How much will frozen income tax bands suck out of your pay packet?

Wages are up, but inflation is… the same. What does it all mean for mortgage rates, the state pension, benefits and the economy generally?   One thing we know won’t be affected by the latest figure is income tax bands. Just how much is the big freeze – AKA fiscal drag - going to cost us? That’s on the agenda for Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost this week as the latest CPI reading stuck at 6.7 per cent.  At the start of the year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set the target to halve inflation by the end of 2023.   And it was looking promising. But this latest inflation figures might have thrown a bit of spanner into the works. What’s going on at Royal Mail? Some households say they are only receiving their post once a week. Hospital appointment letters, birthday cards, parcels and important bills have all gone missing in delays caused by a staffing crisis. In Brighton, households say they’re receiving mail as infrequently as just once a fortnight. Picking an estate agent to sell your home is so important. A good agent will make finding your buyer seem like a breeze. Choose the wrong one and it can cause untold stress, drag the whole process out and you could end up being forced to reduce your asking price and ultimately sell for less. So how do you pick a good ‘un? And just what is gazundering – and why is it back with a vengeance?  The new Tesla Model 3 arrives on our fair shores in January - but how much will it cost and is it any good? If it proves to be out of your budget range what about Citroen's new e-C3, set to start from around £17,000  And…range anxiety is real - so would you take an EV on a continental road trip? Paul Barker, motoring journalist of decades, gave it a go and diarised it for you...

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