Budget

You could tell the life-stage that Nigel and I are at from the parts of the budget that made us prick up our ears.

There will be a lower cap on pension relief allowance. 

Pensions – when did we start being interested in pensions?  Yet suddenly we are.  Until the children left we felt we were living in the epicentre of our own lives, but now one of the big conversation topics  among our fellow empty nesters is “How long before I can retire?”

There is to be a new ISA designed to help first-time home buyers.

In the next few years, our children will start work, and may be joining the battle to get onto the property ladder.   

Suddenly our focus has changed toward making savings – both for our own decrepitude and also to compensate our children for the fact that they will have to earn their living and raise families in a world much less economically hospitable than we did.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering what part of the budget made my children prick up their ears and very much hoping it wasn’t that bit about a penny off a pint of beer.