March 12, 2008
After discovering a black hole in his bank account roughly the size of the UK national debt or Mrs Guru's heating bill, Yours Truly spent this afternoon working out a personal budget at the same time that the chancellor delivered the nation's.
The trouble was, every time Guru had worked out an expenditure limit for a particular activity, the white-haired wonder that is Alistair Darling said something that made him have to change it.
First came the good news. The £1,000 per month Guru had allowed for the gas bill was slashed to £950 when the chancellor upped his winter fuel allowance for the over-60s. Not that Guru is giving any clues to Mrs Guru's age here - she is also registered for under-25s discount at the STA travel agent.
The requirement for supermarkets to charge for plastic bags came as an unexpected boon, being as it will require Mrs Guru to stop using them and remove the expensive need for Guru to build that extension to house all the used ones after all.
Then there was £60m over three years to "equip people to return to the workplace". If this means catching them at the bakery on Monday afternoons, handcuffing them and forcing them at knife point to put in a few hours at the local factory, Guru will be saved a nasty job and Mrs Guru will be bringing in a bit more cash.
Well, all this meant Guru could splash a much improved £150 per month on meeting his learned chums at the cerebral establishment they call they the Dog and Duck. Well, it did until Darling put an extra 4p on a pint of beer and 11p on a pack of 20 cigarettes. It seems to be back to the drawing board.
