The cost of the Royal Family fell last year, Palace accounts showed yesterday.
A round of belt-tightening and the Queen dipping into "savings" meant her household required 62p per taxpayer - a drop of 7p from the previous year.
A spokesman said it was mainly due to a reduction in overseas travel on commercial charter flights and a refund of lease rentals from the Queen's helicopter, which was replaced last year.
Her Majesty dipped into a reserve fund to boost her civil list income £6.5million.
This is the most ever drawn from the reserve, which is surplus civil list money accumulated in the 1990s.
The total cost of keeping the monarchy decreased by £3.3million to £38.2million during the 2009-10 financial year, or 7.9%. Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Alan Reid said: "The royal household is acutely aware of the difficult economic climate and took action to reduce civil list expenditure by 2.5% in real terms in 2009.
"We are reviewing every vacancy to see if we can avoid replacement.
"The necessary reduction cuts in public expenditure will have an impact on the backlog of essential maintenance to the estate which it is hoped can be addressed in the longer term. The household is pursuing opportunities to reduce costs and generate income from assets, such as commercial letting and management charges."
The total cost of the Queen's civil list, which pays for the running of the royal household including staff salaries, was £14.2million in 2009, up £300,000.
It was made up of £7.9million from the Government plus the £6.5million from the list reserve.
If the Queen continues drawing on the reserve at the current rate it is expected to run out of funds by the start of 2012 - the year of her Diamond Jubilee.
George Osborne announced as part of his Budget last month that the £7.9million will not increase this year. The Chancellor said the Queen had agreed to freezing it.
Campaign group Republic said yesterday: "There is no reason why the Queen can't just be on a salary and be given a budget for running her office.
It's clear the monarchy continues to waste many millions of taxpayers' money when frontline services are being threatened."
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