Savers you've never had it so good?

LesU

gozomark wrote: »

whats important to realise is its not just your personal inflation rate over the last 12 months that counts, but the inflation rate over your lifetime (or maybe from when you leave home) - many will have a personal inflation somewhat away from the average in any one year, but over time it will probably average out to close to the average.

Actually, with a bit of dodging and weaving, you might be able to stay below the trend a lot of the time.
Trivial example: Bottles of Coke were £1 each last week. Normally about £1.30-ish. I bought 8 bottles. This week is half-term, Coke is £1.60 a bottle, I bought none.
Buy what's going down, don't buy what's going up.

Nomad25

Buy what's going down, don't buy what's going up

I'll 2nd that, have just put all my grocery till items on Excel, so I can 'work' the system. Just bought a ton of pet food [mega increases going on] - like they have to worry about inflation, etc..........

kittykitten

Woohoo, according to the BBC my personal inflation rate is 1.5%! Considering I've just locked away regular savings with Barclays at 6% last week before it was withdrawn, I think that's not bad at all!

FairyElephant_2

gozomark wrote: »

so you've calculated your own inflation rate, and you still don't believe it ?

No, TBH I don't! I just thought it would be interesting to have a look at it.

The calculator, whilst a useful guide, must obviously be generic to an extent.....eg, it can't know what I put in my supermarket trolley every week, which energy supplier I am with and whether I'm signed up to a capped rate, etc etc, etc.

In my case, re groceries, as I have always bought Value or Smartprice type brands - ie. the cheapest - my bills have gone up significantly as the prices for these have risen dramatically (I suspect due to the fact that lots of people have switched down a brand, and the supermarkets are well aware of this!).
Eg - the cheapest bread flour used to be 48p - last week it went up to 68p. The cheapest dried pasta last year (just found a reciept from last year at the weekend!) was 21p, now it is 43p. Tinned tomatoes were 21p, now 33p.....the list goes on. These are significant increases, and I can't switch down a brand, as I was already at the bottom!

My salary has not increased. My mortgage rate is fixed, so I'm not gaining from the fall in variable rates. The rate I am getting on my savings has declined dramatically (not such an issue ATM as I have dumped most of the savings into the mortgage for this reason!).

It isn't rocket science - taken year-on-year I have less money coming in and I am paying more out!

I'm not 'complaining' as such - thankfully we can still manage and I feel we have a reasonable standard of living, and there are a few more cuts we could make if we had to.

LesU

I've just noticed that RPI, unlike CPI, includes house price depreciation.
What I can't work out is whether that is contributing to deflation or inflation.
It's not really a commodity or a service. It is a purchase that for many people involves the sale of the same thing to someone else, presumably also at a lower price.
If the rate of reduction in the value of second-hand cars went from 20% to 40% per year, would the drop of new cars in price by 5% be inflationary or deflationary? To a lot of people it would make a new car unaffordable.

Paul_Herring

LesU wrote: »

I've just noticed that RPI, unlike CPI, includes house price depreciation.
What I can't work out is whether that is contributing to deflation or inflation.

(In/de)flation for you or for the statistics that are RPI and CPI?

Do your finances include house prices?

gozomark

I'm not sure I understand the question, but falling house prices leads to either lower inflation, or higher deflation, as measured by RPI index

MiserlyMartin

Masomnia wrote: »

Um, no one lost any money. Perhaps get your facts right before posting next time?

To be fair, to the person talking about Icelandic banks, those who had more than 50K did lose money, as did those in Kaupthing Isle of Man.

Reaper

MiserlyMartin wrote: »

To be fair, to the person talking about Icelandic banks, those who had more than 50K did lose money, as did those in Kaupthing Isle of Man.

To be even fairer even those with over £50k were refunded in full.
Kaupthing Isle of Man savers didn't do so well but even so yesterday a Scheme of Arrangement whereby savers will recieve a minimum of 60% of their money (71% of them getting the whole lot back) was put in place.

LesU

gozomark wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the question, but falling house prices leads to either lower inflation, or higher deflation, as measured by RPI index

The point I was making was that for a lot of people the transaction is 2 way. A house sale and a house purchase. So are they better off or evens if house prices go down?
Is this reflected in the RPI, or does the RPI only look at the purchase side of the deal? In fact, does the RPI look at all housing prices or just new sales?
I'm interested because that must be a major influence on the RPI at the moment. Are pensioners going to get a zero rise in pensions because their house has decreased in value?