What do chicken & chips, foam sweets and tablet computers have in common? Not a lot you might say, but along with baby wipes and pineapple these are all products which have been added to the shopping basket of products which the Office for National Statistics use to calculate inflation.
Last year smart phones were added to the list and this year bundled communication packages (your satellite or cable TV, Internet and phone package) were added. However the cost of developing your holiday snaps was removed as nowadays digital cameras have pretty much taken over your film camera.
Whilst the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and RPI (Retail Price Index) are used to measure inflation (mainly resulting in Bank of England Interest rate changes and typically tiny increases to pensions) the product changes are interesting. Tablet computers are now such a common purchase and so many households are investing in them that you’re as likely to have bought one in the last year as you are to have bought a bag of Haribo.
