Just sharing my thoughts on stocks and finance Not financial advice
England, United Kingdom
Joined July 2026
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Tax working people and businesses to death until nothing is left.
Working Brits are struggling with rising bills, food prices, rent, childcare and taxes, often working harder just to stand still.
They deserve a system that rewards hard work, not one that keeps asking them to shoulder more of the burden while their own living standards suffer.
Frozen tax thresholds drag workers into higher tax bands.
Inflation guts purchasing power.
Mortgage payments swallow pay rises.
Savings lose value while public debt balloons.
Policymakers borrow against the future, tax the present, and leave ordinary families poorer. Then they call it economic management.
ALT Graph showing how under current projections this will be the worst parliament on record in the UK for living standards
Remember when the tax-free allowance was £12,500?
That was in 2019.
Today, it’s £12,570…just £70 higher.
If it had simply kept up with inflation, it would be around £17,000 today.
Meanwhile, food, rent, energy, fuel and everyday bills have all risen sharply.
Politicians can say they’ve “not raised taxes.”
But they haven’t needed to.
Freeze the threshold while wages and prices rise, and inflation quietly pushes more of your income into the tax system every year.
£5 a day doesn’t feel like much.
But it’s £1,825 a year.
Invest that amount annually for 20 years at a hypothetical 7% return and it could grow to around £75k.
You don’t have to give up every little pleasure to build wealth.
The working Brit gets squeezed from every direction: frozen tax thresholds, rising prices, slower wage growth, weaker growth and unemployment heading for 5.1%.
Work hard, pay more, get less - while housing gets pricier and the benefits bill keeps climbing.
That’s not an economy rewarding work. It’s an economy punishing it.
🚨 SUMMARY: The OBR forecasts following John Healey's Budget
- Welfare spending will rise to £431.3bn by 2030/31 - an increase of £97.5bn a year in cash terms
- This includes £209.8bn on pensioner benefits, £110.7bn on Universal Credit, £69.6bn on disability benefits, £13.9bn on Child Benefit and £27.2bn on other welfare
- Inflation will peak at 3.75% in early 2027, up from the earlier prediction of 2%
- UK GDP growth will slow from around 1.25% in 2026 to 1% in 2027, before climbing to 1.6% in 2031
- Average UK unemployment will rise to 5.1% across 2026 and 2027
- The Employment Rights Act will "likely" have a negative economic impact because of reduced flexibility and greater uncertainty for businesses
- The landlord tax increases (property income) could contribute to a long-term rise in private rents and discourage landlords from entering the market
- Real household disposable income per person will be around 0.75% lower in 2030-31 than it expected in March 2026
- Higher earnings and frozen tax thresholds will increase income tax and National Insurance receipts by £9bn in 2026-27 and around £8bn on average in subsequent forecast years compared with March
- Net migration is forecast to fall to 120,000 in the year to mid-2026, then gradually rise to 230,000 by the year to mid-2031
- Nominal weekly earnings growth will slow to around 3.5% in 2026, then average roughly 2.25% a year
- Andy Burnham's first-time buyer scheme could raise house prices by increasing demand without enough new homes being built
This is the number one burden for millions of Brits.
Your salary goes up, but income tax thresholds stay frozen. So more of your pay gets pulled into tax.
Example: your salary rises from £40,000 to £45,000. That’s £5,000 more income, but at 20%, up to £1,000 of that increase could go straight to income tax, before NI and other deductions.
He has sat down. So that must mean
1. Income tax thresholds frozen still
2. Student loan Plan 2 threshold still to be frozen in April
We will check now, but unless you hear, no news here, fiscal drag (and double fiscal drag for plan 2 students) stays.
#Budget2026
Minimum wage rises from April 2027 - but workers won’t keep the full increase.
Example: At 37.5 hours/week, an over-21’s annual pay rises by ~£975 before deductions.
With the £12,570 tax-free allowance frozen, the extra earnings are subject to Income Tax at 20% for a basic-rate taxpayer - around £195 more tax, plus potentially more National Insurance.
The result? A higher wage, but only part of the increase in your pocket.
“Made his day” while millions of Brits are struggling to pay their heating bills and fill up their cars.
£10bn in additional support announced abroad, while households at home are still under pressure from the cost of living.
What about the people funding it all - the British taxpayer?
🚨 NEW: John Healey has announced Ukraine will receive £10bn in additional economic and military support
"We called him this morning... he told us we made his day"
#Budget
You know what this means, right?
🚨 NEW: The new OBR growth forecasts for the UK
2026: 1.2%
2027: 1%
2028: 1.6%
2029: 1.8%
2030: 1.7%
2031: 1.6%
#Budget
If inflation averages 3% a year, £10,000 sitting in cash with no interest would have the purchasing power of roughly £7,440 after 10 years.
You’d still see £10,000 on your banking app.
But it wouldn’t buy as much.
That’s why long-term money deserves more thought than simply leaving it in the bank.
Want a £500k investment portfolio?
Starting from zero, investing £500 a month at a hypothetical 7% annual return would take roughly 27 years to reach that amount.
Investing £1,000 a month would take around 20 years.
It’s not difficult, it just needs consistency and patience.
Two people invest £200 a month.
Person A starts at 25 and stops contributing at 35.
Person B starts at 35 and continues until 65.
Assuming a hypothetical 7% annual return, Person A could have around £200k at 65, while Person B could have around £244k.
Person A contributed just £24,000.
Starting early gives your money more time to compound, even if you can’t invest much.
Your first £10,000 invested can feel painfully slow.
At a hypothetical 7% annual return, £10k grows by £700 in a year.
That’s not life-changing money.
But at £100k, the same return would be £7,000.
At £500k, it would be £35,000.
The bigger your portfolio gets, the more noticeable compounding can become.
Getting started is the hard part.
I just learned that if the price of houses had risen at the same rate as median income in the UK then a house in 2026 would cost an average of around £160,000.
It actually costs £273,000.
20 years ago, owning a house in your 20s was pretty normal.
Around 59% of households aged 25–34 in England were homeowners.
Today, it’s around 48%.
And the average first-time buyer is now about 34.
The idea of buying your first home at 25 is no longer a realistic goal.
You can work full-time in the UK, pay your bills and still feel like you’re getting nowhere.
Rent takes a huge chunk.
Then council tax.
Energy.
Food.
Travel.
And whatever’s left is supposed to cover saving for a house, investing for retirement and actually enjoying your life.
“I can afford the monthly payment.”
Probably one of the most expensive sentences in personal finance.
£500 a month doesn’t sound crazy.
Until you realise that’s £6,000 every year.
For a car.
Meanwhile, that £500 could be buying assets every month instead.
🇬🇧 Average savings in the UK by age:
→ 18–24: £2,699
→ 25–34: £11,023
→ 35–44: £13,379
→ 45–54: £12,452
→ 55+: £33,420
If you thought you didn’t have much in savings, you’re probably doing better than you think…
A Lifetime ISA gives a 25% government bonus on up to £4,000 a year.
The penalty for taking the money out early (unless it is for a first home or after 60) is 25% of the total amount, which wipes out the bonus and then some.
Plenty of people open one without fully accepting how locked-in the money becomes.