Marriage Allowance

[Kenton]

 

The example quoted, [Tesco] is a case in point. For me to take advantage of any of the 'offers' Tesco advertises, may well involve a 15 mile journey to a big enough store. My local Tesco is a short distance away....but often doesn't share the offers available in big cities. A quick look online confirms what is 'available'...and what I cannot reasonably take advantage of.

 

Sainsbury's is the same.....quite how they quantify what they consider to be a 'big' store is beyond me...but that is the excuse given, when I cannot find offers that the chain advertises.

I think we are getting too tied up in the specific example - what my original statement was about was the lack of ability (probably education) or willingness to use basic cheap foods as opposed to preprepared/ready meals or take-away. It is not just a feature of those on benefits, but is something that many could learn.

 

 

 

The UK needs to increase by as much as 50% the number of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) graduates it is creating, a report says.

 

The study, by the Royal Academy of Engineering, says 100,000 Stem graduates are needed a year just to maintain the status quo.

 

Of course they would say that wouldn't they - a major vested interest in generating such a report.

 

Scepticism aside (partly because I believe it) the only way to get more graduates in science is to make it important (and attractive) in schools as opposed to all these media studies/arty options. Too many seem to be given these as easy options and are scarred off science because it requires study and remembering facts as opposed to being able to waffle around opinions and storytelling. I am not saying that some arty type qualifications are worthless and have no real value - just that we do not need so many of them.

[APOLLO]

What separates "them" from "us"?

 

A huge divide of wealth and influence and prosperity.

 

"They" have the power and authority to ensure the system is weighted towards the "themselves". Look what is happening, frozen / falling wages, rising housing costs, the farther south east you "live" the larger the division. Pensions, work till you drop in future, etc.

 

Of course, all of us are different on the wealth / influence / prosperity scale, but I doubt many here are within the 0.001%

 

T'was ever thus. But globalisation has ramped the divide up extremely rapidly in the last decade or so, and there is still along way to go, to our detriment.

 

Briit15

[The Stationmaster]

As an aside - sorry - I find the comment about Tesco reductions a bit odd.  We have a relatively small branch locally, not on a convenience store scale but definitely not as large as many branches.  And we regularly get reductions on many products in fact we only buy some things when they are reduced or on special '2 for 3' or 'BOGOF' offers.  For example we regularly buy a particular brand (not Tesco own brand) of sausages which are reduced by 40% every now & then - so we buy the when they're reduced but not at other times.

 

We rarely buy meat at Tesco (other than bacon) because of the way they treat farmers but Waitrose are equally good at reductions if you look and shop carefully.  Reduced price, or cheap in the first place, foods seem to be available at all supermarkets although you have to look for them sometimes and they are rarely 'convenience' type foodstuffs and it does pay to check the quantity prices either in your head or by what is shown on labels as the big packs aren't necessarily the cheapest.   And as for chicken - well a decent one of reasonable size will probably offer as many as a dozen 'person meals' once you've run the full gamut of roast, made dishes such as curry, sandwiches and soup - far cheaper than buying various pieces of chicken such as breasts or wings.

 

But I think Kenton is spot on when he talks about lack of ability, or 'education' when it comes to making economic use of food stuffs.  Like saving, and debt, the art of using food and making the best of what you have or can get at a reasonable price seems to be lost on many folk - and teaching them wasn't necessarily down to the state.

[jjb1970]

On the engineering shortage comments, I think we already have a massive problem. Part of my role involves candidate selection and interviews and finding suitable staff in engineering disciplines is painful. I work for a UK based organisation (one of the UK names which is still globally respected and very successful) and the majority of our UK based technically staff are from overseas. Lest it be thought this is a cheap skate way to cut costs, these people are on standard UK salaries (and whinges aside, it is not a minimum wage organisation) and the costs of making the case we cannot fill roles with UK or EU applicants and then international relocation and visa costs etc mean this is anything but a cheap option. I find it very worrying really.

[APOLLO]

We find Aldi & Lidl food to be of a very good standard, Lidl "cooking bacon" cut thin is tasty and cheap. I've mentioned Lidl chocolate before - superb.

Lets face it, a lot of there stuff is from Germany, and the Germans don't produce / put up with rubbish.

 

We don't do all our food shopping here, but visit both weekly. We don't throw away much food either, it's to damn expensive to throw away !!

 

Anyway, back to the marriage allowance. Registered a few weeks ago and had a letter today confirming my tax code has gone up.  The system works.

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

On the engineering shortage comments, I think we already have a massive problem. Part of my role involves candidate selection and interviews and finding suitable staff in engineering disciplines is painful. I work for a UK based organisation (one of the UK names which is still globally respected and very successful) and the majority of our UK based technically staff are from overseas. Lest it be thought this is a cheap skate way to cut costs, these people are on standard UK salaries (and whinges aside, it is not a minimum wage organisation) and the costs of making the case we cannot fill roles with UK or EU applicants and then international relocation and visa costs etc mean this is anything but a cheap option. I find it very worrying really.

