Budget 2014

What we need to know from yesterday's budget:

• the tax-free personal allowance has been increased to £10,500 - more tax free income has got to be better for all of us!
• easier and cheaper for people to withdraw money directly from their pension pots
• the famous Help to Buy scheme for new-build homes has now been extended to 2020 with continued support for building more than 200,000 new homes
• 2017 will see us with a shiny new twelve-sided £1 coin
• and last but certainly not least, beer duty has been cut by 1p a pint and the duty on spirits and cider has been frozen - cheers!