The little red box.

I reckon this has got to be getting on for the fiftieth-some-odd budget since I started taking a personal interest in such things, and yet I cannot remember a single one which left me significantly better or worse off. For the most part it has been a case of giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Now I am a pensioner things are slightly better because I don't pay National Insurance but even so, we're talking at best about a few quid a month - better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper, as the saying goes, but hardly champagne and caviar.