 

My son has just completed his second year of a 4 year Masters Mechanical Engineering course at Liverpool University. He was looking for a part time summer job and sent his CV to a few large firms - no joy. He got on his bike and went round a few local small engineering firms. The second one he visited took him on straight away for 3 months. He's on the shop floor doing basic engineering, odd jobs, brewing up, going for the pies (!!) etc - still it's engineering, and he will learn the shop floor basics, which any and all engineers need to do, I certainly did. The firm does valve maintenance and is very busy in the summer months when heating plant etc can be taken offline.

 

I'm happy he did a "Norman Tebbit" and got on his bike !!

 

Brit15

[RhBBob]

Back to the plot, then.... 

 

Back-dated Marriage Allowance - 4 months at £17.66 arrived with my occupational pension today 

 

Grateful thanks to the staff at HMRC for their patience and understanding - after all, they have to implement the sometimes fantastic dreams and schemes of our politicians 

[Horsetan]

....4 months at £17.66 arrived....

 

Hang on, is that 4 months at £17.66 each, or 4 months totalling £17.66? I wonder how much it cost to process.....?

[BlackRat]

Re BOGOF offers......it's the supplier that funds these, not the supermarkets!

 

Always at the supermarkets behest to!

 

That's why you rarely, if ever get 'own brand' BOGOF promotions.........

[RhBBob]

Hang on, is that 4 months at £17.66 each, or 4 months totalling £17.66? I wonder how much it cost to process.....?

 

At the back of all this is the catch-up factor, of course; once-upon-a-time (or 1976 or 1978 if you prefer) a pregnant Married Woman would be expected to leave her job and then be totally reliant on her Husband's income plus the one-off £30 Maternity Grant, of course and eventually a £1 a week for the second child.

 

No Maternity Leave or Maternity Pay.  Easy to see how the State could not calculate the number of - shall we say - beneficiaries for this Allowance.

[Metr0Land]

Well the Head of Household was sent her personal email link from HMRC's computer last week but we didn't set time aside until this morning for wading through the online application.

 

My gast was really flabbered when we discovered that the online application was actually quite simple, so much so that we actually filled in the online questionnaire at the end saying 'very satisfied' with the process.

[CUTLER2579]

Hang on, is that 4 months at £17.66 each, or 4 months totalling £17.66? I wonder how much it cost to process.....?

 

That's per month. They allow you £1060 onto your personal Allowance which at the 20% rate of Income tax equates to £212 per annum.

Regards,Derek..

 

PS:-  Still awaiting mine. Patiently !!

[alastairq]

Speaking as a singly, having played at marriage at least 3 times legally....regarding being thrifty, I find Lidl to be the best for meat. Not so hot on fresh veggies..but they are tolerable.

 

Tesco are poor for value in  meat [not sure how they justify nearly 6 quid for a roasted pigeon?].....not bad for fresh fish, good for veggies....rubbish for everything else. Too overtly profiteering, as well.

 

Regarding readymade meals, compared to own stuff?

 

I cook 99% of my own stuff.....but I secretly enjoy cooking.

 

The downside is, when living solo, one has all the essential chores to deal with [but, one only has oneself to please?]....oneself.....whereas, in a family, these can be shared about.

 

To recover some essential downtime, means taking shortcuts here and there..and ready meals are one of those shortcuts?

 

If I earnt a bit more, I'd pay someone to come in & 'do', as they used to say.....but that would definitely be a no-no if and when I eventually 'retire' from full time employment.

 

I am, however, somewhat concerned that the current economic recovery [ie, feelgood] is smoke & mirrors, yet the impression I get from the media, etc, is folk have quickly forgotten the recent hard times, and are trying to get back to what went before, as quickly as they can?

 

Or is that the south east skewing the impressions yet again?

[hayfield]

At the back of all this is the catch-up factor, of course; once-upon-a-time (or 1976 or 1978 if you prefer) a pregnant Married Woman would be expected to leave her job and then be totally reliant on her Husband's income plus the one-off £30 Maternity Grant, of course and eventually a £1 a week for the second child.

 

No Maternity Leave or Maternity Pay.  Easy to see how the State could not calculate the number of - shall we say - beneficiaries for this Allowance.

 

 

The amount of differing benefits that are now around is staggering paid for both by government and employers. To be quite honest many do not benefit the recipients but go into the pockets of either business (by maintaining low pay) or investors by going in rents. If these benefits were not available the low pay would rise and rents would fall, as owners would have to rent at lower rates to match the market rates

 

As for maternity leave/child care, its a joke !!  If you can't afford children don't have them. Employers are forced to leave jobs open where existing staff have to work harder for not extra pay to cover both maternity and seem unable to control the abuse of the system for child care leave. We do have at least one person who milks the child care/sickness system, the person is separated from their partner who looks after the children !!

