What % do you think real world UK inflation is running at?
Poll: What % do you think real world UK inflation is running at?
Total Members Polled: 226
Discussion
Here...
Diesel is 144p here - big hoo-ha in the area as most of the towns surrounding are cheaper by up to 5p per litre. Boycott the local petrol stations is the media mantra.
Food - Sainsburys have put their usual minimum of 5% on this January, however lots of their stuff has gone up by much more - 6 pack bottled sports cap water was £1.33 now £1.50, so 11%, basics peanuts went up from 34p to 48p as usual in December for Christmas and haven't come back down. From a year ago, weekly food shop has gone up close on 30%
Utilities - well 19% up on gas last year, 15% on electric
Council tax - no change for this year apparently - bill yet to arrive for 12/13
Mortgage - the same as on a fixed rate
Dog insurance - up 12% - lots in the media recently about companies pulling the plug on lifetime condition cover (which we still have)
Car insurance - difficult to compare, as added a second car and put business use on one
Sky - prices have been held (basic package at £19.50)
Phone/Broadband - Hoorah! One that has gone down by over 10%
Water - same as last year, but 9% increase has been announced for this area. Oh joy!
Looking across my budget sheets Jan 11 to Jan 12 and everything combined, total percentage increase is somewhere around 10% I reckon.
Diesel is 144p here - big hoo-ha in the area as most of the towns surrounding are cheaper by up to 5p per litre. Boycott the local petrol stations is the media mantra.
Food - Sainsburys have put their usual minimum of 5% on this January, however lots of their stuff has gone up by much more - 6 pack bottled sports cap water was £1.33 now £1.50, so 11%, basics peanuts went up from 34p to 48p as usual in December for Christmas and haven't come back down. From a year ago, weekly food shop has gone up close on 30%
Utilities - well 19% up on gas last year, 15% on electric
Council tax - no change for this year apparently - bill yet to arrive for 12/13
Mortgage - the same as on a fixed rate
Dog insurance - up 12% - lots in the media recently about companies pulling the plug on lifetime condition cover (which we still have)
Car insurance - difficult to compare, as added a second car and put business use on one
Sky - prices have been held (basic package at £19.50)
Phone/Broadband - Hoorah! One that has gone down by over 10%
Water - same as last year, but 9% increase has been announced for this area. Oh joy!
Looking across my budget sheets Jan 11 to Jan 12 and everything combined, total percentage increase is somewhere around 10% I reckon.
Edited by Migsy on Wednesday 15th February 13:11
Edited by Migsy on Wednesday 15th February 13:16
oyster said:
This is hilarious.
I keep records of all my fuel purchases and on Feb 11th 2011 I paid 127.9p a litre.
Last night I filled up at the same petrol station for 132.9p. That is an increase of 3.9%.
Council Tax is the same as last year.
Mortgage the same as last year.
Gas bills much higher, as are lectricity, but my mortgage spend is way higher than my utilities spend.
Rail travel is about 6% higher.
Where is this figure of 8% plus coming from in the poll results???
Checked your food bills? And our electricity went up 12% I keep records of all my fuel purchases and on Feb 11th 2011 I paid 127.9p a litre.
Last night I filled up at the same petrol station for 132.9p. That is an increase of 3.9%.
Council Tax is the same as last year.
Mortgage the same as last year.
Gas bills much higher, as are lectricity, but my mortgage spend is way higher than my utilities spend.
Rail travel is about 6% higher.
Where is this figure of 8% plus coming from in the poll results???
I appreciate you might not be seeing 8% + inflation, but surely it depends on what you buy?ETA no, the electricity went up 25%. Incredible.
Edited by iphonedyou on Wednesday 15th February 16:43
I saw inflation of 50% overnight at Tesco yesterday.
Pooped in on Tuesday for some sour cream. Left it in the car overnight accidentally so had to go buy more last night.
Overnight, their Dine in For Two, usual price £10 (starter, wine, main and dessert) had morphed into a "valentines treat" now priced £15!
Same shelf, same items...made me giggle as on Tuesday eve it was full but 24 hours later, the shelf was bare.
All that extra profit makes the bag nazis they now employ seem extra mean!
Pooped in on Tuesday for some sour cream. Left it in the car overnight accidentally so had to go buy more last night.
