Dear listener,

Here at the Money Box office we can hardly contain our excitement. Next week is Budget week. It's the latest the regular spring Budget has been since World War II and with the economy deteriorating by the day we simply do not know what measures will be in it.

Most of the routine stuff of tax allowances and so on was set out in the Pre-Budget Report last December. But are things so bad they will have to be revised? Will there be new things like a car scrappage scheme - £2,000 for your old banger? What will the chancellor say about his temporary cut in VAT – it is due to go back up to 17.5% on 1 January 2010 so he will have to tell us what he plans. Will the cut – which now seems to have worked – continue? Or will he have to put it up to 20%? Will there be changes in National Insurance and tax for people who earn well above the average? What help will he give to businesses – large and small? Will there be anything more for people who have been made redundant or for those on low incomes? And what about people with savings? Will he emulate the Conservative pledge to stop charging basic rate tax on the little interest they now get? And are the suggestions by some analysts that he will scrap higher rate tax relief on pensions just an attempt to boost sales in the week before we find out what his plans are?

The chancellor will stand up to tell us what he has decided at 1230 on Wednesday 22 April. And we will be live on BBC Radio 4 to answer your questions about what it all means to you on Budget Call at noon on Thursday 23 April.

Meanwhile this is what we have for Saturday.

*** ON MONEY BOX THIS SATURDAY ***

Are there the first hints of a sign of a prelude to some tentative green shoots in the housing market? We talk to estate agents around the UK and to the chief economist from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors whose latest figures are the green-shootest of all.

We will be talking to advisors who are not very happy about the way that a major high street bank has been selling investments to inexperienced investors. And an individual who has lost more than half his money tells us his experience. The bank – which is Barclays – denies strongly that it has done anything wrong.

The government is going to pass new laws to stop credit card providers sending out unsolicited credit card cheques. But at least one of the banks that the government owns is still sending them out.

The strength of building societies has been called into question again. Moody’s – one of several companies which analyses these things – has downgraded their credit rating. A banking analyst explains the significance in the light of a whistleblower's claim that the city regulator ignored warnings about the risks some building societies were taking.

And our pensions panel will debate "can we afford public sector pensions?"

Money Box is on Saturday at noon and repeated on Sunday at 9pm. Never miss a show by subscribing to our podcast. Subscribe on our website bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can also listen online, Have Your Say, watch videos, and find out more about the items on the programme.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS: Don't forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o'clock. If you miss it, you can watch it on our website.

e-mail Paul Lewis