 

Self certification of sickness is also abused these days and the employer can do little about it. Glad I will be retiring soon and join the gravy train

[hayfield]

Speaking as a singly, having played at marriage at least 3 times legally....regarding being thrifty, I find Lidl to be the best for meat. Not so hot on fresh veggies..but they are tolerable.

 

Tesco are poor for value in  meat [not sure how they justify nearly 6 quid for a roasted pigeon?].....not bad for fresh fish, good for veggies....rubbish for everything else. Too overtly profiteering, as well.

 

Regarding readymade meals, compared to own stuff?

 

I cook 99% of my own stuff.....but I secretly enjoy cooking.

 

The downside is, when living solo, one has all the essential chores to deal with [but, one only has oneself to please?]....oneself.....whereas, in a family, these can be shared about.

 

To recover some essential downtime, means taking shortcuts here and there..and ready meals are one of those shortcuts?

 

If I earnt a bit more, I'd pay someone to come in & 'do', as they used to say.....but that would definitely be a no-no if and when I eventually 'retire' from full time employment.

 

I am, however, somewhat concerned that the current economic recovery [ie, feelgood] is smoke & mirrors, yet the impression I get from the media, etc, is folk have quickly forgotten the recent hard times, and are trying to get back to what went before, as quickly as they can?

 

Or is that the south east skewing the impressions yet again?

 

 

Morrisons is my preferred choice for meat or the local butcher for quality. When I cook an item (liver and bacon for example) which the wife dislikes I make enough for 3 meals, 2 of which go into the freezer for consumption later, saves both time and expense.

 

Come back from holiday and prices being asked seem to have increased significantly over the past 2 months (neighbour had 6 offers for their house over the asking price a few weeks ago), staggered but something about school catchment area has been stated as a possible reason. Only good if you are downsizing or moving away

[ParkeNd]

The challenge whilst working is not how to start married/living in sin with what your parents ended up with, nor how to meet the South East norm of three continental holidays per year. It's overcoming the peer pressure to avoid pension payments and the live for now philosophy. Reaching 65 still with a job is possible (I did but it was a real challenge) but becoming the old fart in an office of low salaried youngsters means that retirement is sooner or later inevitable. But descending into absolute poverty on just the State Pension is what must await an increasing number of folk. I started planning to avoid this at 30 but who will bother now with virtually zero investment returns and 2015 peer pressures ? Even Aldi bacon may become a future luxury.

[edcayton]

The amount of differing benefits that are now around is staggering paid for both by government and employers. To be quite honest many do not benefit the recipients but go into the pockets of either business (by maintaining low pay) or investors by going in rents. If these benefits were not available the low pay would rise and rents would fall, as owners would have to rent at lower rates to match the market rates

 

As for maternity leave/child care, its a joke !!  If you can't afford children don't have them. Employers are forced to leave jobs open where existing staff have to work harder for not extra pay to cover both maternity and seem unable to control the abuse of the system for child care leave. We do have at least one person who milks the child care/sickness system, the person is separated from their partner who looks after the children !!

 

Self certification of sickness is also abused these days and the employer can do little about it. Glad I will be retiring soon and join the gravy train

 

But most youngsters don't seem to get paid for at least the first three days off sick. I think the teens now have a much harder time the I did. There are very few large employers where you could expect a "job for life" with a social club, football and cricket teams, subsidised canteen etc. I didn't realise how lucky I was back then, but decided to take a drop in salary to go into teaching. Was it a good move? Well, I enjoyed teaching until near the end when the pressures got too much.

 

Ed

[jjb1970]

Inter generational enmity benefits nobody. I suppose I am neither old nor young so am in neither camp but I do think there is a terrible lack of respect for young people in the media and society. In the media kids are presented in a negative way much of the time, university tuition fees are a heavy burden that my generation didn't have to worry about, there are nothing like the good vocational training opportunities older generations could go into and as a result of changes in the economy employment opportunities are much more limited than they were. And young people are faced with paying taxes to fund pensions and benefits which they won't get. I mentor graduates in our company and am supervising some MSc students and despite the negative stereotypes they're invariably articulate, polite and hard working kids. None of which is to say older people don't also get a bad deal in many ways and deserve more respect from society too but I do think youngsters also deserve more respect too.

[hayfield]

But most youngsters don't seem to get paid for at least the first three days off sick. I think the teens now have a much harder time the I did. There are very few large employers where you could expect a "job for life" with a social club, football and cricket teams, subsidised canteen etc. I didn't realise how lucky I was back then, but decided to take a drop in salary to go into teaching. Was it a good move? Well, I enjoyed teaching until near the end when the pressures got too much.

