07/12/2013 Your Money

bills, petrol prices and car tax. The disc is going but the tax lives

on. We will take you through the details on the show.

Hello and welcome to Your Money your weekly guide to making the most

of your cash on Saturdays and Sundays on BBC News. Also available

all week on the BBC iPlayer. Live longer, work longer. Today s

Live longer, work longer. Today's young people may have to toil until

they are 70 to get the state pension. We will look at the

Chancellor's plans. Plus some of the other big changes

from George Osborne this week. Benefits capped. But a smaller tax

bill for some couples. We have all the details.

And giving your home an extreme make over. But will you be able to sell

it afterwards? Kevin Peachey finds out if it could exterminate the

money you have spent. For many of us we will live longer

and have a better life than our parents or grandparents. What a

wonderful thing. Living longer means older age will probably be more

expensive. George Osborne says we need to work even longer than he

first suggested to pay for it. Government had already said the

state pension age would rise to 67 by 2028. That will not change. But

now he says that if we are set to retire in the mid`2030s, we will not

get the state pension until we are 68 is old. The decade after that, if

you are set for retirement in 2040s, the retirement age will be

69. And official estimates are that by 2060s, the state pension age will

have gone up to 70. So, young people starting their first jobs now will

have to work up to 55 years before they stop. Some of today's

pensioners only had to work 40 years. One estimate is that these

changes could save the taxpayers ?500 billion over the next 50 years.

If you are tired already the state pension will rise by ?2.95 in

April. That takes the weekly pension up to ?113.10. The increase matches

the rates at which prices were rising back in September with

inflation at 2.7%. Helen Morrissey is editor of Retirement Planner

magazine. The idea that young people today might have to work 55 years

before they can retire, and some of today's pensioners may have worked

40 years to get the state pension, there will be young people saying

that is not fair. They would be right to think so. Nobody wants to

find out they have to work until they are 70 to get their state

pension. But be have to be real. pension. But be have to be real

When the state pension came into being nobody expected people would

live 30 years in retirement. It is not built to withstand that. Changes

have to be made. Yes, we are living longer in retirement that the money

is not been upped to pay for it in our working lives. But we are not

talking about doing the same job at the same relentless pace, are we?

Not at all. We have all seen the headlines. It is not as grim as it

sounds. We are talking less of a cliff edge where you retire on one

day. It will happen over a period of time. You might decide at 66 to go

down to four days a week. Maybe glide down to retirement over five

or ten years. So a new approach to the world of work. If you are doing

to have manual Labour, for someone who fixes improve, the idea that you

might do that beyond 60, that could be challenging. That will be the

difficulty with these changes to the pension. We are living longer but

not all of us are and what about the people in manual jobs. They might

not be able to carry on until they are 65 or 70. There is an issue for

mothers. To get the higher state pension you have to work a certain

number of years. If you are stay at home mum the state covers some of

those years for you until the youngest turned 16. If you have to

work until you are 70, that gap to in the youngest leaving home and 70

is pretty wide. You cannot really stay at home for all of that time

and not see your pensions suffer. Absolutely. When the flat pension

comes in in 2016 or you need to queue a late 35 qualifying years to

get the full state pension. Working mums will have to put provisions in

place to get the full rate. Which means going back to work?

Absolutely. The economics might be forcing them to do it. In the Autumn

Statement the Chancellor talked about working mums or people without

the qualifying years being able to top up their state pension

contributions but we do not know that much detail yet about how he

will do that. Great to talk to you, Helen. Thank you for sharing your

expertise. We will look at some of the other changes to Your Money in

the Autumn Statement in a moment. Here are some of the other money

stories. NatWest, Ulster bank and The Royal

Bank of Scotland, customers could not use their bank cards to pay for

things again. Much embarrassment at the checkout. Some customers also

found their pay packets were late or had disappeared from their bank

balance. The RBS group has apologised and says it will refund

customers who were left out of pocket.

For the big mobile that would reform the big mobile phone company say

they have to limit the amount if mobile phones are stolen. The amount

is still to be worked out but it will come in next year. They will

also give us the option to tear up our phone contract if they put up

prices halfway through. They are EE, Virgin Media, three, and Vodafone.

That list is not include O2. The Government says it will take

some of the green energy charges of energy bills and make a space for

them through taxes instead. So energy bills went up, some will come

down again eventually. British gas will cut its dual fuel bills by ?53

from January. SSE, Scottish and SWALEC will cut theirs by ?50 but

not until April. And npower says it will not raise prices until spring

2015 unless wholesale prices go up. And no cuts that EDF but it did not

put its prices up I as much as the others. Their bills went up by 3.9%

others. Their bills went up by .9% which is half the size of the

increases at other firms. There are six big energy firms and five of

them announced price rises. The sixth was E.On and it has now joined

the club. Their jewel fuel customers will see prices rise by an average

of 3.7% in January. `` dual fuel customers.

