Inspired by a recent post I saw on r/Inflation where an American lady compared her grocery order from 2020 to today's prices and discovered that it’s now 135% higher, I decided to take a look at my old receipts to see how things have changed here.
I only compared prices for items I knew were exactly the same products. Bear in mind that some of them changed in quality – for example, beef mince went from 20% to 25% fat – or had their quantity or weight reduced (shrinkflation is real). Some examples: olive oil rose 146%, carrots 138%, butter up 101%, beef mince 101%, eggs up 82% to mention a few. See the list here – https://ibb.co/MjrZ9mJ
These hikes span the last 4–4.5 years, and for the products I looked at, they came to an average increase of 63%.
In the same period, the average cost of electricity per kWh went up by 31%, the electricity standing charge rose by 151%, the cost of 1 kWh of gas increased by 76%, and the gas standing charge rose by 73%.
Average UK rent is up by 45%. Mortgage interest rates have more than doubled in that time, not to mention sharply rising costs of other borrowing.
Petrol/diesel is up by 19%/21% respectively.
The official inflation figure over that period, calculated using Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the Office for National Statistics, is roughly 25.5%. This reflects the compound effect of monthly and yearly inflation rates, yet we can see that everything (apart from fuel) is up double, triple, or even quadruple that amount or more.
It’s hardly a surprise the government would suppress the real numbers or present them in a way that doesn’t look so bad – but HOLY FUCK. HOW CAN WE LIVE LIKE THIS?
On top of it all, we keep hearing that the government needs to raise taxes because THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY – even though the tax burden on us is at a historic high. They’ve frozen tax thresholds, increased NI payments, CGT, changed stamp duty tresholds, raised council tax (by as much as 11% year on year in some areas). Yet there’s still NOT ENOUGH MONEY and we’re facing a massive budget hole again.
Where’s all the money going? Where is it going??? I sure as hell can’t see a massive improvement in our infrastructure, education, or healthcare, to name just a few. The country is so deep in debt that it’s soon going to lose its ability to keep repaying it and function at the same time.
It’s all going to crash because, I don’t know about you, but I can’t see how EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING in this country can keep rising in cost as it is now, WHILE we’re taxed more and more, and we can still somehow afford to live. When was the last time you got a pay rise that was actually higher than the cost of living?
By the way, it's time to rename "Cost of Living" to "Cost of Survival".
by New-Pin-3952
25 comments
To the rich. That’s where it is going. The global ultra wealthy.
It’s a cost of greed crisis.
We must keep corporations and supermarkets in constant profit.
A lot of people have been wondering where all the money is going, especially since apparently after Brexit we were going to save eleventy quadrillion pounds each month not paying EU fees. I’ve never heard an official explanation of why everything is far more expensive now from the seated government at the time, but every other political party that wants to be in power has always had some explanation for it (immigrants, green energy is wasted investment, etc).
But I do like that phrase you’ve got there: Cost of Survival.
Time to go crazy on squeezy honey wahey
It’s not hard to connect the dots, 99% of us get poorer and the other 1% are getting ever more richer at astounding rates.
> Where’s all the money going? Where is it going???
Pensions, debt interest, healthcare, and other welfare. All those costs are up massively. Everything else has been cut to compensate.
You can debate whether those costs going up are a good or a bad thing, about whether we should or should not be spending what we spend on those areas, but that’s where it all goes.
Local Councils, for example, now spend [two thirds of their budgets on social care](https://www.localgov.co.uk/CCN-Two-thirds-of-council-budgets-spent-on-care/59063), meaning everything else a Local Council is meant to provide has to be found from one third of their budgets. That’s why all the youth centres and pools are closing, why roads aren’t being repaired, why schools are falling apart, and everything else.
> even though the tax burden on us is at a historic high
Every answer in this thread (at the time of my writing this answer) completely ignores that part, as well. Most just say some vague “tax the rich” as an answer, but that misses the point.
The public sector is the biggest it has ever been in all of history (excluding during the two world wars if you count military spending as public sector) and there’s still apparently not enough money.
The government has more money in real terms than it has ever had before. Even if you change how we do taxes so more if it comes from wealthy people, the simple fact remains that the government has never had this much money before. It is the best funded it has ever been in history.
Billionaires, is where it goes. It should never be possible for an individual to accumulate one billion in a fair society. Considering it’s estimated there’s around 100 trillion in wealth overall. If most folk were equally attaining a billion. Current financial resources would only support 100k people.
So yea it’s very skewed.
The price of things went up massively during COVID due to “Supply chain issues” – they have never went back down and keep on rising at the same, above inflation, rate.
Things like takeaways, pub meals, a pint have all just exploded. The fiver pint used to be a London thing – now if I get change from a tenner for two pints I think I’ve won a watch!
Out of interest, where are you shopping? Are these increases consistent across supermarket chains?
It sucks. Unfortunately the situation with Govt is the same as with individuals. Everything is more expensive. Imagine if someone in your household told you that despite these price increases, they expected you to provide the same quality of everything with less money. That’s what Govt is post-2008.
Demographics is the most important trend here, and is getting ‘worse’ at pace. Ageing society + more medicated and cared for society = costs. The ‘workers per pensioner’ ratio has evaporated since the NHS was established: i think I read from 16 then to 4 today.
