Question about transferring settings, data and content to a new iPhone

There are a few things that you must know when upgrading to a new iPhone. The first thing: always make sure that you have a recent iCloud back up on your Apple device. To call after you have upgraded to your new phone, make sure to remove your old back up to save space on iCloud. Instructions: first, back up your old device to iCloud before beginning the process of setting up your new device. After your backup is complete, you may is in power down your old device. Now, begin the set up process on your new device. After the first set up screen, he will then get the opportunity to restore from iCloud back up. Choose to restore from iCloud backup option. This may take a while. I have seen this process take up to two hours. Do not worry. Just stay connected to the Wi-Fi network in the process should complete without a problem

In addition, you can transfer some of the settings from your old iPhone to streamline the setup process. When you first start the new phone, you will be prompted to place your old and new phones next to each other. You can then either use the camera or enter a code manually to establish a secure connection; I prefer to enter the code manually.

That will automatically associate the new phone with your Apple ID and begin restoring your data.

HTH

I was stupid enough to click 'encrypt iPhone Backup' on iTunes (Windows 7), and then forget the password – without researching this beforehand.
Now I know that there really is no way to retrieve the password under Windows – except possibly some 'dubious-sounding' software.

So my question:
For security reasons, I have never used iCloud, and really don't want to. But should I have to use iCloud to backup some future iPhone, is it possible to just use iCloud once, do one backup, restore the new phone from there, and then delete the backup from iCloud and delete (or at least permanently deactivate) the iCloud account?
Or does anyone have a better idea ;-) ?