April 2019 Pensions Increase

mgdavid

JoeCrystal wrote: »

I agreed with your statement. I reckon for most people, the personal inflation rate would be higher. I had a look at my budget. Fortunately, I managed to get a 6% pay rise this year so that helps.

My Council Tax went up by 5.9%
My Energy went up by 3.2%
My Water went up by 3.8%.

we've been put on a water meter a few months ago, since when my water bills have roughly halved
(I'm still trying to work out where the catch is!)

[Deleted User]

Increases for me,

Energy 15% (after hunting for best deal)
Council tax 5%
Fuel 12%
Food, hard to say, cos weekly shop is too diverse and variable.

JoeCrystal

mgdavid wrote: »

we've been put on a water meter a few months ago, since when my water bills have roughly halved
(I'm still trying to work out where the catch is!)

Well, I can reassure you that there is no catch with fitting a water meter. I saw a 35% drop in water bills after I got a water meter fixed. I regret that I didn't get it fitted sooner!

zagfles

DeletedUser wrote: »

Increases for me,

Energy 15% (after hunting for best deal)
Council tax 5%
Fuel 12%
Food, hard to say, cos weekly shop is too diverse and variable.

Those are pretty similar to ONS, although they have energy at 9.4%. I suspect people who are on the best energy deals have seen the highest rises, since there is more scope for energy companies to absorb wholesale price rises on rip-off standard variable tariffs which most people are on.

Problem is people always remember what has gone up a lot, but not what hasn't. From this link (table 14): https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/datasets/consumerpriceinflation
the most significant price drops, or below headline inflation rate rises are:

Non processed food 1.2%
Meat -0.3%
Clothing & footwear -0.5%
Household goods 0.1%
Audio-visual goods -2.1%
"Miscellaneous" goods 0.3%
Rents 0.5%
Transport insurance -7.8%
Communication 0.9%

Deneb

My energy has gone up 15% this year, having just changed onto a new fixed rate for 18 months. However, it is still 7% less than the rate I was on 3 years ago!

[Deleted User]

I'm sorry Zagles, i'm really struggling to see your point. How is noticing the large increases on a large proportion of personal budget a problem?

Transport insurance? What exactly is that? Because if its car insurance, then it certainly doesn't tally with mine!

My car insurance went up by 12% and my house insurance by 15%.

zagfles

DeletedUser wrote: »

I'm sorry Zagles, i'm really struggling to see your point. How is noticing the large increases on a large proportion of personal budget a problem?

Eh? It's not a "problem", any more than pointing out things that have fallen or risen by less than inflation, is that a "problem"? This is just a discussion.

Transport insurance? What exactly is that? Because if its car insurance, then it certainly doesn't tally with mine!

I presume that's part of it. It's overall averages obviously and car insurance varies a lot with age etc.

Point is - some things rise above inflation, some stay the same and some fall, and people only notice/complain about stuff that rises. If you eat meat, wear clothes or watch telly then the prices of these things have all fallen.

Stuff like energy and petrol are very volatile and rise and fall by large amounts - for instance even after the recent rises petrol is still cheaper now than it was in 2012. Council tax keeps rising but other taxes have fallen for instance the increased personal allowance (which won't affect the inflation figures).

DairyQueen

People tend to notice if the above-inflation increases relate disproportionately to non-discretionary spends and, especially, to the big household bills. How often do most of us buy a new TV? Or new boots? Washing machine? Nowhere near as visible as a hike in council tax, electricity/gas or car insurance.

I had a quick review of my bills today. CT +5.3%, electricity +15.7%, car insurance = 0, house insurance +10%, groceries & food = -3.2%.

I shop around whenever contracts are due for renewal and we have reduced meat consumption this year. Our cat (on the other hand) has decided that he would rather starve than eat any brand that costs less than 50p a serving.

I did buy new ankle boots this weekend (10% off with Debenhams online coupon). I suspect that our clothing bill is lower this year but it's not as easy to monitor as council tax.

Wine bill has increased around 10% so that's either a price hike or a consumption hike.

Anyone calculated their personal inflation rate? Mine is 0% as I haven't increased the household budget just adjusted spending within it.

Peelerfart

I

DairyQueen wrote: »

Wine bill has increased around 10% so that's either a price hike or a consumption hike. :.

I'm with the French on this, it's essential food stuffs

DairyQueen

Peelerfart wrote: »

I'm with the French on this, it's essential food stuffs

Good point! Having reduced consumption of meat I need a replacement source of iron.