The budget today so......

Brighton is excellent if you're into the gay scene.

Just grab your rainbow scarf...

I don't understand all the ins and outs of sipps and drawdown. Just so long as the money turns up each month.

Too complicated for me!

Feeling I've just missed out! A couple of months ago I was repaid a substantial debt. Isa allowances used up for year so started a 3-year bond with stepped interest of 2.2%, 2.3% 2.4%. This will be taxed on maturity so the new increased Isa allowance would have been better I think. If new pensioner bond is taxed the rates would have to be significantly higher than Isa rates to balance out.
At least some recognition that savers have seriously lost out recently and I haven't forgotten Gordon Brown's raid on my pension fund which meant my monthly annuity is far less than I'd calculated.

Seemed to be an attempt to appeal to potential UKIP supporters. Nothing for the hardest off is there - apart from slight concessions on beer and cider.
(those poor people will vote for me if I help them to stay pissed and they might not even notice the benefit cuts, the NHS cuts and the council services cuts???)

Rosequartz

Am with you all the way. Gordon Brown et al bankrupted this country.

Miliband spluttering on about privilege in his response to today's budget was risible. There are more millionaires on the Labour front benches than on that of the Coalition. This "cost of living crisis" is just another Labour soundbite.

Oh good God. Don't you two remember the banking crisis? You might say that GB did not regulate the city well enough, but the Tories were right behind him on light touch regulation - and there is not a lot of evidence that they have tightened up on the City in the last 4 years.

JessM is right It was the greedy international money markets that caused the credit crunch by making some very bad loans. They were mostly responsible for the massive Banking crises, not governments.

Bankers cannot blame the government for this. They were supposed to be "the experts" and act sensibly with their investors money.

They cannot sit there and bleat that "the government should have stopped them."

Annuity. Give with one hand, take with the other. 55% tax.

The sad fact is, friends, that we the people have been well and truly rogered by our politicians for many years. The most recent financial crisis was not caused by the Labour Party. It was the result of the most appalling greed and lust for money by international financial institutions whose activities were left unchecked, in fact encouraged, by national governments of all political colours who failed completely in their responsibility to those who elected them.

The Cameron/Osborne clique are no different to the Blair/Brown outfit. However, Cameron/Osborne have underhandedly used the excuse of the crisis to force through many un-manifested right-wing policies whilst using our tax money to bail out the very banks who caused the problems. This budget is just a shabby attempt to blow yet more smoke over the government's murky relationship with the world of finance and big business, in preparation for the election next year. I am not taken in by any of it.

It didn't help that so many people ran up credit card debts that they had no chance of repaying. Ordinary people have to take some of the blame.

Greed all round.

Remember the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Remember the sub-prime mortgage market in the US? These can hardly be laid at the door of Gordon Brown or ever Tony Blair!

Yes jingle and all the people who took on mortgages they couldn't afford to pay too. Now I know someone will say they should not have been given the loans but what about personal responsibility?

No one seems to attribute any blame to the auditors of the banks who imo have a lot to answer for. I could never have got the slightest thing through ours.

Well, Gordon did raid the pension funds for which act many of us in receipt of our pensions are now paying. He also claimed 'no more boom and bust' so not very foresighted of someone who was supposed to be a good Chancellor.
He encouraged debt ( along with the greedy bankers) and a vast increase in house prices so that people felt well off even if it was all an illusion.

I won't take offence at being called one of 'you two', even though I got into trouble when I called some posters 'you lot'.
However, please don't blaspheme, there is no need.

Yes, JessM, I do remember the banking crisis, and DH and I could see it coming from way before it started. Cannot understand why people with more financial acumen than us could not see it either! As HM said "how come none of you saw this coming?" Well, we could have told her it would all end in tears.

Governments may think they control the finances of their countries but they are just doing the housekeeping. It is the big financiers and big business who run the world.

JessM

You had better make it "Oh good God. don't you 'three' remember the banking crisis" I will be happy to be in agreement with the other two posters you disagree with.

Brown did raid pensions, yes there was a banking crisis but alongside the crisis was the fact the UK government had run up such a massive deficit due to prolific spending.

