The Finance Minister's confident enough money's left in the kete - for the things we need

Nicola Willis has today revealed a pared-back operating allowance for next month's Budget - of just 1.3 billion dollars.

It's a plunge from the 2.4 billion Treasury forecast in the Half Year Update.

Willis says she's reviewed tens of billions dollars' of Government spending - to find cuts.

She says we've saved enough - so don't need to spend as much extra cash and do as much extra borrowing as would have been the case - and we're still on track to get the books back in balance.