The cost of living has undoubtedly risen throughout 2022 and 2023, making everybody tighten their purse strings. Food and energy costs have been the most noticeable changes, and everybody who does a weekly food shop will have noticed the price of almost everything going up - from little luxuries through to the basics.
As the spring warmth begins to finally creep in, citizens will no longer have to choose between heating and eating, but that doesn't make things any easier as wages stay the same, and rents and mortgages increase. More than a third of British adults paying rent or a mortgage say that they are struggling to afford them, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
To try and work out how much the cost of living is changing, I decided to monitor the price of some basics that may make up people's weekly shops.
The list of essentials included:
- Four pints of milk
- Chocolate digestives
- Five bananas
- Extra virgin oil
- Carrots
- Bread
- Spaghetti
- Lurpak (500g)
- Steak mince (300g)
- Whole chicken (large)
And each month I headed to Morrisons to monitor the differences in prices.
From November 2022 to April 2023, the prices fluctuated, with some items steadily getting more expensive, such as milk, and others jumping in price between visits.
According to the ONS: "In the UK, the price of consumer goods and services rose at the fastest rate in four decades in the year to October 2022. The annual inflation rate rose from 8.8 percent to 9.2 percent between January and February 2023. This is lower than the recent peak of 9.6 percent but remains at highs previously seen around 30 years ago."
On November 9, my total shop came to £23.06. Between November and April, there have been fluctuations in price, but that's tended to be because of offers on certain items - for example, for a few months, mince had a special 'locked in' price.
On April 12, the total came to £24.71, meaning that in six months, these items had a total change of £1.65. This may not seem like a wild amount of money, but certain items definitely have risen a lot - I spotted a whole watermelon whilst shopping for £4.99, which made me gasp.
The prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks rose at the fastest rate in more than 45 years in the 12 months to February 2023, according to the ONS, and that still seems to be reflected in the supermarket prices we see today.
And, according to the House of Commons: "Consumer prices, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), were 10.4 percent higher in February 2023 than a year before.
"Increases in the costs of consumer goods, underpinned by strong demand from consumers and supply chain bottlenecks, have been factors causing rising inflation in 2021 and 2022."
According to research done by the London School of Economics: "Leaving the European Union (EU) added an average of £210 to household food bills over the two years to the end of 2021, costing UK consumers a total of £5.8 billion", and it only seems to have risen again during the 2022/23 period.
When I first started this investigation in 2022, the price of a large whole chicken was just £4.59, and now it's £5.29. 70p may not seem like a huge jump in six months to many, but if you added a proportionate amount onto every item, you'd soon see the difference.
Another item that made a notable leap in price was olive oil. Back in November, it was £5.55, which is arguably expensive anyway, but now it comes in at a whopping £7.49, adding almost £2 onto just one item.
After making the headlines at the back end of last year, I was surprised to see that Lurpak actually reduced in price and stayed reduced throughout the six months. When I first went, it was £4.99, but soon dropped to £2.99, which made me breathe a sigh of relief.
Many dairy products have become more expensive, with cheese and milk rising, while products such as chicken and eggs have also been affected by increases - especially with the egg shortages we've seen in recent months.
But this isn't the only food shortage we've seen, with certain fresh produce also becoming harder to get hold of, potentially pushing prices up.
According to Yahoo! Finance, the shortages don't stop there, as other products are set to potentially become harder to get due to the war in Ukraine.
They said corn, bread, vegetable oil, baby formula, champagne, and canned pet foods could be difficult to find on shelves at the start of 2024 as businesses are struggling to keep up the supply.
Overall, it's not all doom and gloom as RSM has predicted that the cost of living crisis could start to get better during quarter three of 2023, but it could take until 2024.
They have predicted that: "The UK will narrowly avoid a recession, although consumer spending and GDP growth will inevitably suffer over the next few years", but they note the amount of uncertainty around at the moment in a post-Covid landscape, with the threat from Russia - it's hard to predict what will happen.
But of course, if you are struggling with your supermarket shop, places like ASDA have cheaper ranges to help people out, and their updated Smart Price range got a big thumbs up from me.
Have you noticed prices going up in your local supermarket? Let us know in the comments.
