← Back to The Real Number
Privacy & your data

Your figures are not kept by us.

We do not store or sell the salary, payslip, bonus, pension, childcare, bills, savings or results you enter into our calculators. The calculators securely send figures to our calculation service only to return your result; it does not save them in a database. If you choose to send feedback, we receive only your rating, optional comment and the page you were on.

Who is responsible for this site

The Real Number is operated by Christopher Travis, who is responsible for this website and this privacy notice. For any privacy question, contact us at [email protected]. Please do not send financial figures by email.

How the calculators work

The figures you enter into our calculators are sent to our Cloudflare calculation service so it can work out and return your result. It processes them in memory for that request only: we do not put calculator inputs or results into our database, feedback system or analytics, and do not configure the service to log them.

Remembering figures

Each calculator offers an optional “Remember my figures on this device” choice. If you turn it on, the figures are saved only in that browser on that device, so you can return later. It is off by default. You can remove saved figures at any time using the clear-data link in the calculator.

Moving between tools

If you choose to take Life Sheet figures into Home Plan, a short-lived handover is kept on your device only. It is not put into the web address and is removed once Home Plan has read it.

Technical website data

Our hosting, calculation-service and security provider, Cloudflare, processes technical request data such as your IP address, browser/device information, the page requested and the time of the request so the site can be delivered securely. We can see high-level, aggregated traffic information such as request numbers and approximate country. It does not include calculator inputs or results. Cloudflare also provides the brief security check used before feedback can be submitted.

Other services used on the site

The site loads fonts from Google Fonts. If you choose “Save a private copy” or “Share with my partner”, the summary is created in your browser on your device. You decide whether to save it or which app to share it with; the privacy policy of that app then applies. We do not receive the copy, share summary or calculator figures. If you use the WhatsApp share button, the same applies.

Feedback

If you choose to use the “Help us improve” button, we receive your rating, optional comment, the page you were on and the date submitted. We do not receive calculator inputs or results, and we do not ask for your email address. We use feedback only to improve the site. Please do not include salary, bank details, account numbers, names, addresses or other personal or financial information. If you choose to include personal or financial information in a feedback comment, we will treat it as feedback and delete the entry within 90 days.

Emails and legal basis

If you contact us or send feedback, we use the information in your message only to respond where appropriate and improve or manage the site. We process this technical and contact information because it is necessary to run and protect the site, respond to enquiries and pursue our legitimate interests in operating it. We do not use calculator figures or feedback for marketing. Feedback is deleted within 90 days. We keep email enquiries only for as long as needed to manage the correspondence, normally no longer than 12 months unless we need to keep them longer for a legal reason.

Your rights

You may have rights to ask for access to, correction or deletion of personal information we hold about you, or to object to certain processing. Contact us first and we will help where applicable. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes to this notice

We will update this page before making material changes to how we use personal information. We will never use website analytics to collect calculator inputs or results.