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How much do you spend the tendency to spend yoga mats?
What about virtual reality heads, mangos or polar shed regulators?
If you look like me, your answer will be 'not a cent' in all four cases.
Younger readers will indeed mock, but I didn't even know what polar sliding controllers were until I visited them on Google. (For my fellow out-of-touch Oldies, they turn out to be plastic slippers, designed to be worn by the swimming pool. And there I was, thinking that they might have something to do with the snooker-like pub game.)
But whether we buy these things or not, the changing retail habits of the country mean that this week they belonged to the 23 new items that were added to the basket of goods and services used by the office for national statistics to calculate the official inflation rate.
It is therefore that they join around 750 other items – ranging from condoms to kebabs, kerosene and coffee pods – of which the price fluctuations determine the consumer price index, on which so many government and business decisions are based.
Madam you and I never buy the things I have mentioned above, just as we feel the need for yoga mats.
Neither nowadays we spend anything on marriage permits, child-cinders or frozen chicken nuggets, all of which appear in the Ons-Bask.
How much do you spend the tendency to spend yoga mats? What about virtual reality heads, mangos or polar shed regulators? If you look like me, your answer will be 'not a cent' in all four cases, writes Tom Utley
Tom Utley continues: Indeed, younger readers will mock, but I didn't even know what polar sliding controllers were until I look them up on Google. (For my fellow out-of-touch Oldies, they turn out to be plastic flip-flops, designed to be worn by the pool. And there I was, thinking that they might have something to do with the snooker-like pub game)
But whether we buy these things or not, the changing store habits of the country mean that this week they had been added to the 23 new items to the basket with goods and services used by the office for national statistics to calculate the official inflation, Tom Utley adds
But then we can hardly blame the official statistics of the country for coming up with inflation figures that do not reflect our personal spending habits.
The fact is that we all have individual inflation rates, unique to ourselves, depending on how we choose to spend our money.
Inevitably, these can vary enormously from the national average, just as they do from person to person.
Struggle
In my own case, for example, every week I buy an excessive amount of cigarettes, wine from the supermarket and beverage rounds in the pub – which have all shot up year after year with percentages that are much larger than official inflation.
Indeed, I am old enough to remember for a while that I promised myself that I would give up as the price of a package by Marlboro Reds rose so much to a sizzling £ 1 per package.
Today they cost more than £ 16 for 20 with my local newspaper goods – and even more elsewhere in the capital. But I am a pathetic slave of Nicotine and I puff away more than ever.
Regarding the price of the cheapest pint of bitter at the pub on the road of the office, it only recently seems to me if it cost me less than £ 3.
During lunch yesterday I had to erupt £ 6.05 – quite average according to the central London standards – and the price seems to continue to rise every week.
Now it can only rise further, because the hospitality industry is struggling to cope with the increases in the national insurance contributions of employers and the minimum wage, imposed by Rachel Reeves, in her growth ring first budget last year.
I hurry to say that I am not a statistician, but as soon as we have added the spiral costs of municipal tax, green levies on energy bills, stamps, parking, congestion costs and the different stealth taxes of Reeves, I suspect that my own personal inflation rate comes at least three times the CPI.
Devour
The only thing that I can certainly say is that I feel much more than 10 percent poorer with every passing year.
And that is guaranteed despite those increases in my state pension (but for how long?) Due to the failed election cap of the tories of the triple lock.
Mind you, I have much less reason for complaints than others whose personal inflation rates in the stratosphere rise.
I think of the many who have to pay rent for their houses, my four sons of them.
Every year the costs of keeping a roof over their heads devour a large part of their income, which increases much faster than one of the most important indices.
Then there are people who send their children to private schools, who are affected by the VAT of 20 percent on reimbursements imposed by this class-Warrior government in her war against families who imagine that Toffs are.
Even three decades ago, when we sent our first and second sons to private schools, the reimbursements rose annually in a frightening rate – so much that we had to leave our plans to send sons three and four to join them.
There was no way we could have afforded to teach even the older two privately if Margaret Thatcher, John Major or Tony Blair had suddenly decided to beat an extra 20 percent.
While countless parents are now confronted with removing their sons and daughters from schools where they are happy and
It is no wonder that so many of these enviable institutions have difficulty surviving.
Some private schools have already said that they have to keep the store.
I indeed notice that the newest victims were the 137-year-old St Anselm's Prep School near Bakewell, Derbantshire, which was once mentioned by Tatler Magazine as the best in Great Britain.
If rising costs and prices even force a school of this caliber to close, I wonder how long it will take before very many others follow the example, so that a stream of extra students in an overburdened public sector are released.
How this is supposed to stimulate the finances of the nation, let alone the educational standards, is everyone's gamble.
The chairman of his governors announced the upcoming closure of St Anselm and made the reasons for this crystal clear. The number of students had decreased, Paul Houghton told parents and the school was active with a financial loss.
'Added to this, the substantial recent pressure of government tax at all independent schools – the addition of VAT on school costs, must pay increased contributions from national insurance policies and the removal of the business community
Parage exemption for independent schools – It is now untenable to keep the school open. '
Of course, many will point out that although the personal inflation by many like me is much higher than the CPI, which are lower by others.
Remedy
Undoubtedly they will also tell me that if I want to lower my personal rate, the simple remedy is in my own hands. All I need is to give up smoking and drinking, putting the heating and getting rid of the car.
Before I know it, they will say that my personal inflation will fall well into the minus area.
For them I will only say that this is easier said than done. I am now far too old to leave my traditional vices and to learn new ways, in this strange era of yoga mats, polar shed regulators and virtual reality heads, the last of which apparently spent £ 350 million on last year.
Or maybe those headsets are the answer to all our misery.
With Putin in the Kremlin, Trump in the White House and Keir Starmer installed in No. 10, I think that a virtual world can only be an improvement in the real work.
