It’s happened to all of us at times – we check our bank account and realise we’ve overspent our budget for the month.

And amid the cost of living crisis, many of us are are feeling the pinch now more than ever.

But it appears us normal folk aren’t the only ones… with even the royals becoming ‘extremely conscious’ of the big squeeze.

In fact – and now’s the time to get your tiniest violin out – the monarchy has overspent by £14.6 million this year and has had to fall back on savings.

In revelations from the Queen’s annual review from 2021 to 2022, the family spent £102.4 million – which is an increase of 17%, almost a fifth from the previous financial year.

Campaign group Republic lambasted the figures, calling for the royals’ budget to be slashed to below £10 million.

Chief executive Graham Smith said: ‘As always, while the rest of us face a cost-of-living crisis and continued squeezes on public services, the royals walk off with hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

‘We need to put the monarchy on a proper budgetary footing, just like any other public body.’

Funded by the taxpayer through the Sovereign Grant, official royal travel amounted to £4.5 million, housekeeping and hospitality to £1.3 million, utilities £3.2 million and payroll costs £23.7 million.

Property maintenance soared by £14.4 million to £63.9 million as the decade-long multi-million-pound project to renovate Buckingham Palace continued.

The palace managed to raise a further £9.9 million through visitor openings and other money-generating schemes.

But there was still a shortfall of £14.6 million in the royal finances, and accountants were ‘forced to dip into the palace’s reserves’.

Sir Michael Stevens, Her Majesty’s keeper of the privy purse, warned it is a ‘challenging’ time for the monarchy.

Delivering the report, he said: ‘There was a significant increase in work against a hard deadline to enable Buckingham Palace to be at the centre of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. We were pleased to deliver against our plans.’

The four-day celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the Queen’s accession at the beginning of June are said to have cost £28 million.

‘Looking ahead, with the Sovereign Grant likely to be flat in the next couple of years, inflationary pressures on operating costs and our ability to grow supplementary income likely to be constrained in the short term, we will continue to deliver against our plans and manage these impacts through our own efforts and efficiencies,’ Sir Michael added.

According to a royal source, Prince Charles is paying very close attention to the cost of living crisis and particularly how it is impacting the Duchy of Cornwall’s tenants, and their welfare.

They said the heir to the throne has spent time with farmers ‘sitting around the farmhouse table’ discussing these challenges.

‘He wants to hear from them, what is their lived experience, so we can see what we can do to try to help them, support them along the way because to roll the question into a wider point about the living crisis, the family are extremely conscious of this,’ the source said.

‘The Prince of Wales is paying very close attention to this indeed.’

Metro.co.uk has contacted Buckingham Palace for comment.

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