Inflation is an average of many price movements. Maybe the government wasn’t hiding real inflation numbers, but you are ignoring things that didn’t become more expensive or even dropped in price?
Don’t believe your lying eyes or empty wallets.
Yeeesss….BUT! If you have debts with fixed rates of interest inflation can be a useful tool.
There are more billionaires. The rich are getting richer.
What the government did with COVID caused massive inflation. Government Printed loads of money, paid people to stay home. Allow a load of failing business to claim 50k loan and then go bust and not repay the loans.
PPE, pay for the covid research and then pay COVID jabs. Closed the NHS basically creating a bigger problem with backlogs needing more private healthcare to compensate.
Literally doing nothing would have been better.
The system has been hurt since the bankers were bailed out in 08
Unless you owned assets or you’ve been able to double your income since 2020 you’ve gone backwards in life.
It’s not that things have appreciated, the value of money has weakened..
So buy assets. You’re better off owning things than having savings as money depreciates at least 7% per year.
Than add in the massive impact AI is already having, which will, without doubt accelerate at ever greater pace over the next couple of years.
In 5 – 10 years time, what will people be doing for work when AI has replaced them? That’s the folk in office based, service industries covering everything from finance, insurance, banking etcetera?
It does feel a wee bit like societal collapse, billionaires insulated from public frustrations by well funded politicians living lives beyond the reach of the the vast majority of the electorate. Add in the othering that the hard right excel in and there’s a recipe for total breakdown…
Some weird prices there. You’re paying 65p a tin of tomatoes in Lidl? And Greek yoghurt more than doubled for the same quantity?
It’s not just where it’s going, it’s also where it WENT.
Decades of austerity….yet nothing to show for it apart from MORE austerity. A conservative party that can’t do the most basic of conservatism (Truss’s budget wiped at least £30bn off the treasury and may have cost the economy up to £60bn!). A labour party that’s struggling to rebalance without reverting to right wing populist cuts. Political parties no longet have any long term outlook, just short term reactions. Then there Reform and their “we already screwed the economy for generations to come, but still trust me bro” attitude to fiscal spending. I wonder where their magic money tree will come from….
Olive oil is a separate issue. Several years of drought in Spain have led to poor harvests whilst in Italy lots of the old olive trees have been hit by disease.
We spent about £350B on our response to COVID, this was largely printed out of thin air.
People didn’t want to hear it at the time, but you can’t inject that much imaginary money and the act surprised that we’re subject to substantial amounts of inflation.
>The official inflation figure over that period, calculated using Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the Office for National Statistics, is roughly 25.5%. This reflects the compound effect of monthly and yearly inflation rates, yet we can see that everything (apart from fuel) is up double, triple, or even quadruple that amount or more.
>It’s hardly a surprise the government would suppress the real numbers or present them in a way that doesn’t look so bad – but HOLY FUCK. HOW CAN WE LIVE LIKE THIS?
I’m sorry, but this is where you get silly. How CPI is calculated, including the basket of goods used and the individual changes in prices, are entirely public information. Its prepared independently by the Office for National Statistics.
You’ll likely find that what you’re deploying here is a selective bias. You’ll notice the prices of things that are increasing significantly, but not those that are declining or staying the same. Even if you’ve got some old receipts, I suspect you’re looking at things like groceries and petrol, and ignoring the cost of things like white goods, music, public transport…
So it’s not all some sort of fudge, and the ONS is likely taking a more methodical approach than you are.
It is going to be even worse soon because ain’t no business person charging themselves for the tariffs.
It is a global network of goods, I do not understand why people do not get this.
Lets say the tariffs on chemical paints went up, traders will hike their prices and the containers carrying the paint need paint and traders of containers will hike the prices, shipping companies buying the containers will hike the prices, shipping costs will hike, so overall everything will go up.
And they put tariffs on multiple trade products.
Also in the Uk, Brexit has had adverse effects on the prices of Eu produced products. As you can see Olive Oil, Gouda, Feta, Cucumber these are all produced in Spain, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands etc.
When Brexit has started I ordered a garden light from a German company that is known for outdoor lighting and the item arrived in like 8 weeks. When it arrived I told them it has been too late so I purchased and want to return it. They immidiately told me and laughed saying you can keep it we are never going through that customs process again.
Similar thing happened when I ordered a rug from Benuta, it took about 4 weeks to arrive.
Now I know if I order something outside of Uk but from Eu (Not China or Turkey) it will take months to arrive.
I am amused at the fact that more than 43k annual income is considered high earner in Scotland because it is bare minimum at the moment for a family.
Forgot to mention the rise from 2.5% to 5 of GDP to satisfy Trump and enrich the arms industry
Brexit plays a big part in this as well… Like everything in life, the answer will be nuanced and multiple things will be at play.
But you can be sure that the idiocy of voting to leave has stagnated the economy…add in COVID and years of austerity ….which did nothing other than reduce in real terms people’s disposable income. Add a little bit of Trussnomics, Then the outcome is embarrassing, for a country like the UK, whereby we need food banks , clothes banks heating banks…. It seems that society is struggling to do the actual basics.
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