Budget

Budget

Today we are going to find out about the English word“ budget”.

But first, I asked you a question at the end of the last podcast. I told you about the supermarket check- out for people who are buying only a few things. I asked you whether the sign above this checkout should say“10 items or less” or“10 items or fewer”.

Well, I think it should say“10 items or fewer”. We can count items– one item, two items etc– and“ fewer” is a word which we use with things we can count, while“ less” is a word we use with things we cannot count. But many people– and several supermarkets– say“10 items or less”. That is the problem with English– English people don’t always speak it properly.

But now lets talk about budgets. What is a budget? Suppose you make a list of everything you need to spend money on in the next month– rent, food, clothes, bus fares etc. Then you work out how much money you will earn. And then you compare these two– your income and your expenditure– to see whether you will have enough money. This is a“ budget” – a look into the future to see how much money will come in and how much will go out. It is a financial plan, in other words.

We use the word“ budget” in other ways too. For example, suppose you want to buy a new computer. You work out how much money you have, and how much you will need to spend on other things. Then you calculate that you could afford to pay£450 for a new computer. £450 is your“ budget” for the new computer.

We can use the word“ budget” as a verb. “ To budget” means to plan what you will spend money on. You might say, for example“ I don’t have a lot of money. I need to budget carefully”.

Sometimes“ budget” just means“ cheap”. The problem with the word“ cheap” is that it implies poor quality as well as low price. So shops don’t like to advertise their goods as“ cheap”. They look for other words instead. They talk about“ our value tinned tomatoes”, “ our bargain sofas” or“ our budget range of computers”. You see how much better it sounds to say“ budget” instead of“ cheap”. I should be an advertising executive, not a podcaster.

And why are we talking about budgets in this podcast? Well, today is“ budget day”, one of the great events of British politics. This afternoon our Finance Minister( or“ Chancellor of the Exchequer” as we call him) will leave his home at number11 Downing Street, next door to where the Prime Minister lives, carrying a red box. He will travel in his official car to Parliament, which is about200 meters away. ( I don’t know why he cannot walk, like a normal person.) When he gets to Parliament, he will open the red box and take out a file of papers. He will then tell Parliament about the government’s budget for the next financial year– how much the government will spend and how much it will take from us in taxes. He will tell us about tax increases and tax cuts, and say how wise and careful the government is, and how the British economy is doing really well. And then the opposition parties will say that the government is spending too much, or too little, or that taxes are too high, or too low, and that the British economy is in a terrible mess. And by this evening, we will all be able to work out whether the budget has made us better off or worse off. I can hardly wait.

Good bye.