculators send nothing anywhere. Our hosting provider and our advertising partners do process some data, and that part is described in detail below.

1. Information we collect directly

None, in the ordinary case. There is no registration, no login, no comment system, no newsletter sign-up and no contact form on this site. We do not ask for your name, email address, phone number, postal address, date of birth, income, or any financial account information.

If you email us, we receive whatever you put in that email — your address, your name if you sign it, and the content of your message. We use it only to reply and to act on the issue you raised. Correction correspondence is kept as a record of the correction; other correspondence is deleted once the matter is closed. We never add an address that writes to us to any marketing list, because we do not operate one.

Our calculators collect nothing. Every calculator on the site is implemented in JavaScript that runs inside your browser. The numbers you type are used to render a result on your screen and are discarded when you leave or reload the page. They are never transmitted to us, never stored on a server, and never associated with you.

Local storage. The site stores a single value in your browser's local storage — your light or dark theme preference, under the key bc-theme. It is not a cookie, is never sent to any server, contains no identifier, and can be cleared at any time through your browser settings.

2. Information collected automatically

Server logs. The site is hosted on Netlify. Like essentially all web servers, Netlify's infrastructure records technical information about requests, which may include your IP address, the page requested, the time of the request, your browser's user-agent string and the referring page. This is standard operational data used for delivering the site, diagnostics and abuse prevention. It is processed by Netlify as our hosting provider under their own privacy terms.

Analytics. We do not run Google Analytics or any other third-party analytics script that profiles individual visitors across the site.

3. Advertising

This site is free to read and is supported by display advertising served by third-party advertising networks, which may include Google AdSense and its partners.

What this means in practice:

  • Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites.
  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
  • Third-party vendors and ad networks may also place and read cookies on your browser or use web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on this site.
  • Information collected in this way may include your IP address, device and browser characteristics, the pages you view, and inferred interest categories. We do not receive this information in identifiable form and we have no access to any profile built from it.

Your choices:

Our cookie policy sets out the categories of cookie involved in more detail.

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, our legal basis for processing the limited technical data described above is our legitimate interest in operating and securing the site. Advertising cookies that are not strictly necessary require your consent, which is collected through the consent mechanism presented by our advertising partner where applicable, and which you may withdraw at any time through that mechanism or your browser settings.

You have the right to request access to any personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or erased, to object to or restrict its processing, and to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority. In practice we hold no personal data about ordinary visitors, so a request will usually be answered by confirming that. If you have emailed us, we can delete that correspondence on request.

If you are a California resident, the CCPA and CPRA give you the right to know what personal information is collected, to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not sell personal information for money. Advertising cookies described in section 3 may constitute "sharing" under California law; you can opt out through the mechanisms listed above and through your browser's Global Privacy Control signal, which our advertising partners are expected to honour. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

To exercise any right, email privacy@moneyguidance.site.

5. Children

This site is intended for a general adult audience. It is not directed at children under 13, we do not knowingly collect personal information from children, and we do not request age or any other personal detail. If you believe a child has sent us personal information by email, contact us and we will delete it.

6. Data sharing and transfers

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. The only third parties involved in the operation of this site are our hosting provider and our advertising partners, each described above, each acting under their own privacy terms. Because those providers operate globally, data they process may be transferred to and stored in countries other than your own, including the United States, under the transfer mechanisms those providers maintain.

7. Security

The site is served over HTTPS with HTTP Strict Transport Security enabled. It is a static site: there is no database, no user account system and no server-side processing of anything you type, which removes most of the categories of risk that apply to interactive sites. No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security of information sent to us by email.

Our guides link to external sites, principally government agencies and official publications. These links are provided for verification and are not endorsements. We have no control over, and take no responsibility for, the content or privacy practices of any external site. Read the privacy policy of any site you visit from here.

9. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the "last updated" date at the top of the page. Material changes — a new category of data, a new class of recipient — will be described plainly rather than buried. Continued use of the site after a change constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy, or requests relating to your data: privacy@moneyguidance.site.