Queen Elizabeth Almost Broke

The palace accounts must be a royal headache. Queen Elizabeth is headed for a showdown with the Treasury over Buckingham Palace's budget, the Times of London reports. Apparently, the budgeted money the Queen receives for her staff costs and the running of her household runs on a 10-year cycle. Thanks to a deliberately generous official, the Queen was able to squirrel away $57.7 million from her budget during the 1990s, and in 2000, with royal agreement, Tony Blair froze the payment at $13 million per year. Last year the Queen dipped into her savings for $9.9 million and at this rate, the funds will be gone by 2012. The next ten years of budgeting will be finalized next year.