personal-finance – Page 2

2025 Budget: Damage assessment

2025-11-30 FIRE v London4 Comments

The big news in the UK this week was the latest Budget by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

The scare story in the budget runup

All UK readers of this blog will know that the rumours and counter-rumours in the run-up to this budget exceeded anything we have seen before.

There were too many rumours in advance of the budget to catalogue properly here. But I want to highlight several key rumours:

Taxes up by 2%. For a crucial couple of weeks in November, the government was rolling the pitch to break its manifesto pledge by increasing income taxes by 2%.
National insurance on investment income, notably property rental income. This rumour felt credible to me, because it happens elsewhere – such as Ireland. However most of the commentary missed a key characteristic about NI which is that there is an Upper Earnings Limit of around £4k per month (£50k p.a., roughly) above which you only pay 2%, not 8% (or, until quite recently, 12%).
Mansion taxes. The key rumours here were that there would be a tax of 1% on ‘mansions’ above the value of £1.5m or £2m. This move would have been the most impactful for me – with over £8m in two ‘mansions’, I was facing potential £40k p.a. of an entirely new tax.
Pension changes – potentially reducing the ability to take around 25% tax-free, for instance.

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July ’25: New high watermark

2025-08-16 FIRE v LondonLeave a comment

There wasn’t a huge amount to report from July.

Politically/economically I fear the most important event in the UK was the Labour government’s failure to enact its intended welfare reforms. This leaves the government a) unable to control spending b) unable to nudge the economy towards more jobs and more growth and c) facing politically expensive tax rises later in the year. For now, this hasn’t impacted the stats or portfolio very much, but it will have more of an impact over the next few years.

Meanwhile, it was a nice pleasant summer month in the UK. I managed to get to Wimbledon for the semi finals, which was a delight. I also explored the bird sanctuary at Arne, near Poole, and other bits of Dorset. I even visited Italy, which was surprisingly good value for money.

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June 2025: Show times

2025-07-11 FIRE v LondonLeave a comment

I really want to stop mentioning Trump.

Even when he sends troops into LA, one of my favourite cities.

But when he launches 30kt bombs on Iran, it is very hard to avoid talking about him.

In the context of what Trump’s been up to, the welfare reform screw-ups by the Labour government seem almost laughably trivial. Even though they make my blood boil and, I think, will have more impact on our economy than Trump’s militarism will have on the USA’s.

We’ve had some lovely weather in June, with the lovely long evenings to enjoy too. I’ve had some memorable London experiences, including a visit to Parliament, some high altitude fun and two (very different) shows – one of which even saw me on stage in the Barbican Theatre! I’ve also had some fun on the coast – including a very memorable evening in Poole harbour.