Joe Makin, 23, earns £22,000 a year working in admin and says almost two-thirds of his take-home pay is eaten up by rent and bills. The 2p National Insurance (NI) cut announced by the chancellor means he will keep a further £188 of his salary a year. He says he had low expectations ahead of the Budget, so found it a smidgen more positive than he thought it would be. He says: “These are small things that scratch the surface of what could be good, but as usual it never tends to go far enough for me.

David Stuart, 36, from Whitburn in Scotland, is a data analyst. He lives with his wife and two children, aged 10 and six. He makes about £70,000 a year and his wife, who works as a childminder, earns around £10,000. He welcomed the changes made to child benefit.

Aga Szedzianis in Newham, east London says that while there was some good news in the Budget, she would have liked to have seen more help for working parents. With price rises, the cost of childcare, and her mortgage soon set to go up by £500 a month, things are getting quite uncomfortable. Aga and her husband earn more than £50,000 each as associate architects so are subject to the 40% rate. She says over the past few years, despite her salary going up, she wasn’t seeing much difference in her take-home pay as a result.

But they will benefit from the increased thresholds for child benefit. Aga and her husband will be £2,534 better off in 2024-25, thanks to the NI and child benefit changes. She says: “That’s great. But it would be great if it was directed more towards childcare itself.

Rebecca Bostock earns £27,000 working as a case manager in the motor industry. She and her husband may be able to start paying into their pensions again. The 45-year-old would love to buy her own home but says saving for a deposit is not possible. She adds that she’s glad fuel duty was frozen as expected, but thinks it would be better if fuel companies were penalised for profiting as much as they do.

But on the other hand it does fund social care, the NHS etc, without whom we would be lost.

Read More