to ask how you will be affected by the budget announcements?

[manicinsomniac]

Sorry if there's another thread about this, I can only see lots of speculative ones.

Now that it's announced ... I admit I'm struggling to get my head around it. I don't think it's as bad as I thought? I don't think it can be that good though? I don't think there's a single thing in it that affects me. I'm not sure about any of that though because I find it all quite confusing!

So, ordinary people from ordinary families/households - how are you going to be affected, if at all?

Lost about £1500 I think due to market rent- I hate how the details such as cost and year of commencement are not clear. I'm also employed by Nhs. I'm sometimes not well enough to work and 20yrs ago lost a really good career due to developing bipolar. By being stubborn, retraining and working at the expense of other aspects of my life I feel I have been punished by this budget. I will now either reduce my hours slightly to get below 30k or buy my home using the discount

I think we will be slightly better off due to the tax allowances, not by much. We both work, have 4 kids , haven't had any tax credits for donkey's years. I'm pleased they left child benefit alone, that is a huge relief as the money really helps us.

Ellie - if only life were that simple. There's quite a lot of us already trying our hardest with long term health conditions. In order to work other parts of my life are non existent. How can it be fair to punish those of us who are trying? I already feel punished by 20yrs of ill health- amongst my peers and family members my lifestyle is so different. I'm certainly the only one not to have bought a house- 20yrs ago I was training for a professional career- if I wasn't sick I would be on 80k now easy. I still have to pay back the student loan from that job. I live in social housing- a 1 bed crappy little flat- I have no sky; no TV licence;?no mod cons such as a dishwasher; my sofa is wrecked. I drive an 8 year old car. I work 37.5hrs plus overtime; I studied whilst working for an msc. I often don't feel well and end up in bed at 6pm in order to be able to still go to work. I've not been abroad for 15yrs. I've worked so hard against the odds and I have nothing to show for it

NickyEds - "I don't know how old you are 2rebecca but I'm fairly sure there was married peoples tax allowance etc when I was raised... When my parents had kids two parents ,one on a reasonable salary one on a bit less (we're talking around national average) with two kids, like mine could afford to run a car...buy a nice family home!!! This would be unattainable for a family now the cost of living and housing has increased so much

I couldn't agree more with your analysis NickyEds. The masses have been hoodwinked into thinking that living standards are higher. It equates to a modern version of debt peonage...compounded now by the attitude towards young people for whom 'apprenticeships' will just become a modern form of cheap labour for who will have to buy into a university education at huge personal cost (after which they will probably find themselves back at home on less than the new 'national living wage' until they reach the magic age of 25 - the new 18?)

Family breakdown is not a lifestyle choice but rates have probably been exacerbated by the pressures of living in modern society where double income households are pushed to the limits - juggling childcare in return for meagre incomes that can hardly keep pace with the hikes in living costs. Little wonder that mental illness is so ubiquitous. We live in a sick society and the worst aspects of this budget - trying to treat the symptoms (in order to appease the baying for blood of intellectually weak, unempathetic DM readers) - will not cure the underlying causes.

I will be slightly better off but I know lots of people who are going to really struggle with the loss of tc's. I get that maybe they do need reduced but people have come to rely on them and I doubt the rising of nmw will make up for it.

When I had my kids and my parents and grandparents had kids you expected to pay for your own kids

And in those days, it was possible to pay for your kids even on a low-ish salary.

I was born in 1964. My parents divorced and my dad never paid anything towards his kids. Nevertheless my mum managed to bring up two kids, buy a three bed house in London near a zone 3 tube station, run a car, have holidays - on a teacher's salary back in the day when teachers were on very low pay. The only benefit she ever received was CB. Both my sister and I went to uni (with no fees to pay, and a full grant - between the grant and my holiday earnings in admin jobs I was totally self-supporting at uni and left with no debt).

The circumstances of low wage families, and especially single parents, are very different today. Life is much harder.

Actually we will be better off. I just have some empathy and sympathy with those who are going to struggle.

One other key difference between now and the 60s/70s/80s is that childcare is a major factor limiting parents' work options.

