Budget 2024 - The Squeezed Middle

Dont see why a special case should be made for that - maintenance of a house is ongoing and never-ending - and getting more expensive no matter how long you've lived in it.

I was in my house 20 years before I could afford to change the kitchen.

In relation to availing of mortgage interest relief, correct me if I'm wrong, but when the relief existed previously, it was applied at source by the banks. Hence, there is no need to seek the relief, the bank will deduct it from the monthly amount owed each month.

I get that and I don’t expect a perfect house instantly, at all, but there were so many things that needed to be done that I ran out of money relatively soon, despite initially having a healthy amount left over after buying. For example, the cost of rewiring is prohibitive, despite me probably needing it for safety reasons at this stage.

It’s just a bit galling when you see people get €30k towards the cost of a new build (yes I know this arguably inflates the price, but at least you feel like you’re getting help) when you get nothing if you cannot afford a new build- which barely any single people in Dublin can. Something like 40% of those who avail of Help to Buy can afford the house without it anyway.

Oh and you can’t get a renovation mortgage so you have to get a personal loan at 7% for any larger jobs that need doing. Yes this is true for everyone but just thinking aloud about how first time buyers can be helped…

Will my bank automatically handle all the interest relief stuff on my mortgage or do i have to apply? My fixed term ran out start of 2023 so it was on standard for the last year

Very good post.

Agree. Have seen much worse budgets but jebus they should be thinking more outside the box when the heat is off and we have corporate tax billions to spend.

That money tree is going to start to shrivel next year and here we have yet another unremarkable budget just tinkering around the edges, trying to keep voters generally happy, but not doing enough to solve any of the major problems in our society.

Homelessness, child poverty rent crisis. energy prices, our crashing health service...

Lot of waste here, giving to wealthy people as well as ordinary workers and not enough targeted help.

It is almost the €1000 giveaway for everybody leaked a few months ago by those government tds but denied angrily by MMcG and Paschal !

Of course we will all take it, happy for a few days but it doesn't fix anything really.

You're still quids in though compared to if you hadn't fixed.

The whole country is on some sort of welfare it seems. The funniest one was living alone allowance. Bloody hell what's Ireland turning into.

How much is it to do a house rewire on 3 bed semi these days? Mine cost 9k five years ago, i shudder at the cost today.

The living alone allowance is basically aimed at pensioners who live alone. Its much more difficult for them than say a retired couple on two pensions or one claiming for the other. For a lone pensioner on basic old aged pension, its much much harder to keep the roof over their heads and pay for all necessary repairs, heating etc as these things cost the the same for one person as for two.

While excise increases (fags, fuel, booze) take place from midnight these are not sales taxes - they are paid when the goods leave the relevant bonded area. What this means in practicality is that any shop who has whacked their fags up today is ripping you off for extra profit unless they just happened to get a delivery this morning. In reality, chances are they've stocked up on months worth of them to cash in on the excise increase for themselves - Tesco were caught doing this before when booze went up in a well flagged move - they made a big deal about not raising their prices for a month, but one of the papers found that they'd brought in something like six months worth of stock before the budget and were making gravy for five months.

If you're a retired semi state or public servant with a self funded superannuation pension in the region of €25-30k annually, married or single, there is no increase in income other than the tax credit reduction of €1.91/week and a reduction in USC of about €1.50-2.00 per week. If married and your partner has their own contributory Stamps/PRSI pension, even partially, their increase on this by up to €12/week will require a tax credit of €130 to remain tax free, so the extra €30 comes out of the main income joint credits, reducing the budget benefit on the main pension to about €2.80 - €3.50 per week. You could go mad on that altogether. I can already hear the squeezed middle retiree conversations. " You know that €12 you got in your...", 'Get lost! Thats mine'. End of discussion.

...or maybe modern political and economic ideologies are actually failing more and more, requiring the state to step in, we re still largely operating under so called 'trickle down' based ideologies......yea right!

Every little helps!

It was applied at source, but it was only applied when instructed by the Revenue and this was only done when it was requested by the Customer.

there is always a requirement to seek the extra reliefs.

Mortgage got sold to a vulture fund. €1100 last year, now €1600. Its a nightmare