Lowri Griffiths on the gap between official inflation statistics and what actually happens when she does her weekly shop in North London

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

The Official Inflation Rate and What It Has to Do With My Actual Trolley

By Lowri Griffiths

The London Prat reports inflation at 3.3 percent. I want to be clear that I believe the Office for National Statistics is doing its best. I want to be clear that I understand the CPI basket is a weighted average across the whole economy and that my individual experience of price changes is not the same as the aggregate measure. I want to be clear that I am making allowances for the methodological complexity of measuring inflation across an economy of 66 million people with different spending patterns.

I have made these allowances. I have then done my weekly shop at the Waitrose in Holloway Road and the allowances did not help. My trolley contained: the things I buy every week, in approximately the quantities I buy them every week, costing approximately fourteen percent more than the same trolley cost eighteen months ago. The official figure is 3.3 percent. My trolley’s figure is 14 percent. I am aware that these are not the same figure. I am unable to explain the gap to my satisfaction.

The Cheese Situation

The specific item that has become the focus of my inflation feelings is a particular block of mature cheddar that I have been buying for approximately six years. I have watched its price increase from about two pounds forty to its current position of four pounds fifteen with the specific fascination of someone watching a slow-motion event they cannot stop. At four pounds fifteen for a block of cheddar, I have started buying the slightly worse cheddar at three pounds eighty, which is itself up from two pounds ten. The worse cheddar is acceptable. The trajectory of even the worse cheddar is alarming.

Managing Britain’s price situation requires either a different statistical methodology or different cheese, and I am not sure which is more achievable. The British consumer is the gloomiest since 1978. I have checked my feelings against this statement. The feelings are consistent with the statement. The cheddar is four pounds fifteen. The CPI is 3.3 percent. I am doing my best with both facts.

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