HOW did you fare in this week’s Budget? Was it a nice early Christmas present? Or a bundle of sharp sticks?

If you’re working, earning an average wage and part of the Middle Jersey clan, you’ll probably be wondering – as I certainly am – how to cut costs next year.

I’ve been trying not to let it depress me, not least because one of our readers observed recently that I had a tendency to be over-pessimistic. But, in truth, it is quite difficult to be positive about this week’s decisions.

Firstly, if you’re paying a mortage on which you are entitled to tax relief, the amount of that relief will be going down because of the ongoing ‘20 means 20 per cent’ policy. So a few more pennies will need to be found there.

Then, if you are one of those ‘higher earners’ – ie, you brought home even marginally over the £44,000 threshold this year – and does this include our States Members, I wonder? – Social Security will be taking another two per cent next year. Tighten that belt a bit more.

Then, of course, there are the tax thresholds, which won’t be going up, although the cost of living certainly will.

By the time we’ve forked out another two per cent – or three per cent, depending on what is decided – on GST on everything under the sun, we’ll certainly be noticing the increase. Every little helps to push costs higher, remember.

That’s just for starters. Who knows what else might be around the corner, now that zero-ten has, according to the UK Treasury, been damned by the European Union.

But we do have some reasons to be grateful. The States have been trying hard to cut costs and economise. Even when they spend over £700,000 on a ‘review’ of the health service, that’s a saving in the longer term, don’t you see?

And the Jersey authorities tried so hard to please the EU. They were told, were they not, that everything would be fine. They didn’t know it would all go pear-shaped; they thought they were doing the right thing. So we can’t really blame them, or their predecessors.

Perhaps we could ask Santa to be a bit more generous this year, when he finds that we haven’t been able to afford that tot of whiskey or the mince pie we usually put out for him.