The cutbacks have even reached Jasper at Rose Cottage

Hello Boys and Girls, CUTBACKS, cutbacks, cutbacks. I'm sick and tired of hearing about cutbacks. Why can't we have cut forwards, cut midfielders, even cut goalies â€â€ anything but cutbacks all the time? The cutbacks have even arrived at Rose Cottage of all places. I was just sitting down to my favourite meal, sausages and chips when the cutbacks arrived out of the blue. Friday is sausages and chips night at Rose Cottage and I just love it. Three sizzling, juicy, pork sausages and a big plate of Molly's home made-chips. All with a huge dollop of tomato ketchup. Yum, yum. So last Friday evening I was all ready. I'd fed all the animals and locked the barn for the night. I was sitting down ready to tuck in when Molly put my tea in front of me. 'What's this,' I cried in shock and despair. 'Only two sausages, I always have three.' 'Cutbacks,' she said. 'Get used to it because there'll be a lot more.' And she was right. Saturday morning is when we go into town and have fluffy coffee and buns. I was just spooning the milky froth off my delicious coffee when the girl planted a single bun in front of us. Molly cut it in two. 'From now on we share a bun between us,' she said. 'Cutbacks.' I was not happy. 'Why?' I demanded to know.   'Well Jasper it's like this. We get our money from selling eggs and vegetables from the farm. But people are buying less because they have less money. They have less money because they have less work. It's called a recession. 'So if they buy less from us we have less money to spend in the butcher's on sausages and on treats like buns. That's the way it goes. Cutbacks hit everybody at some point. Besides, you could lose a few kilo by the look of you,' she said.   Then I had a brainwave. We could save money by not giving so much back to the bank. They have loads haven't they? 'We can't do that because we have to pay our debts. Everybody has to pay back what they borrow. If we don't, then we won't be allowed stay in Rose Cottage. The bank will take it and sell it to get money to pay what we owe. That's how the world works,' she explained.   I didn't like the sound of this. If we lost Rose Cottage we'd be living in a tent. All the animals would also have no home and we'd have no eggs and veg to sell. This money business is more complicated than I thought. When money is short it's not so good. Even the government runs short of money. Then they have to have cutbacks and money for schools and sick children is cut back and people get very unhappy. This is why all the adults are talking about cutbacks these days. Everybody knows there has to be cutbacks but no one can agree on where to cut. If your pocket money was halved you would have to decide whether to cut back on chocolate or comics. These decisions are never easy. When things get better more people will start buying more eggs. Molly and I will make more money. I'll buy more sausages and go back to three jumbos with my chips on Friday night and a whole bun to myself on Saturday with my coffee. This will make not only me happy, but also the butcher and the coffee shop girl. These things happen so try not to get too worried about it. You can still play and have adventures and support your team and enjoy school. Just remember that maybe you can't have as much as you want right now even though Mammy and Daddy might like to give you more. They have to decide how best to spend their money so as to be fair to everybody. So I suppose I can sacrifice a sausage and put up with half a bun for a little while. It's not really so bad â€â€ but there's no way I'm having half my Sunday cone. Can you imagine the mess? Bye for now, Uncle Jasper