Budget ramblings....

So am I the only one who thinks the budget could have been a lot worse?
Considering the quagmire of crap this country is currently in I think we should be thankful that we don't all have to start batoning down the hatches and adopting the 'brace' position.

1 - VAT rises to 20%.
not brilliant but worth remembering that food (ie: an essential item) is exempt from VAT. Restaurants and luxury foods aren't exempt but you will still be able to afford to eat. So that's good.
That top for £10 in H&M will cost you £10.25 after the increase. Hardly a bank breaker. If you can afford a £500 pair of Louboutin's then you can afford the extra £12.50 of VAT.
What else attracts zero VAT - oh yes, betting (including your lottery tickets), sports and leisure activities (going to the footie perhaps?), arts & cultural activities (festivals? concerts? museums?).

2 - Your personal allowance will be increased by £1000 - in layman's terms, you can earn another £1000 before you start paying tax. That will go part way to making up for the extra VAT you're paying on your new jeans.

3. Council tax freezes for the next year. Marvellous. Anyone got a problem with that? Thought not.

4. Capital Gains tax stays the same for low and middle-income savers but goes up for higher rate taxpayers. I can live with that. Sounds fair to me.

5. CIGARETTES, ALCOHOL AND FUEL - No change this time round. Bloody hell - what more does your average Sun reader want?! Okay, perhaps a little unfair but, again, that's a pretty good deal. Times are hard and no one needs to make you feel worse by being made to pay more for your fuel or having a beer and fag at the weekend.

6. BENEFITS Child benefit will be frozen for the next three years. Okay, I can see that's not gonna be a popular one. But at the same time, look at what the benefit is actually for... the government pays you money for choosing to have a family. That's right - you choose to have some children and they give you money. Doesn't matter if you earn £5000 or £500,000. (now I'm not going to be very popular for saying that)

7. Tax credits will be reduced for families earning over £40,000 next year. Low income families will get more Child Tax Credit - the amount per child will rise by £150 above the rate of inflation next year. See no.6. Now that's more like it. Look after the people who need it most. £40,000 income doesn't make you rich but you're not in poverty either.

8. . Lone parents will be expected to look for work when their youngest child goes to school.
Mmmm, nice idea but not sure how that will be practical. Can't see my boss being happy about me turning up at 10 and leaving at 2pm so that I could take a child to school and then pick them up. It could work provided the support is given for a decent and affordable childcare structure to be put in place. Might have to have a further investigation into this before passing judgement....

9. From 2011 - except for the state pension and pension credit - benefits, tax credits and public service pensions will rise in line with the Consumer Price Index, rather than the, generally higher, Retail Price Index, saving over £6 billion a year by the end of the Parliament. Anyone got a problem with that? If so, why?

10. New maximum limit of £400 a week will be applied to Housing Benefit. Hoo - bloody - rah! I'd love to have over £1600 a month to spend on my house/flat . Jeez. If someone is helping you to rent your home then you don't need to take the *%$!*. You can afford a decent family sized home for £1600 per month. Okay, you can't have it zone 2 but you can get one - and surely the most important thing is to have a safe place to live and a roof over your head and the heads of your children.

11. PUBLIC SECTOR PAY Public sector workers face a two-year pay freeze, although 1.7 million of those earning less than £21,000 will get a flat pay-rise worth £250 in both years. Welcome to what the private sector workers have been putting up with for years! I'd be quite happy with £250 payrise... right now I'd be happy with a fiver!

12. PENSIONSThe basic state pension will be linked to earnings from April 2011, with the pension guaranteed to rise in line with earnings, prices or 2.5%, whichever is the greater. The government will accelerate the increase in state pension age to 66.
So it will be increasing annually then? And people will still be getting pensions then? Good. no need to moan there.