Overnight, their Dine in For Two, usual price £10 (starter, wine, main and dessert) had morphed into a "valentines treat" now priced £15!
Same shelf, same items...made me giggle as on Tuesday eve it was full but 24 hours later, the shelf was bare.
All that extra profit makes the bag nazis they now employ seem extra mean!
Edited by Haggleburyfinius on Wednesday 15th February 17:07
oyster said:
This is hilarious.
I keep records of all my fuel purchases and on Feb 11th 2011 I paid 127.9p a litre.
Last night I filled up at the same petrol station for 132.9p. That is an increase of 3.9%.
You are doing very well to get fuel for 132.9 average price is 1.35 and a bit http://www.petrolprices.com/I keep records of all my fuel purchases and on Feb 11th 2011 I paid 127.9p a litre.
Last night I filled up at the same petrol station for 132.9p. That is an increase of 3.9%.
5.6% on 127.9
anonymous said:
[redacted]
They have been getting away with it for years, how many people assume the same product is the same price in any Tescos(eg) store - it isn't?It is far too easy with computer controlled stores to tweak prices and send someone off out to swap shelf prices.
If their turnover drops due to people tightening their belts all they have to do is cut offers or increase prices to make up the difference, what are we going to do about it, not shop?
badgers_back said:
Mortgage through the floor 137 quid a month to borrow 190K (was 800 when I took the mortgage out)
Are you saying mortgage down £137 a month or you pay £137 a month in total? If the latter I think a nasty surprise in the way of back payments may be heading your way.The 'official' rate of food price inflation bears so little relation to my personal experience, that I've done a bit of digging. Namely looking at the ONS website to establish exactly which foodstuffs are being price-tracked, and how this happens.
It lists typical shopping basket examples such as 'a 800g loaf of bread'. Ahem, an 800g loaf of boggo supermarket bread costs anything between 70p and £1.40 - so which price point is being tracked?
It would be simplest to establish a given price point (say, the median) and track that, but apparently it doesn't happen that way - instead retailers are asked to provide price details of the 'best-selling'. I can sort of see the logic in this to determine the greatest numbers of individual experiences of inflation, but from a statistician's point of view it's hardly a consistent measure over time.
However the real con in the use of 'best-selling' data is that it obfuscates the true picture with another layer of complexity as cash-strapped shoppers switch from premium brands to own-label alternatives. A year ago Asda's poshest bread was flying off the shelves at £1.40 a loaf, now shoppers can't get enough of the Smart Price stuff at 70p. Whoopee do! Bread price inflation's gone down!
ETA - ONS linky:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/user-guidan...
Section 3.5 of the Consumer Price Indices technical manual, one up from the bottom. Written in the vaguest language so that hopefully you'll miss it, but the meaning is clear.
It lists typical shopping basket examples such as 'a 800g loaf of bread'. Ahem, an 800g loaf of boggo supermarket bread costs anything between 70p and £1.40 - so which price point is being tracked?
It would be simplest to establish a given price point (say, the median) and track that, but apparently it doesn't happen that way - instead retailers are asked to provide price details of the 'best-selling'. I can sort of see the logic in this to determine the greatest numbers of individual experiences of inflation, but from a statistician's point of view it's hardly a consistent measure over time.
However the real con in the use of 'best-selling' data is that it obfuscates the true picture with another layer of complexity as cash-strapped shoppers switch from premium brands to own-label alternatives. A year ago Asda's poshest bread was flying off the shelves at £1.40 a loaf, now shoppers can't get enough of the Smart Price stuff at 70p. Whoopee do! Bread price inflation's gone down!
ETA - ONS linky:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/user-guidan...
Section 3.5 of the Consumer Price Indices technical manual, one up from the bottom. Written in the vaguest language so that hopefully you'll miss it, but the meaning is clear.
Edited by Mobile Chicane on Thursday 16th February 15:17
oyster said:
This is hilarious.
I keep records of all my fuel purchases and on Feb 11th 2011 I paid 127.9p a litre.
Last night I filled up at the same petrol station for 132.9p. That is an increase of 3.9%.
Council Tax is the same as last year.
Mortgage the same as last year.
Gas bills much higher, as are lectricity, but my mortgage spend is way higher than my utilities spend.
Rail travel is about 6% higher.
Where is this figure of 8% plus coming from in the poll results???