The latter point being the biggest problem this government and the next will have to deal with to get the economy back on track, if it ever will. All three major parties are in agreement that has to be done, pity the schools and hospitals with financial nooses around the necks because of Labours policies I say.

PFIs. John Major started them but they became vastly more profilic under G Brown. Like a nice new shiny hospital? Well, you can have one on the never-never. Have whatever you want, pay this year, next year, some time, never. Roll up the debts, who cares if it makes you feel good. Another part of the price we are all paying.

It had better be don't you 4 remember the banking crisis.

I agree with every word that you say rosequartz re PFI's. We will never manage to pay off the debts there.

If I am one of 'you 2' I 'd like to point out that my criticism was very specific. Gordon Brown most definitely 'accessed'pension funds, thereby c*****g up the retirement planning of many savers. I did not lay the blame entirely on him over banking failure, people taking on mortgages and credit card debt way beyond their means, nor did I ever see him as some financial satan. Of course huge numbers of individuals were reckless and irresponsible and contributed to the chaos. However he was chancellor and I do resent that one specific action of his.
I'd like to add that today's changes to savings rules will go some way to redressing the balance for savers but I am not sufficiently impressed that I'll vote tory - however I am one of those who became so disappointed and disillusioned by the whole Blair fiasco that I won't vote labour either!

I was brought up by a staunch Labour father. Had he still been here in the days of the millionaire Labour rich boys Blair, Mandelson, and others and those fiddling their expenses he would have considered them an absolute disgrace to the party.

Let's remember Blair & his cabinet were new Labour. My dad was also a pre new Labour supporter. He would not have been impressed either .

I preferred the old and still do.

I wish I had more financial acumen. I probably would be better off if I could have understood about the ins and outs of investments etc.

It would have helped if Gordon Brown hadn't sold off all your gold reserves as well against the advice of the BoE.

Makes you wonder how these politicians get their jobs doesn't it ...

Another illusion to make us think we were better off under New Labour.

What's in it for me? Absolutely nothing. My miniscule annuity was purchased 7 years ago, I do not have a spare £10,000 to invest in bonds, or ISAs, I don't pay tax as my income is already under the tax threshold. I don't drink beer, or play Bingo but, unlike Experigran I do smoke so will have to attempt to cut down again.

I don't see how the '£2,000 per child' child care credits will be of any benefit to us or the DDs as all three DGC are now at school, there are no after school clubs so it will still be us picking them up from school and feeding and entertaining them (on an unpaid basis) until their parents get home.

I think this is probably a good budget for those on middle incomes who are approaching retirement age but nothing in it for the lower paid or those already drawing small pensions.

Yes the papers are saying it is aimed at the "grey vote" - I'd overlooked the tax relief on Bingo. That's the sop to the working class females? How patronising is that?
And the relief on inheritance tax for members of the public services who die in the course of their duties - well that is really going to cost him a fortune isn't it. Family homes where there is a spouse left behind are exempt from the tax anyway. How many emergency services staff have significant wealth outside that? And it does not seem to include soldiers - or were they previously exempt? Sounds like he is being kind though doesn't it
Who will be happy? - independent financial advisors ("wealth management" experts as some style themselves) will be rubbing their hands with glee because they will get a lot more work advising about these changed investment possibilities. They will have cracked open the bubbly last night.
Those selling annuities will have been contemplating the loss of a high lucrative income stream.
I think another consequence will be that people with fairly large pension pots will get into buy to let. Why wouldn't they. Pension pot of £500k invested in a new apartment and rented out. You get the income stream and you retain an asset that you can leave to your heirs, whereas annuities die with you. This in turn could push more first time buyers out of the property market because it will push up demand.
I'd worry that some people will cash in their pension pot and use some of it to shore up the prospects of the next generation - or get pressured to do this by unscrupulous middle aged kids. (judging by some of the hair raising stories that you hear on GN)
Personally I have a very small private pension pot and I would be better off cashing this in and paying that amount off the mortgage asap. Because it is not ever going to generate enough income to make a difference to my standard of living.

Granny23 I quite agree. It may be a good idea to increase ISAs to £15,000 a year and also premium bonds have been raised an extra £10,000 this year and the same next year so that eventually one will be able to save £50,000 with them. As you say, nice if one has the money but few of us in our age group will manage that.