2020

If your employer requires you to work from home, you've always been able to claim for increased costs, eg, heat or electricity, for the specific time at home. Yet in October 2020, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) launched a 'microservice' which, even if you only needed to work from home for a day, allowed you to get a WHOLE YEAR'S tax relief.

Update Tue 23 Mar: This blog was originally written in July 2020. The regulator has said there are no more planned extensions to payment holidays. So, if you NEED one, in most cases you have just one week left, until the 31 March to apply.  I've updated the blog below with the latest information.

Last week I got an email with the board papers for the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute (MMHPI) charity trustees board meeting (which I chair). I set up the charity in 2016, and have funded it since, with its aim to come up with policies and ideas to break the marriage made in hell between mental health problems, money and debt.

In March, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chancellor was rightly lauded for putting together decades' worth of financial support measures in days. Millions of people, then and since, have had their incomes covered in a desperate time. Yet that has created a society of the helped and helped-nots. Up to three million people have been excluded from specific support schemes.

Behavioural economics is a powerful science. Some retailers are undoubtedly using it to make us pay more to get less. One element is the 'decoy effect' – where a higher-priced item is sold, to make items next to it look like bargains. So I wanted to do a little experiment to test it.

In 2016, I founded the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity. It very quickly established itself as the go-to institute for trying to divorce the marriage made in hell that is debt and mental health issues.  

We face an unprecedented challenge to our health, economy, businesses, personal finance and way of life. And many of those who normally help society – our charities – are going to face similar pressures right now too. 

We've just agreed the final payments for my Coronavirus Poverty Emergency Fund. The total distributed is £3,414,143 to 415 small local charities (or organisations with charitable status). That's an average of over £8,000 per charity. For transparency, I want to run through how we organised, selected the charities, and where the money has gone. I hope this may also help others planning similar things in future.

The Chancellor has rewritten decades' worth of state-support policies in days. These are important schemes that will provide crucial, much-needed support for millions. Yet understandably, as he had to innovate and implement at breakneck speed, there are some unintended holes.  

Financial and economic abuse are often a prelude to domestic violence. Raising awareness is important. It helps those facing it realise they're not alone and help is available. Plus, it means friends and family may be able to spot the signs. Karen wrote to us, having read my Financial Abuse blog (which includes help links and explanations).