Absolutely rinsed in this budget - almost £1k a year worse off.

[Mushroo]

Honestly in despair at this government. On a very high level calc, we are so much worse off!

We both pay a lot into pensions, so the NI change is about £700 a year worse off.

We have an EV car, so based on our 4k a year mileage, it’s about £120 a year. (Although how it will be enforced I have no idea).

Stagnating tax thresholds, probably about £100 a year between us.

Council tax F house (4 bed end terrace, not a mansion, needs renovating). So risk of revaluation after having paid a fortune in stamp duty. We didn’t get first time buyer stamp duty relief because we bought about 2 years too early, and we moved before Covid so no relief there either. So overall we’ve paid about £30k in stamp duty already over our lifetime.

Weve already had the private school hit (which is a separate debate and we’ve accepted that) but wow, we are just being kicked on all sides.

We are classic ‘middle earners’ - earn about £70k each, but have mahoosive mortgage and pay over £2k a month in nursery fees already.

Every measure just seems to have a negative effect on our lifestyle, which is ‘comfortable’ but increasingly squeezed.

Over on the other thread there’s a couple of £120k claiming to be middle earners. Now it’s £140k!

“Classic middle earners”. No you’re in the top 3%.

Sounds like the “mahoosive” mortgage could be the issue.

Wow 140k a year private schools must be hard to lose £100 a month between me and my partner we make probable just over half of what one of you guys make if we made 70k between us we would feel like millionaires

Sounds like you are living beyond your means tbh. And probably haven't considered that your post would be very galling to read for one of the many people in the UK right now who are struggling to feed their families and heat their houses. To them, private school, a large house and shovelling lots into pensions are only a dream. You'll be happier if you realise how good you have it, and either suck it up with the squeezed lifestyle to preserve those expensive choices you made, or decide to cut back on something like pension investment a little, for instance, to ease the day-to-day. Hopefully you realise these are privileged problems to have.

You don’t think that the OP’s expenses went up alongside your own? Plus VAT on private schools. Plus the extra tax on expensive homes and the myriad of other surcharges this government is adding. You think that these mythical higher earners have no outgoings and so heaping in some more pain should be palatable?

£1400 is my take home salary for the month as a single parent to 2 DC.
I can understand being miffed at having less DISPOSABLE income, but to say you are rinsed is comical.

Where’s the tiny violin meme you are all so keen on. Let’s get it out for your post.

You’re bringing in £14k a month?!

You misread.. It's £1.4K

Private school and a huge house aren't necessities Food , clothing and heating are
This thread has been a real eye opener for me about how lacking in compassion many people are. I have always believed that those who have more should contribute more and that we should protect the most vulnerable. I foolishly thought most people would accept they should contribute more to help people who have less than they do.
I realise now how wrong I was .Most people just want to help themselves.

I certainly didn’t misread.

I wasn't having a go. It was a comment. Yes, very high profile acute services are receiving money. Sadly, the unfashionable services aren't :(

They were the things that went along with the income bracket before all the goalposts were changed. In the same way that you would have picked your accommodation based on all associated charges, the OP chose her house and her children’s school based on all of the available financial information at the time. Her basic costs have gone up alongside your own as well as a whacking great extra cost this communist government has added to her outgoings and yet you can’t see how that might put her into a bit of a tail spin?

We pay a lot into pensions because it’s a responsible thing to do for higher earners, we’d be labelled idiots if we didn’t. (And DH is public sector so has no choice really)

Of course you have a choice. And you are fortunate to be in a situation where you can pay a lot into pensions. Many people can't.

Our take home is c.£7k
Nursery fees £2k
Mortgage £2.5k
Commute x 2 £500
Food / petrol / misc £600
Council tax, bills £500
clothes, activities for family of 4 per month: £200
Leaves £700pcm for ALL savings, so holidays, Xmas, birthdays, emergency fund

Where are your costs for the private school that you mentioned?

I understand that it sucks to feel worse off after a budget. It's not great for your income to be eroded. But to be honest, it's pretty hard to feel aggrieved that a high earner (and you are a high earner, not a middle earner) is going to be less than £100 a month worse off, when children are living in poverty. We've gone wrong somewhere as a society when people only think of themselves.