Now, have you ever thought about giving your home and extreme make

over. Not just any make over but an extreme one. You could have a lovely

home but it could be harder to sell. Can you sell a house like this?

Surely this one is best viewed on a Sunday. This takes things to another

level. And this could keep the selling Blues at bay. But how about

this beautiful family home? It is a converted barn in the Devon

countryside with period features and rooms which are bigger on the inside

than you would expect. I grew up loving Doctor Who. I'm not

particularly fanatical about it but I like the TARDIS. It is my

favourite bit of British architecture. That is the main

reason I built it. People like it. We laugh a bit but they like the

look. Some people have walked past it and not even noticed it which I

find hard to believe. Generally a positive vibe. Homes for sale with

unusual features may attract viewings from the curious but our

buyers looking for something to sell on later? Something more timeless. A

seller needs a genuine buyer who is interested in the property rather

than the extreme features. There is a danger that if you make your

property rather attractive to four years, they will view it for the

wrong reasons. You might not be able to spot a genuine buyer. So, a nice

big picture and `` a nice big kitchen. How can you catch the eye

of a genuine buyer? Freshly brewed coffee in the kitchen and baking

bread is still one of the best tricks in the book. I think houses

and flats are bought within the first 60 seconds of walking through

the door. Yes, you can do the bread and coffee but also a vase of

flowers. A clean smell is important. A nice fresh smell. And make sure

the house is not too cluttered and has touches of personality. So it is

via somebody lives there enjoys living there. That is what it is

about. Back in Devon dot Richards is offering a warm welcome to potential

buyers, but if all else fails, you may try travelling back in time to

the heart of the housing boom. Here are some of the other announcements.

The car tax disc is going. Tax dodgers can be caught by computer

nowadays. No disk but we still have to pay tax. We will be able to do

that by monthly direct debit. That other tax we pay to keep the car on

the road, fuel duty, that has been frozen. A planned rise of 2p per

litre for next year has been scrapped. And a cap on rising train

ticket prices in England. Regulated fares will still go up but by less

than expected. Fares that were due to go up by an average of 4.1% will

instead go up by an average of 3.1%. instead go up by an average of 3.1%.

This is just for regulated fares, that includes season tickets,

"anytime" single tickets around major cities, and off`peak Intercity

return tickets. Also capped ` welfare benefits. There are new

rules for young people claiming benefits. And some couples will get

smaller tax bills ` thanks to a new married couples and civil

partnership allowance. Gary Vaux, Head of the Money Advice Unit at

Hertfordshire County Council That's all from Your Money for this week.

The new rules on benefits for younger people, what are they? Those

aged 18 to 21 will have to include they have the equivalent of GCSE

grades a to C to get benefit. If they do not have that, they will not

be able to claim benefits. It is supposed to make people more

employable if they have those qualifications. That will come in in

2015 and it will be in certain areas of the country. All 18 to

21`year`olds? All. Caps on welfare spending have been in the pipeline

for some time now. Pensions will be excluded, as will benefits for the

unemployed. To set the figure and say we will not spend more than that

or, if we do, we have to go back to Parliament to get approval. It is a

good headline gesture but it does not mean a great deal in practice.

That is for 2015. Then the tax allowance, the married tax allowance

years ago and now it is back in a revised form to cover civil

partnerships. It does not benefit that many people, reading into the

detail of it. Those on higher incomes will not be eligible. It is

only where there are basic rate taxpayers. It does not benefit those

living together who are not in a married couple or a registered civil

partnership. It does not benefit many low income families. If you are

in receipt of housing benefit or tax credits, if you boost the income of

one working partner it gives you a higher income which means less

benefits and tax credits. It is a good headline grabber. It does not

affect that many people. Even for those it does affect, the gains are

mitigated in other areas. I'd macro where one person `` it can mean a

big jump. As soon as you go to the higher rate tax band, you are going

to lose the bonus of ?200 a year you will get for being a married

couple. Some people will benefit and every penny matters when budgets are

stretched. Do they need to apply or will it happen automatically? Yellow

I suspect it will have to be applied for. The taxman does not really know

who you are married to. Always a joy to talk about tax and its

simplicity. That is all for this week. Advice on savings, borrowing,

spending all we long on the website. `` all week long. You can get

updates by following our feed on Twitter. Thank you for joining us

today. This is BBC News. The headlines: Air travellers are facing

cancellations and delays across Britain because of a technical issue

with air traffic control. It is affecting all major airports.

Celebrations of the life and achievements of Nelson Mandela

continue across South Africa. After the storm, the clean`up. Following

the worst tidal surge for 60 years. The bad weather is moving to Europe.