And in Feb 2009 it was 80ppl and a year later it was 120ppl. A 50% increase. And official inflation was 'only a couple of percent' that year too.I keep records of all my fuel purchases and on Feb 11th 2011 I paid 127.9p a litre.
Last night I filled up at the same petrol station for 132.9p. That is an increase of 3.9%.
Council Tax is the same as last year.
Mortgage the same as last year.
Gas bills much higher, as are lectricity, but my mortgage spend is way higher than my utilities spend.
Rail travel is about 6% higher.
Where is this figure of 8% plus coming from in the poll results???
If i look back at what i paid in tuition fees, accomodation, ten years ago compared to what kids pay today, inflation has averaged over 10% a year.
Ribol said:
................ but interestingly after it got into its stride the proportions above have remained pretty much the same.
Most of the time it has been running about 88% have voted it as over 4%.
Be interesting to see the breakdown though.Most of the time it has been running about 88% have voted it as over 4%.
I suspect for PH'ers, food is one of the smallest proportions of their overall spend, so even if food goes up by a lot, it only has a marginal impact on their own inflation rate.
For me, for example I spend as much on food in a year as I do on housing costs in about 2 months, so plainly my mortgage having been frozen since 2009 means inflation is pretty low.
stichill99 said:
Wife just came back from Asda and happened to say Look at that radox. 1 bottle for £1.89 0r 4 bottles for £3. So what price do you use to work out inflation figures.
Anyone who can afford to both have a bath and put Radox in it today can't be doing badly at all 
But on a more serious note this highlights how those already skint are getting hammered even harder and feeling higher inflation, they don't have spare cash to allow them to stockpile bargains or pay in advance to offset price increases.
Isn't inflation always going to vary depending on what you buy?
And hasn't it always been the case that it's always been just an indicator rather than meaning to be specific for every single one of us?
For those citing a personal rate of 8% or more, have you always had a perceived higher rate than the CPI? And does your demographic fit the "average" mould that the CPI "basket" is likely geared towards?
The difficulty for the govt (of any colour) is that they really need to keep this benchmark consistent in terms of what's included in the "basket". I'm sure they tweak it from time to time, but I can easily see why messing with it all the time, and making radical changes would not be good for any of us (the markets use it for a start).
So I can perfectly well believe that the official figure is correct. None of us anecdotally can prove otherwise
Personally...
- petrol up markedly.
- commute costs are up.
- insurance the same.
- mortgage the same.
- food is up, but I haven't monitored it closely enough to know whether this is a big jump recently or just moderate ones over time. I suspect the latter.
- "other" expenses down.
Overall it feels like my day to day expenses have increased..3%-4% might even be right. But then my lifestyle is constantly evolving (as I'm sure everyone's does) so properly assessing whether that's a result of some generic inflation figure is difficult (and ultimately pointless).
And hasn't it always been the case that it's always been just an indicator rather than meaning to be specific for every single one of us?
For those citing a personal rate of 8% or more, have you always had a perceived higher rate than the CPI? And does your demographic fit the "average" mould that the CPI "basket" is likely geared towards?
The difficulty for the govt (of any colour) is that they really need to keep this benchmark consistent in terms of what's included in the "basket". I'm sure they tweak it from time to time, but I can easily see why messing with it all the time, and making radical changes would not be good for any of us (the markets use it for a start).
So I can perfectly well believe that the official figure is correct. None of us anecdotally can prove otherwise
Personally...
- petrol up markedly.
- commute costs are up.
- insurance the same.
- mortgage the same.
- food is up, but I haven't monitored it closely enough to know whether this is a big jump recently or just moderate ones over time. I suspect the latter.
- "other" expenses down.
Overall it feels like my day to day expenses have increased..3%-4% might even be right. But then my lifestyle is constantly evolving (as I'm sure everyone's does) so properly assessing whether that's a result of some generic inflation figure is difficult (and ultimately pointless).
Murph7355 said:
The difficulty for the govt (of any colour) is that they really need to keep this benchmark consistent in terms of what's included in the "basket". I'm sure they tweak it from time to time...................
I would say they (of any colour) have tweaked it to make things seem better than they have been for years, in they same way as the debt has been ignored and allowed to keep increasing to a level it is now no longer possible to ignore - which is how we ended up in so much debt.No different to some halfwit running riot with his credit card IMO.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff