As must be fairly obvious, either from my photo, or my Online Name, I am a Pensioner. And as a Pensioner, I watched, with some perturbation, as the time drew close towards the latter part of last year, when the calculations are made which determine what kind of rise the normal State Pension would be. As it turned out, the increase was calculated to be just over 8%, which made a significant bump in the Pension payments to people such as myself.
And lo and behold, as from the 1st of April, the 8% extra small but significant slice came automatically into my bank account. For which I am duly grateful.
But here’s the ‘Suspect’ bit. I shop at one supermarket, and my purchases, these months and weeks, tend to be much the same in most minor things, with the occasional bump when, say, an appliance needs replacement. I also, possibly because I had to check on the spending on major contracts when still working, keep a very simple spreadsheet of my monthly spending. Now we all, or most of us, are aware of the need to allow or account for inflation, especially for those of us on limited incomes; as we are constantly reminded by this so-called Government, that they are ‘winning’ the battle against inflation. But checking, as I can do on my basic spending, I came across something which I do feel can be labelled “Suspect”.
Since the last week in February, my weekly outgoing spending on basic necessities, has slowly but remorselessly increased to level off at 7.95% above that February total.
Funny? Nope. Funny Peculiar? Definitely
Fire, Pillage & Plague 