The Salary Calculator

Budget 2013

by Admin

In yesterday’s budget, the Chancellor George Osborne outlined his plans for the next couple of years. In terms of take home pay from April onwards, there were no real surprises – the personal allowance has been increased and the top “Additional rate” tax has been reduced from 50% to 45%. In an earlier blog post I have described how these changes have been applied to The Salary Calculator.

Those who are repaying their student loan could be saving as much as £50 next year, as the threshold for repayment has increased from £15,795 to £16,365 – so the deductions from their salary will be less from April. However, the flip side of this is that because less of the loan is being repaid, it will take longer for the loan to be paid off in full and therefore will cost more in the long term.

What I found most interesting about the Chancellor’s announcements yesterday was the extension of an existing scheme for people buying their first house (FirstBuy) to allow more people to take part. The new scheme is called Help to Buy, and will help people to buy a new-build home with a 5% deposit, even if they can’t get the rest of the 95% from a mortgage lender. The government will provide a loan (interest-free for 5 years) for up to 20% of the value of the house, leaving buyers to find only 75% from a mortgage lender. In return, the government will get a share of the equity in the house – so if the house price increases, the amount repayable when the house is sold will increase at the same rate. This scheme is available to first-time buyers and to people who are already on the housing ladder – it does not have to be your first house purchase – and the value of the house can be up to £600,000.

There is also a scheme to help people buy houses which are not new-built, where instead of providing some of the money, the government will guarantee some of the mortgage so that if the buyers default, the lender gets some of the money from the government. This is aimed at encouraging lenders to allow people with small (5%) deposits to borrow.

If it takes off, this scheme has the potential to help people who are currently struggling to buy a home because they don’t have a large enough deposit. It may also help to stimulate the house construction industry, and bolster a flagging property market. The treasury has provided an infographic with some details.

Tags: April 2013, budget, house prices, income tax, Mortgages, Pay As You Earn, personal allowance, student loans, tax rates, The Salary Calculator

Save money with offset mortgage

by Admin

Over on our sister site LoanTutor, there is a new tool and a new article trying to explain what an offset mortgage is and how it could help you save money. With an offset mortgage, you use your savings to effectively cancel out some of your mortgage balance, which reduces the interest your lender charges you. You can use this to either reduce your monthly payments, or keep your payments the same and pay off your mortgage quicker.

If you would like to learn more, have a read of the offset mortgage article, or to see how much you might be able to save try out the offset mortgage calculator.

Tags: interest rates, Loans, Mortgages, offset, offset mortgage, savings

Loan Tutor website launched!

by Admin

A new sister site to The Salary Calculator has been launched to provide information about loans and loan repayment.

Loan Tutor contains details about different loan types, such as mortgages, unsecured loans, debt consolidation loans and student loans. As well as a suite of tools for calculating loan repayment costs, there are also hints and tips and links to further information about borrowing money.

There will also be articles with suggestions of how you can save money with loans, including the first of these which explains how to avoid overpaying your student loan. Other articles and tools are planned for the future, including car loans, offset mortgages and credit cards.

Tags: debt, Loan Tutor, Loans, Mortgages, student loan company, student loans

Mortgage availability continues to rise

by Admin

Since the collapse of the housing market and plummetting property values filled the mortgage companies with fear of taking on the risks of buyers defaulting on the their home loan, the number of mortgages available to buyers also fell. But over the last year the trend in both house prices and mortgage availability has been promising.

More mortgages are now available with lower deposits (higher loan-to-value) than a few months ago, and some lenders are prepared to risk more with first time buyers. All of this is good news if you are looking to buy a house, and although prices have recently fallen slightly, the overall trend is still for prices to increase. Increased mortgage availability should help more buyers into the market, increasing demand and pushing prices up.

But a note of caution – with house prices returning to the value current occupants bought at, more and more owners will feel ready to sell up – more houses on the market increases supply and therefore lowers the price. Some analysts think that this effect will start to work harder against the increasing demand, slowing growth in house prices, but not actually pushing prices back down.

Tags: Economy, house prices, houses, Loans, Mortgages, recovery

Time to make some changes

by Admin

2010 beckons and the start of a new year is for many people the time to sort out their career or their finances. The Salary Calculator is here to help you if you want to make some changes to your financial situation.

It might be time to look for a new job – the Christmas break gives one time to consider career plans, and you might think that in January you’ll start looking for new employment, or talk to your employer about a promotion. Use The Salary Calculator when comparing salaries so you know how much extra it would make to you each month if you got that pay rise.

If you need some extra money each month, to save up for a holiday or a new car say, then use the Required Salary Calculator to work out what salary you need to look for to get that extra take-home. There’s hope that early in 2010 we’ll hear that the UK has finally left recession and things will start to pick up – including the job market.

If you’re not interested in a new job, you can consider sorting out your finances. Use the Mortgage Repayment Calculator to get an idea of the effects of remortgaging in 2010, or the Debt Consolidation Calculator to see what you could save by taking control of all of your loans. Why not try to get debt free in 2010?

Here’s to a great new year for everyone, I hope that The Salary Calculator will help you with your money in 2010!

Tags: 2010, careers, debt, Economy, job hunting, Jobs, Loans, Mortgages, Pay As You Earn, pension, recession, recovery, tax rates, The Salary Calculator