 

Ed

 

Ed

 

Where I work age has nothing to do with it, perhaps when on probation but their attitude is fine then. But the younger ones do not worry too much, one even had the cheek to say they were too tired to work. There are some very hard working youngsters, but they seem to know their rights before their responsibilities.

 

Job for life went years ago, the benefits from larger companies are being withdrawn if not already gone. The youngsters are now getting the jobs as we have been loosing staff (part time uni students) for the past 2 years, my daughters youngest daughter has just got her first choice job 3 weeks after leaving uni. I think the tide may have turned for the employers in having to increase salaries as good quality employees are harder to find.

 

I do agree things are a bit harder in some ways, but very much easier (benefits) in other ways for those with children. Since the start of the welfare state those in work have paid for those who are not, that's how it was set up, any shortfalls were and still are paid for by borrowing, not saying its right it's just as it is.

[ZiderHead]

I think we are getting too tied up in the specific example - what my original statement was about was the lack of ability (probably education) or willingness to use basic cheap foods as opposed to preprepared/ready meals or take-away. It is not just a feature of those on benefits, but is something that many could learn.

 

Indeed, I'm always amazed by how much people spend on food, especially those who can't afford it. If you can't eat well and healthily for £3 a day, you're doing something wrong. I'd like to know when the basic skills of feeding yourself on a budget disappeared in this country. My grandparents' generation did ok before, during and after the war, stretching out very meagre rations with veg from the garden/allotment. My parents' generation learnt those skills, and my mum taught me. I'm glad my grandparents aren't around to hear people moaning about current "austerity", its insulting to those who lived through the blitz and real austerity.

 

When I see people reach over the loose veg and grab a pack of sliced vegetables for 8x the cost/kg I despair.

[jamie92208]

This may be a boring return to the OP but I have just had a major result.

 

I registered my other half for this and got the confirmation email whilst on holiday.  2 weeks after we got home she finally has had time to sit down and go through it.  Not only did we complete the registration successfully in 5 minutes but we didn't have a row and no divorce is pending as a result of this activity.  That is a major result when she's driving the desktop and I'm standing behind her supplying the requested information.

 

The trick appears to be having a bank/building society account in her name which is registered to pay interest gross.   She was able to confirm her ID by quoting the last 4 digit of the account no and her NI number.

 

Jamie

[CUTLER2579]

Well I must confess HM Customs & Revenue have excelled themselves as today my new Tax Coding arrived including the transferred allowance from SWMBO.

Must admit I am staggered by how quickly this has been done.  

Regards.

[Metr0Land]

Well the Head of Household was sent her personal email link from HMRC's computer last week but we didn't set time aside until this morning for wading through the online application.

 

My gast was really flabbered when we discovered that the online application was actually quite simple, so much so that we actually filled in the online questionnaire at the end saying 'very satisfied' with the process.

 

Well well well, my gast has been flabbered a 2nd time.  Re-coding advice recieved today giving me some of the Head of Household's allowance.  Probably too late for my company pension provider to act upon it this month but at least it's coming soon!

[Metr0Land]

You're not gonna believe this but I've just had online advice from my pension provider and my Aug payslip (actual payment not into my bank yet) says I WILL be getting the new tax code this month and in effect 4 months 'back pay' plus Aug at the new rate.  So from applying online 22July I should now have it in my bank before end-Aug.

 

Just one question - Who are these people and what have they done with HMRC?

[Metr0Land]

Well I guess I should have known better.........

 

My wife and I are both pensioners.  Whilst I was working I had to to self-assessment tax returns but this ceased around 2001 and my total income has never been remotely near the trigger point for this any more.

 

Today I've received a letter from Self Assessment, HMRC, BX9 1AS - an office I've never had to deal with.  Basically saying Dear Mr.....  The Chancellor announced that from 2015... some transfer between partners is now allowed.  Your spouse/civil partner has applied to transfer some of their tax-free allowance to you.

 

The tax saving will be applied when you file your Self-Assessment return.  No other action is needed.  If you do not wish to receive this allowance <instructions>

 

Now my problem is this.  Do I ignore these pig ignorant blood sucking vultures hard working civil servants who've made a mistake?  If so, do I risk being penalised for not submitting an SA Tax Form?  Do I try and make contact with these peope (but it's just the 0300 200 3310 number which is probably a contractor and not HMRC even if they do answer the phone).  Or do I write to my normal Tax Office?

 

If there's anyone with real practical advice as to how to get the HMRC to actually recognise their error and actually do something I'd be very grateful.

 

 

 

Edit:  I also checked the online checker thingy to make sure I've no need to submit SA forms and I don't.  However, knowing how comptuers work, if something has triggered this letter then it seems to me that unless some action is taken by HMRC  'the computer' will still keep thinking I need to send them in?