Friday 15 November 2013

UK Inflation falling - not for me!

This was quite an interesting find. I was going to a a post on the CPI inflation basket, although actually CPI and RPI are pretty close in correlation this year - with RPI being a little higher but moving in line even given housing prices and lending going up. With Help to Buy early next year, this correlation will probably start to widen.

What I did find though was this personal inflation calculator which is quite interesting and makes for an interesting view. My own circumstances have been very trying this year and I can see why as when I input my personal spending patterns it shows me having to cope with a personal inflation rate of nearly 8% for the past 18 months - no wonder I have to be hard working capitalist.

Here you go, peek if you dare...http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc14/index.html

13 comments:

Electro-Kevin said...

Real inflation is very different to personal inflation. Anyway. It isn't over. The 'fall' in inflation still adds percentage increases on the inflation we've already had.

Consider a young person who now has to contend with problems other than that:

- Car insurance 3k a year
- Tuition fee loan if they're lucky enough to have a job
- 40% taxation on a wage that just about qualifies for a first mortgage in many areas and doesn't qualify at all in London.

Brought to them by two generations who didn't bother to do the basics properly such as plan energy and water provision properly.

Elby the Beserk said...

The inflation figures are bollocks. The huge majority of people can only just about afford food, fuel and energy. Inflation rates for all of those must average well over 10% for some years now. That's what most of us are dealing with.

Bill Quango MP said...

My personal rate has fallen.

I can't say I'd noticed.

hovis said...

All this seditious nonsense, you'll be telling me the recovery is only a London based bubble financed by hot money inflows and money printing next. All those corporate earnings and valuations are true I tell you, just like the US.

We are having a broad based recovery after rebalancing our economy as George always planned.

dearieme said...

We've just replaced out thirty year old electric oven with one the same size from the same manufacturer: it's really just an update of the same model.

It was more than 10% cheaper.

DJK said...

What I find interesting is that there is no right price for anything anymore. Prices can change by the hour even in brick and mortar shops, never mind online, where the back-end, tax-avoiding software can price an item to what it thinks you will pay. And, of course, the multitude of online outlets means that at any instant there are many possible vendors at differing prices, all of which are in constant flux.

Nick Drew said...

how on earth do you get the profile in that graph, CU ?

Blue Eyes said...

CU, you could always send them to state school.

Inflation figures are the polar opposite of driving ability. Everyone thinks they are a better than average driver, everyone thinks their personal inflation rate is higher than the official stats.

Remember that while domestic energy prices and food *have* spiked, they still make up a tiny proportion of the "average" person's budget. If you are on a very low income then those rises are painful and nobody likes to have less to spend on their fripperies, but I don't buy the rather often-repeated complaint that "real inflation" is more like 10% than 2%.

I assume that the way the authorities calculate inflation here is rather more transparent than, say, in Argentina. Do any serious authorities claim that the figures are being cooked? Because if they do I have not heard them.

Nobody likes feeling poorer, even the super-rich must occasionally say to themselves "bugger this lark, I can't afford an upgrade to my private jet AND IT'S NOT FAIR!!!".

I think a better way to think about the world is to ask what you actually need of the things you think you can't afford. Most of us (not all, granted) have more than enough stuff to be getting on with. Anyone who then claims that rent, food, transport and energy bills take up their whole income is probably lying.

dearieme said...

More anent our ovens:
(i) Both ovens were bought routinely at John Lewis.
(ii) VAT went up in the interim, didn't it? So the pretax price fell by noticeably more than 10%.

andrew said...

there should be a personal 'rate of value' index to match.

do I honestly think that I am adding 2.5% more value than last year? (nah)

the trouble is that for most jobs you cannot measure the value very well.
but you can measure the incremental value added compared to the previous year.

and it does not make comfortable reading for many.

if you don't add more incremental value than inflation why should you keep up with inflation?

Steven_L said...

'the recovery' seems to be prompting folk we import off with out devalued sterling to put their prices up.

I've been watching booze prices throughout the crisis and it's only fairly recently they have clawed back lost ground.

The 2014 Shimano dealers fishing catalogue features annual price increases of 10% to 20%.

Bill Quango MP said...

Dearieme : until very very recently, maybe even 2011, a T/shirt would be half the price that your parents paid. A pair of trousers a third.
A pair of jeans you might have bought in 1995 would have been £10 from the cheapest possible store.

They are only around £18 now, after almost twenty years of inflation, and it is really only the 2010 devaluation of the currency that has made them that price.

Sackerson said...

Is this the effect of your wine bill?