We all know that life is getting more expensive: from the big costs to the small, there's no escaping the jaws of inflation that gnaw incessantly on our purchasing power just when we had been hoping for a post-Covid economic boost.
Those who were able to put money aside during the pandemic are seeing their savings sapped; those who were barely able to make ends meet in the era of public health restrictions are likely even worse off than a year ago.
Yet present hardships have a way of focussing attention on the here and now, blurring details of the not-so-distant past into a haze of "not as bad as today". To add to this, though inflation has jumped in alarming increments, these have nonetheless been spread over a 12-month period, meaning that the 12% rise in the cost of groceries might not turn quite as many heads as when we dig into the details.
Don't get me wrong, 12% is an awful lot but this averages out at a 1% rise each month – a seemingly small figure that obscures the hikes in individual foodstuffs. To put a price on it, a house of two will spend about €50 more per shopping cart than this time last year.
And if that shopping cart happened to be filled with spaghetti and Gouda cheese (not unreasonable ingredients for slap-up supper in Belgium), then you'd expect to be paying well over €100 more to fund a diet that might be deemed lacking in key nutrients but could hardly be described as exotic.
Should you chance upon a forgotten stock of mustard, you'd pay a princely 36% more for the sinus-clearing condiment than this time last year. Then again, it's so hard to come by that it might still be a sensible investment that would undoubtedly give a better return than any rates you'd find in a bank.
Is inflation shaping your diet? Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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