15/02/2009 by Ted.

You may well be one of the happy-go-lucky customers I see each week pulling things off the supermarket shelves and chucking them into their shopping trolley regardless of the price.

As an austerity-driven wartime child it became my habit to monitor prices in my head from week to week, a habit which is so ingrained that I practice it to this day.  I indeed have been told off by one very special person for walking the length of the street in order to buy a four-pint container of milk for two pence less than at the store where we had just purchased the rest of the groceries.

So I habitually notice price increases from week to week. And for the past couple of months I have been astonished at what is going on.  The following is a list of price increases I have observed on just a few of the things I buy each week, mostly as one-week jumps in the price of the commodities shown.

Morrisons: Dried fruit leapt from 41p to 65p in one week and is still that price. I was delighted to find it still 41p at Tesco and bought it there until strangely, because there is no price fixing allowed in this country, Tesco’s price also leapt in one week from 41p to 65p - where it still is! (That is a 56% increase!  At first I blamed the increase on the price of fuel which was high, but that is now at its original level and the dried fruit is still carrying its 56% price increase.)

I bought so called Value bread at Tesco for 30p for week after week.  Suddenly in one week it went up to 49p - an 83% price rise. I think that the increase must have slowed down sales because they have subsequently reduced it to its current price of 40p which is a mere 33% above the starting price.

I bought UHT skimmed milk from ALDI at 41p per litre until last week - when it suddenly became 54p per litre - a massive 31% increase.  I thought I might get it cheaper at Tesco so I checked their price the same day and also Morrisons and found them also selling at 54p.  Another strange coincidence being as there is no price fixing allowed in this country.

I bought Tesco cooked chickens at two for £6, then they suddenly became 2 for £8.38p - a 39% increase;  their own Value malt loaves at the same time rose from 18p t0 28p - a 55% increase.

There was also the 37% increase in the Tesco breakfast cereal I was buying, and the price of a punnet of ALDI and, coincidentally, NETTO grapes rising instantly in the same week from 99p to £1.49  (50% increase) and so on and so on.

I will always shop around for the lowest price because my pension is guaranteed not to rise to match these swingeing price increases.  Only failed bankers and (failing)politicians can expect increases in income of that magnitude.

Happy shopping!

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15/02/2009 by Andrew.

Hello everyone