You have options - pay less into your pension, don't use private school etc, move to a cheaper area (we did because house prices were crazy were we were living, and we wanted a better work/life balance).

A child born into poverty needs that £84 more than you do. They don't have options. It's shocking that in a so-called civilised society, 30% of children live in poverty.

So you aren’t using private school at the moment? In which case you haven’t been hit by the VAT on school fees, have you?

You’re comfortable. Many are not for reasons beyond their control. How do you think tax shoukd work in a civilised society?

Salary sacrifice is tax avoidance that benefits only the well-off. This new measure partially closes that loophole.

You can pay afford to pay £35k into pensions per annum as salary sacrifice? That’s rich not comfortable.

OP check your payslips and that you definitely both use salary sacrifice for pensions - if husband is public sector it’s unlikely that it is from what I’ve read?

If your pension shows on your payslip as a ‘deduction’ it isn’t the same as salary sacrifice and won’t be affected.

Indeed - my heart bleeds - we have our own business and I pay £4000 a year into pension because I genuinely can’t afford to pay more without putting me in a position I can’t pay my bills, however now at 63 I have realised that if I have the cash towards end of our year and look like I will be paying corporation tax ( which I have been doing — around £6k a year) I will put it into pension to reduce corp tax considerably and can actually then access it anyway if needed as and when. If you can put £35k a year away on pensions and still pay your bills you are in an exceedingly fortunate position -so have hardly been ‘rinsed’ or on the breadline.

And I agree with that too -

Plus endless criticism of earners for making poor decisions/not planning (planning to be taxed in a future budget?) but those who choose not to work or made other poor decisions and are low or no earners are mysteriously 'disadvantaged' and not a word more can be said

I'm in a similar boat. I haven't worked out yet how much worse off I'll be. I put about £900 a month into my pension as I was SAHM for many years and I need to build it up asap. To keep my contributions at £900 I will need to sacrifice more of my salary and have less net take home pay.

My employer recently increased their contribution but it might go back down as they'll be hit with 15% on my contribution and might no longer be able to afford the increase.

DH is on a contract in IR35 and would have ended up having to pay around £15k extra tax as he has to pay both employer and employee contributions. Luckily his contract ends before 2029 and he'll retire so won't actually be impacted but that's not the point.

DD will be affected and she's only 22 and just started a pension so the compounded effect of the lower contribution will be huge.

What a complete sh*tshow. What on earth were they thinking when they dreamed this up? I'm sure it was Torsten Bell's idea. He seems to be the new Karl Marx.

It's a little over £8000 a month net.

In all honesty I feel the same. I was a single mum earning £300 a month when I left the kids’ dad. I got a full time job (whilst caring for a 2&3 yr old) and bought a knackered - and I mean knackered, mid-terrace 75sq m house one year before the stamp duty threshold moved. £1400 of my £10k reno budget in tax (when the house would eventually cost me £35k to do up). Over ten years I’ve done it up and in that time I’ve worked my ass off and am now on £69k gross a year. I’ve missed the threshold changes each time. I’ve paid higher rate tax since earning £45k and I’ve lost my child benefit since earning £50k. I receive £3700 a month now but I work over 60 hour weeks and barely have time to manage my life and kids. My team knock off at 5pm and go home and whilst I’m on a lot more than them, when you take into account the extortionate tax I pay, the real difference isn’t that much, and I have all the stress and responsibility of being a senior manager for my few hundred quid extra a month.
We can’t afford to move to a bigger house now the kids are teens and I have a husband because a four bed is now over £500k. I’m still financially responsible for my two teens and there’s honestly not a lot left at the end of the month. I’m socialist and do believe we should support those worse off but the government are just taking the piss now out of the squeezed middle.
The ones with all the money are the cash in hand builders plumbers and electricians! My electrician is always off to go diving in warm climates.

Are you sure about this? Unless you’re both contributing a stunning amount it sounds like house thinking of the basic tax relief on your pensions, not salary sacrifice. For example how could your self employed H get salary sacrifice?

you need to find out if your pension is salary sacrifice (most aren’t) they calculate the NI element you get relief on (NI is, iirc, 14% of your salary/ contribution)

There’s no limit to the demand on income in op’s range. You’ll disincentive working and earning and then you’ll have greater tax shortfall and lower growth.