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.