Feels like it's time to take the gloves off

I heard this morning that it could be 2018 before we get a balanced budget again. And that's with a fair wind and clamping down totally on the use of paper, paper clips and paper cups - which will save the trees at least. I think many people must be thinking that a move to France would be in order. Sticking in at school would have helped - the vocab needed to get through two weeks in the Dordogne probably won't be enough to guarantee gainful employment in anything other than offering traffic directions to passing Brits. 

Given that, we're going to have to get on with it - and there's no point in tinkering. Fiddling at the edges will get us nowhere. 

Maybe we need to apply two simple tests to everything we do: would we notice if we didn't have it? And could we manage without it?

A straightforward example might help readers get the feel of this. I would notice if I didn't have a car (there would be more space at the front of our house and the garage could be converted into something much more useful). Could I manage with out it - of course. There are buses, taxis, the net, the phone and all manner of possible adjustments. 

So it feels to me like it's time to take the gloves off. All of the things we would have wanted to have guaranteed for ourselves into our dotage will simply have to go. Needs must. This is about tough decisions. Do we really want to mortgage our future? I'm not really convinced we can afford it. 

Expect it to be tough. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. But then we only have turkey once a year and can, if we have to, manage perfectly well without it.