13. BUSINESSFrom April 2011, the threshold at which employers start to pay National Insurance will rise by £21 per week, above indexation. Corporation Tax will be cut next year to 27%, and by 1% annually for the next three years, until it reaches 24%. The small companies' tax rate will be cut to 20%
So, this is the 'growth ' part then that everyone has been so quick to jump on. This all seems good to me. It will encourage businesses to keep trading, keep employing people and also give them a bit of a chance to get back on their feet if they've been hit by the recession.

14. Tax relief for the video games industry will be scrapped.
Am I missing something? Why did they get it in the first place?!

Anyway this is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure there are lots of other things I've not picked up on and I'm sure that there are a whole load of people who will be screaming from the rooftops about how disgusting this is but I won't be one of them.

For whatever reason (and I'm not going to even try to apportion blame as I would go on for hours!), this country is broke. Nul, nada, nowt, f*** all in the bank. And we need to change that.

We will all be hit in one way of another. Tax rises, benefit cuts, education cuts... cuts cuts cuts... It's not pretty but it's a reality. There will always be someone who gets hit worst, be it the single mother or the pensioners or the singletons living alone. You can't please everyone all of the time. In a lot of cases, you can't please anyone ANY of the time! But we have to understand that our parents and grandparents had it far worse than any of us will. They still had food rationing until 1954!!!

3 years after the war ended, you still couldn't get any eggs - you were allowed 1 if and when available PER WEEK!
How about 2oz/50ishgrams bacon or ham per person per week...? or 1.5 oz/40g cheese per person per week.
I believe that is LESS than in your average fast food burger....

So before we all start having a toot at how terrible the chancellor is and how the bloody tories are stiffing everyone, have a think about had bad things really are.

If we're struggling with cash, we ALL have things we could do without. Do you smoke, do you drink? Do you go on holiday? Do you buy lots of clothes?

I want the people who don't have these luxuries to shed to be looked after. It's the poverty-line families I want the benefits to go to. If I have a baby and don't get child benefit - so what? I have a job, I have a home. I'll manage. It will be my choice.

If my luck runs out and I lose my job and my other half loses his job and we're completely up the creek, then I'll ask for help.

Here is the news...An open letter to my friends and family.

1. No, my father has not written us an enormous blank cheque to cover the entire wedding. We're paying for most of it and are doing so by using that radical concept of saving money.

2. No, we didn't choose the day, venue, time to inconvenience you. We chose them because they work for us and it's what we want.

3. It's also entirely our choice on how much we intend to spend on this wedding. It doesn't matter if you spent more or less on your wedding. That worked for you and this will work for us.

4. We're not getting married to try to upstage what you did. Get over yourself.

5. You may think that spending that much on a wedding is a waste of money but we don't. If you feel that strongly about it, don't come.

6. My dress and accessories have been chosen to my own taste. That's because I shall be wearing them. If you don't like them, you don't need to tell me. I wouldn't dream of saying that to another bride so who the hell do you think you are?

7. Likewise, the theme, colours and attendant's outfits have been chosen to our taste so they fit the kind of wedding we would like. Again, if you don't like them, just be polite and smile nicely. I may not have agreed with your choices but I don't remember telling you that.

8. No, you cannot bring your video camera. You are the father of the groom and we would like you to enjoy the day and the attention. Also, you know how much your son hates them. It was an intense bargaining situation to even get a professional booked for the day.

9. I'm sorry if you feel it's expensive for you to attend our wedding. Surely that is the case of most weddings you attend that are not in your home town? Your attendance is not mandatory. You can choose not to come.

10. It's our wedding. We would like our family and friends to be happy for us. If you're not, that's your problem. Please stop making it ours.

He's just not that into you....

okay so my title is a teensy bit misleading but it's not completely random.

I had my own kinda SATC evening out last night. You know how it goes, 4 friends, plenty of booze and some pretty candid chat. Just what you'd expect from a girlie night out.... except this wasn't a girlie night out for three of the participants. I meet up with Simon, James and Dom* on a regular basis and whilst I do get a modicum of flack for occasionally talking about diets, shoes and spots there is very little difference between a night out with them and a night out with the girls.
(*names have been changed to protect the guilty!) It's like SATC but with only slightly less sharking, real ale in place of cosmopolitans and quite frankly almost no effort on the shoe-front from at least 3 members of the group. There is, however, just as much gossip with many inappropriate conversations.


