levi: la vida loca

Levi-

What so it will even go down, not even freeze?

Levi-

oh christ

Westie983

The freeze is about the working age benefits so the amount wont increase, this included Housing and council tax benefits, which will affect people who earn but claim housing benefit for social housing/council properties...

WTC and UC...

The income threshold for households to be eligible for the full amount of Tax Credits will be reduced, from £6,420 to £3,850. This means if you earn more than £3,850 in a tax year, the amount you're eligible for will fall. Additionally, for every £1 you earn above this, you currently lose 41p of benefit.

Westie983

The above means (i think) that the current disregard of drop of income of more then £2500, or increase of £5000, will no longer apply as this benefit will be part of the freeze so the amount you will be entitled too will not change...

Most working people will earn more then 3k a year so are no longer going to get topped up with WTC... I will find I will struggle now, as I used to earn 2000 more then the threshold but with the changes I will now earn 4.5k, so will lose 4.5k*0.42p = 1890 a year £160 a month of my current WTC award...

Westie983

Dont worry about it for this year though, this change wont be implemented till the next renewal period, as this is all going to change in the 2017 tax year...

but maybe worth thinking ahead if your income will drop due to this change and start saving what you can or reduce your outgoings, which is what I'm planning to do...

hummingbird

Wow that's so helpful Westie, thank goodness you understand it, I haven't got a clue despite trying to follow it on the news - I put something about it on MeandO's diary yesterday saying I was hoping that Martin would make it all clear for us!!

Don't worry about it at the moment Levi as Westie has said, we can plan ahead and get ourselves sorted out before it hits......

Westie983

I am awesome that is all haha

hummingbird

^ Yes you absolutely are, you little Westie genius you!!!!!!:D

Westie983

Wow Im a genius on this diary....

Shall I hop over to Lilt ville to see what it says there lol....

Levi-

hi locas,

had an OK day, went to a little local fete just to wander around, but the little kids doing a Frozen sing-along made me miss LL loaaads and there was lots of things there he would have loved. the sun was a bit much but it was quite pleasant, i managed to barely spend anything - apart from £1.50 on a stall where everyone wins a soft toy...they looked quite nice.. but trust me to win the creepiest knitted clown you've ever laid eyes on.. i ended up giving it to another stall a bit further round to add to their raffle lol :rotfl:

found £10 in vouchers that "Danone" had sent me more than a year ago and I'd forgotten all about.. when I complained about there being skin floating around in my bottle of Volvic (it turned out not to be skin, but still:o:eek:).. so before they expired I went to Tesco and got 14 bottles of "Volvic Juiced" which is currently on offer for 70p a bottle... tasty and something LL will both drink, with an expiry date til Jan 2016.
also got petrol while @ Tesco, to top up the tank while at a cheap place, £25 worth, and came over a bit impulsive after finding an old fortune cookie note in my wallet which had 6 numbers on it, so bought a lottery ticket for the next 2 weeks with those numbers, hoping it was perhaps a sign..:A

LL is having a great time, looking very suntanned and smiley - we spoke on Friday and will speak to him tomorrow again

Looaaaaaads of cleaning to do tomorrow that I put off from today in favour of a snooze
Every so slightly DOWN but nothing catastrophic.... best I don't dwell too much on £ because that just always manages to make me hit a downer, the magnitude of it seems overwhelming whenever I think too hard about it but small steps is all I can do

Love ya Locas...xxxxxxxxxxxxx