'Will your 2011 be a money marvel or misery?' poll discussion

Spendless

We will be worse off. Hubby is 40% taxpayer and the bands are set to change. Tax credits will stop and I am making steps to save the child benefit so I don't notice it when it goes in 2013. VAT will rise, and our eldest will start Secondary school and we will have the associated costs. However I am now working, something I only started half way thru 2010 albeit thru a temping agency, so I don't know how long for. So my goal is to sort out finances now at the beginnign fo the year so it's not so hard at the end of 2011.

medsec_222

I will be worse off as I shall be retiring in June of this year. My husband is also retired. We have made our minds up that we will just have to adapt to our reduced income and enjoy our retirement!

seafarers_wife

will be much better off as we are doing one of two things in the coming year. main thing is wedding will be paid for which will free up £400 a month which wont affect either or our proposed plans of action.

plan 1, buy a house and get on the property ladder and have a constuctive project to do in free time or

plan 2, pay off all debts in june and save an extra £500 a month towards a larger deposit.

so it all depends on houses and whats on the market when OH is home from sea :j

sysky

we ll be worse off, coming to end of student over draft as bank suddenly only gives 2 instead of 3 years to clear it once it turns to graduate account, and hsbc also rip me off since last year £25 when it changes as a overdraft arrangement fee when it is a previously agreed reduction that was supposed to be free!

free4440273

worse off //

zzzLazyDaisy

If I can stay about the same I'll be happy.

I'm disabled and on IB/DLA. I manage well thanks to the advice and tips on MSE but I'm worried about the plan to move everyone onto ESA, and then stop ESA payments after one year, which will greatly reduce my income from 2012 (or whenever they bring it in). So I am going to use the coming 12 months to look at ways of cutting my budget and increasing my income (maybe by selling stuff on ebay or renting out a room in my house, not sure yet).

Challenging times ahead, but I'd be much more worried if I didn't have the support of MSE'rs :-)

maxmiler

And its not just VAT that has gone up.

So has the evil "Insurance Premium Tax".
But they've kept that a bit quiet.
We all have to have insurance of one sort or another, so as well as the VAT hike causing misery We'll be even more worse off than this discussion thinks.

And for workers, National Insurance goes up again by an extra 1% in April.

I feel a bad year (or more likely 5 years) ahead.