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.

It will be easier once you don’t have nursery fees. I assume you mean that you were considering private school but now aren’t, as that would be way more, and unaffordable before the budget announcement and probably even before VAT changed.

This budget was always going to be a difficult one, and it’s always hard to balance the needs of people who’ve made poor choices but live in poverty, people who work hard but live in poverty, people who still work hard but have slightly better houses and cars, and really high earner who pay loads of tax but earn so much that they live in luxury.

I’ll probably be worse off but have a sufficient standard of living so I’ll be ok, as I think you will. I hope that it will improve the overall living standards as a population so that there is less inequality, as a widening gap doesn’t help us.

Maybe she took out a 100 year mortgage

Your choice to take on a ‘mahoosive mortgage’ and pay school fees, these are privileges not entitlements 🤷‍♀️
Not much sympathy here, sorry 🎻

As I understand it they will identify the homes worth £2million plus by re-valuing all band F, G and H homes for the first time since 1991. While many of those won’t be worth £2million (certainly where I live there are plenty of Band F homes worth under 1 million, the re-valuation hanging overhead could make potential buyers of those homes pause and wonder things like is it going to be re-banded to G which there have been lots of rumours about doubling council tax for? I think it’s just generally uncertainty about whether anything will change for those properties as a result which might make owners or potential owners nervous and make them harder to sell.

I think, I may be wrong!

Yes precisely. We can’t afford a 2 mill house with a larger income. Didn’t add up to me…

I have a slightly higher salary than you. Neither you nor I are middle earners. You’re deluded.

I mentioned this on another thread. I earn £60k yet have the same net income as a fellow single mother with the same number of children who works 16 hours a week and gets tax credits (no DLA/PIP etc, just basic credits for working PT even though she has been offered full time work)

And I don't have any student loan deductions so someone else on the same salary may be worse off

If so I’d like OP’s broker details.

The only people I can see getting worked up about this appear to have houses worth more than £2 million, can afford to do salary sacrifice of a fair amount, and maybe have EVs - the amount anyone can earn/receive before paying any tax as far as I can see is one of the highest in Europe-( believe me I know this stuff from when we looked to move around Brexit and little has changed) - some countries it really is next to nothing and offsets are£4to £5k at most. So my heart isn’t exactly bleeding - personally I would have banged 2p on basic rate too, but took the higher rate level to £55k which isn’t exactly a fortune these days.

no one it seems wants to mention positive things like business rates , or energy costs.

The only thing I don’t agree with at all ( and I’m a centre left voter) is the child numbers cap - I might have upped it to 3 at most -

I hear you! It feels like on these sort of salaries we should be able to have a better lifestyle whereas it's a constant degradation in lifestyle. I'm genuinely no better off now than when I earned half of what I do now because salary increases never go up in line with inflation. with a household income of £140k a year it should be possible to send your kids to private school and live in a nice house but in reality many people can't.

Third person today with household income well over £100k moaning about money. I suppose that show RR did indeed deliver a Labour budget. If you are worried about your house breaching £2m forgive me if I don’t cry you a river.

A closer look shows actually many of the changes are after the date for the next election.

Not much of it makes a huge amount of sense!

I was just about to say this. I appreciate your frustrations - but you are definitely both higher earners.

We do it then @Mushroo make the changes you have the choice to do to make your work life balance better

This! Our house is nowhere near £2m, but there was a lot of talk of doubling council tax for top bands, which would be an extra £3k a year, and is a real worry. But it’s an unknown so I’ve not factored that into any calcs yet.

But it’s an additional stress.

No, they need to just stop whinging that they're poor when they aren't.

You have not been rinsed and you are not middle earners.

I hope more children are able to come out of poverty.

Hang on a minute. One minute you're middle income, now you are higher earners.

You are comfortably within the top 10% of households.

I don't think the maths is mathing here. There is a limit on earnings for UC. Your take home must be upwards of £3500 - someone working 16 hours getting UC takes home much less than that

Absolutely. This budget doesn't not encourage people to work hard, what's the point? Work hard, get more taken off you. Let's not encourage saving or preparing for retirement either. Lets tax you again and again and again on the SAME money you've already been taxed on.

And I also have an end terrace F band home for those who want to whine and get out their tiny violins 🙄 It's worth about £500k, 4 bedroom but I guess it's the area. Hardly a bloody mansion, that I already pay £3,300 a year on council tax and a service charge from a maintenance company. We are not rich. We can't keep sucking up more pain.

Should have never worked and popped out a few extra kids by the sounds of it!

Ridiculous post

I’m sure we are going to be hit hard in this budget also. I need to find one of those calculator things.

My house is Band F, worth nowhere near £2 million either and neither of us will be paying the surcharge. It’s not an unknown, it’s a certainty.