Times are tough for everyone, including Britain's Queen Elizabeth, who appears likely to run out of money by the end of 2011 unless the British government raises payments for royal household expenses for the first time in 20 years, CNBC reported.

The total cost of supporting the House of Windsor increased by $2.5 million to $69.23 million during the last financial year, according to royal accounts published on the UK monarchy's official Web site.

The increases forced the queen to tap into a reserve fund in order to pay expenses such as staff salaries, travel, hospitality and repairs and refurbishments to royal residences, the accounts showed.

Contraction in the British economy during in the first quarter was the highest in more than 50 years — 4.9 percent — as output in the manufacturing and construction sectors plummeted.

Citigroup economist Michael Saunders expects the second quarter will show a contraction as well.

“I don’t think recovery will be strong in U.K,” Saunders told The New York Times.

According to figures from the British Office for National Statistics, Gross Domestic Product fell 2.4 percent in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of 2008 and construction sector output dropped by 6.9 percent.

Britain’s industrial output fell 5.1 percent from October to December 2008, the largest decline since the first quarter of 1974.