We've all known each other for well over 18 years and are party to all number of secrets you wouldn't share with your mother and I'll admit it I have shared a stolen snog with all three of them at some point, but not for many MANY years.

James is an an exciting fledgling relationship after recently exiting one that lasted more than 10 years. He's still at that 'stupid grin' phase made even more nauseating given that he has to gallivant around Europe to see his new woman every fortnight. Oh the poor thing.... (yes that is a hint of jealousy you detect. Why can't I have a fabulous job in an exotic location??!) Most of my friends have had a crush on James over the years but he sees himself as a balding, ginger git. Nice.

Simon is getting married in 2 months time after taking a mere 8 years to propose to his fantastic other half. They are, what would have been called in the '80s', YUPPIES. Well sort of. They both have pretty stonking PR jobs and are settling into a rather fabulous house in a very desire able London village. The last time I went to their house I tried to find a way of secretly stealing wife-to-be's Louboutins...Last night's drink was masquerading as the pre-stag-do drink up, as for some reason they won't let me come on the official stag-do unless I agree to be the entertainment. Thanks chaps.

Then there is dependable Dom. Married for the last 5 years with a gorgeous two year old daughter. I probably love Dom the most as he and his lovely wife are so down to earth and don't try to dress things up to something they are not. And they call a spade a spade. Really. I've very envious of Mrs Dom as she says all the things I want to say but simply don't have the balls to. And she's not the only one. Hence my reason for the title of this blog. 'he's just not that into you' was a defining eureka moment on SATC a few seasons ago. It stripped the scales from many a misguided girl's eyes. And that's why I love Dom so much. He may not give me 'Eureka!' moments but he does make me realise that I'm not a bad person for thinking such obvious things sometimes.

Let me explain. Dom has, as I mentioned, a beautiful two year daughter whom he loves unconditionally. But.... yes you knew there was one coming....But...he readily admits that sometimes he wishes he didn't have a daughter. And so does Mrs Dom. He marvels at the funny moments she provides them with , he recounts daft conversations you can have only with a two year old but he's not afraid to admit that if she wasn't around his life would still be complete.

THANKYOU!

This man (and his wife) are truly the only friends I have who are not worried about admitting they 'could take it or leave it' with regards to a child who is already living in their house. People without children are fine about saying it, but you just try to find one who will dare utter that kind of sentiment around other parents. It just doesn't happen. They didn't know if they wanted children or not but as there was some ticking of a biological clock, they just decided to leave it to nature to decide. And it did decide... first time. hahahaha - well done chaps.

We had a long conversation about this last night. Given my pending nuptials, the question on everyone's lips is generally 'when will you try for a baby?. Dom is the only one who has the guts to tell me to make sure it's what I really want and if it's not then don't do it! Everyone else just talks it up and bangs on about 'how amazing it is', 'how it's different when it's your own'....I could go on and on. I just know how knackered I am after a one night sleepover with my nephew. I think new parents should get some kind of medal for the years of sleep-deprivation, cash-deprivation, pub-deprivation and general sex-deprivation (yes yes, I said the 's' word, but you know it's true!)

So anyway, that's my thought for the day. Probably not very PC but what the heck.

Oh and the other reason I love my boy/girlfriends is that Dom still felt the need to tell me last night (for the very first time) about how he turned down 'a promise' on another mate's stag do more than 10 years ago because we were in the middle of our six-month fling. And apparently she was gorgeous. Thanks Dom. The strange thing is, this still gave me a fuzzy feeling even though it was the most ill-advised fling ever and even now we still don't know how we're still friends because of it and why we thought it would be a good idea ever to get together. Oh, and it was made all the funnier by Simon announcing that he got off with 'that girl' instead as it 'would have been rude not to'....

I can't wait for my pre-hen-do-drink....