The Budget 2017 – Oi! Don’t nod off, it’s not boring. Well, it kind of is (even I was struggling to stay awake watching it) but luckily for you, I sifted through the information and found all the interesting bits.

To be honest, feels like the least interesting Budget in a long time – although Phillip Hammond did have all the banter, properly taking the mick out of Jeremy Corbyn.

Tell you what though, watching the MPs jeering, smirk and shout at each other properly winds me up. I’d love to be allowed to sit in there and shut them up. Dream job!

Anyway – here are the interesting bits:

Tax – there’s some good and bad

Some of you are going to be chuffed, while others disappointed.

• The amount you can earn without paying any tax goes up to £11.500 a year from April.
• The threshold for paying a whopping 40% tax (higher-rate) will rise from £43,000 to £45,000.
• Benefits you used to get tax free through work, will now be taxed (like gym memberships/health insurance etc). The only things that WON’T be taxed in full are pensions, childcare and the cycle to work scheme.

Self-employed? Prepare to pay more

I’m self employed, so this isn’t what I wanted to hear (I thought the Tories were all about the small business).

Philip Hammond said that people make the choice to be self employed because of the good tax breaks. I don’t think that’s true. A LOT of us HAVE to be self employed, because people aren’t hiring, or employers are only taking on freelancers etc. My two cents anyway.

So he’s increasing national contributions for employed people by 1% in 2018 and another 1% in the next year.

You can save more (if you have the spare money…)

So one of the best ways to save because its technically a tax loophole is the ISA savings account. You can now put away £20,000 (which would be nice eh?) totally tax free from April.

If you’re looking to invest, there’s a new Investment Bond from Government savings provider NS&I will pay savers 2.2% for three years from April 2017 – but the maximum rate is only £3,000.

The minimum wage goes up

To a whopping £7.50 an hour for the over 25’s. LOL. Joking about the whopping bit – but any rise is better than nothing I suppose.

Another thing though, why is it ok to have a different minimum wage for people under 25? I believe in same work, same pay. Why is it OK to discriminate? If you have the answer – let me know in the comments.

Cigarettes and Alchohol

Smokers, yeah… its not good news. Phillip Hammond introduced a minimum duty on a pack of cigs, set at £7.35 – which basically means the minimum price on a pack of cigarettes is going to be £8.82.

Thinking of quitting? Trust me, I know a way of doing it for less than £8 and its not painful in the slightest.

It’s not too bad when it comes to booze, as beer duty will rise to about 2p a pint, while wine tax will go up about 10p a bottle.

And that’s it to be honest – I think it was pretty uneventful. What do you think about it? Are you going to be better or worse off? Let me know in the comments.