Prices increased over the past 12 months at the fastest rate in 40 years, putting pressure on already stretched household budgets.
The latest increases have been driven by the rising cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks. But how much has your individual spending gone up?
Use our new calculator to see how much prices are rising on the groceries, clothing and leisure activities you buy.
Which prices are increasing fastest?
Food costs have increased, but you won’t notice the fastest price rises at the supermarket.
Furniture leads the way, with an increase of more than 16% in the last year. An average patio table and chair set costs about £120 more than it did in 2021, up more than a third – perhaps a symptom of people making more of their gardens during the pandemic.
Leisure activities have also increased quite sharply – a night in a hotel costs 21% more (£18) than it did 12 months ago, while you’ll pay about 10% extra for an exercise class.
Read more:Inflation hits fresh 40-year high amid cost of living crisis
Not everything is more expensive, however. Some luxury goods have become cheaper as budgets for essentials have been squeezed.
A man’s watch costs more than £100 less than last year, while you have an effective 22% discount on the average women’s handbag.
More than three quarters of the items in our database are more expensive than they were this time last year.
Is it more expensive to live a healthy lifestyle?
Vegetables have become almost 6% more expensive in the last year, a similar rate to meat. Fruit and dairy products have risen about half as quickly, but alcohol has only gone up by 2.2% on average.
You will notice more of a difference if you like to drink out, however. The average pint of lager in a pub is 20p more than last year, a 6% rise. Cider, bitter and stout have all gone up by even more that that in percentage terms. Meanwhile, a crate of lager from the supermarket is actually cheaper than it was last year.
Is there worse to come?
Richard Lim, chief executive of Retail Economics, says that we’re still at the “thin edge of the wedge of inflation”.
“There’s still a lot more pain to come,” he says. “And it’s the least affluent households that are going to see much higher rates of inflation as they spend more of their income on food and energy.”
We’ll continue to update our spending calculator over the coming months so you can see how you’ll be affected.
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Methodology
The ONS collects these prices by visiting thousands of shops across the country and noting down the prices of specific items. There are upwards of 100,000 prices published every month, from more than 600 products.
The items that form the ‘official shopping basket’ change each year to reflect how the purchasing habits of the population have changed. For example in March 2021, after a year of the pandemic, hand gel, loungewear bottoms and dumbbells were added, while canteen-bought sandwiches were among the items removed.
Where there aren’t the exact equivalent items available at a survey shop, ONS officials pick the best alternative and note that they’ve done this so it’s weighted correctly when the averages are worked out.
Shops are weighted as well, so the price in a major chain supermarket will have a greater impact on the average than an independent corner shop.
To get our figures, we’ve made an average for each item in each month that takes into account the weightings of these shops and the month of the entry, so more recent price information is weighted more heavily. We’ve ended up with a figure that takes into account every price entry from the previous 12 months. We will be updating these figures each month while the cost of living crisis continues.
During the pandemic, more of the survey was carried out over the phone and work is ongoing to digitise the system to be able to take in more price points by getting data from supermarket receipts, rather than making personal visits.
Data journalists: Daniel Dunford, Amy BorrettInteractive: Ganesh RaoDesign: Phoebe Rowe, Brian Gillingham
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.