The Budget & A Moan

Firstly Hello & Welcome to my new followers - J Stevens and OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod Only blooming Frugal Queen... bow scrape etc etc. (For my family members who only ever read my blog because they have to. Frugal Queen is the rock star of thrifty blogging!) Thanks so much for visiting. x

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2013 spring budget was announced yesterday. It has been aimed at “those who want to work and get on”. I want to work and get on, so lets have a look then.

The Main Points

·        A cut in corporation tax.

Oh good, an employer gets the benefit of an increase in profits. Not helpful to me at all. Plus my employer gets to cut his National Insurance bill by £2000, and as it is a small company there is every chance he might not have to pay any NI according to the budget.

·        Frozen petrol duty.

Well considering I am already being stuffed at the pump paying c. £50 for a full tank of petrol for a 1.2l POLO and that lasts me 1 week. Then I am not going to notice that it is not getting MORE expensive.

·        Cut in beer duty by 1p. Who cares? How many pints of beer would you have to be drinking to think at the end of the month I have an extra tenner. If you do then you should probably be looking at stopping drinking!

·        Income tax threshold raised to £10,000 as of 2014. At the end of April 2013 the income tax threshold is going up anyway and so I will be better off by £23 per month. These income tax rises are the only raise I have had in well over 5 years.

·        Shared equity scheme extended to assist first time buyers get on the property ladder. I already have a home, though I welcome any steps to assist youngsters buy a house and therefore kick start the housing market.

·        20% tax relief on childcare up to £6,000 per child from 2015. The Chap and I do not have a family.

I recognise that The Chap and I are very lucky. We both still have a job and a roof over our head, but paying our bills and trying to save is difficult (especially for me) and rising fuel costs always worry us (our gas bill arrived yesterday £700 for the quarter...gulp! We have a parliamentary enquiry going on as we speak). The budget seems to go over our heads as we are neither better or worse off.

Does anyone else out there feel that The Budget always forgets them? Our little sector that has not ever or rarely taken any benefits, or used social housing or had a yacht or a £million house. Am I alone in thinking this? Or perhaps just miserable and unfeeling of harder hit sectors of society. I don’t know, and that bothers me that I might not understand the difficulties other people face.

But what really upsets me is the level of debt the UK has. 85% of GDP. To put this into context, if you earned £20,000 it is the equivalent of having a debt of £17,000.

Mr Osbourne is planning to borrow £120bn this year. Perhaps he should start readinga thrifty blog on how to cut your cloth accordingly.

Frugally yours

Abigail

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