I knew of one (yes, just one) single parent family growing up in the 70s. Mum went out to work full time in a relatively low paid job. She had no childcare costs as her 9 year old daughter would look after her younger sister at home after school. During school holidays the two girls would be 'shared out' among neighbours and friends - none of whom were Ofsted registered (didn't exist) but many of whom were paid a nominal 'babysitting' fee.

My mum went back to work when I was 9 in 1985. Within a couple of months the schools went on strike and we all had to go home for lunch every day. No-one picked me up - I'd let myself in with a key and get my lunch out of the fridge before going back to school in the afternoon. After school I'd go home on my own before my mum came home about 4:30ish. It was considered totally normal in those days.

That just wouldn't be an option nowadays.

yy misti older people never had anything from the government according to my Dad. Apart from actual living wages, house-price rises, married tax allowance, family allowance etc

My Dad is one of seven from the East End and is functionally illiterate and innumerate. There was such social mobility that he blagged a higher-rate tax-paying job in London by his thirties and kept it until retirement!

Great discussion by above posters - it validates the point that the need for CTCs was a result of the miserable restructuring of the economy that emerged during Thatcher's revolution - the rise of the privatisation of every aspect of society and the beginning of the break-up of stable communities and inter-dependency. The further victimisation of the economic losers of that brutal restructuring is beyond tragic - this is certainly not the path to the sort of Britain that I will be proud of.

CTC were nothing to do with Thatcher. They were a result of Labour's policy of flooding the market with cheap labour prepared to live in terrible conditions which suppressed wages and sent housing costs soaring.

At the end of the Major government a secretary and an accounts clerk living in outer London could expect a reasonable standard of living. By the end of the last Labour government they would have been lucky with a box room in a flop house.

OurDearLeader teaching is not a profession flooded by EU immigrants. Nevertheless, my mother was able to raise a family, alone, in London, on a primary school teacher's salary in the 1970s. There is no way that a single parent teacher could bring up two kids in SE England without some form of benefits today.

OurDearLeader...CTCs were nothing to do with Thatcher. They were a result of Labour's policy of flooding the market with cheap labour prepared to live in terrible conditions which suppressed wages and sent housing costs soaring.
I was not suggesting that CTCs were directly instigated by Thatcher - they were a necessity that resulted from de-industrialisation and a massive economic shift towards the service/finance sector. Our economy is a mess of castles built of sand - glorified pyramid selling in which we are expected to manufacture meaningless jobs out of thin air...let's get the real manufacturing back!

ragetty, excellent points.

Wrong ourdearleader - our industrial and manufacturing industries were destroyed under Thatcher. I saw the clothing firm my dad worked for go under, mining communities destroyed ... We are still reaping the 'rewards' of Thatcherism and the glorification of individual greed. We bailed out the bankers - they still get obscene salaries while the working poor get shafted again.

I am a sahm. Dh works 40 hours a week . 4 dcs. Private rental . One calculator says £1500 worse off another says £2500 worse off. That will increase further of course if our rent / council tax / utilities / car insurance increases .

i looked at the bbc and the independant calculator. im getting MASSIVE differences in the amount we will be worse off.

Misti i hear you I was 12 in 1985 and i was doing the same as you. Looking after my younger brother after school while both parents were at work.

Slightly off topic I know but as another 70's /80's latchkey kid I wonder when exactly this became socially unacceptable,many more importantly why? Statistically our children are in no greater danger than they were back then. It wasn't strange at all to wait for mum to get home from work, no childcare issues, not even in school holidays- neighbours and friends juggled around, local teenagers babysat etcetc

Senada- no! Business owners and especially small business owners affected too.

We will be £1600 a year worse off. Bye, bye any savings as a buffer for hard times, bye, bye house renovations.

We're a few hundred quid better off. would have loved to have had children but couldn't afford it. only on about £65k between us. shame some people need this pointing out to them.

Me and my sister were also latch key kids. I had my own key at around seven years of age and would let myself into the house and wait for my 12 year old sister to get home. Both my parents had to work.

you're on £65k between you angelos02 and you couldn't afford kids?

Who told you £65,000 wasn't enough to have kids on?

No way could we afford children. Not mucking about. just not much money left after mortgage & bills.