Inflation

Eight years ago today, a standard sized pack of Original Pringles cost a mere 75p.

This is no guess, nor is it an estimate. It isn’t a rose-tinted, warped idealist recollection, either. It is a FACT.

I know this because Facebook thrust me a photo memory this morning, showing a very small, broken-legged Boy Seymour, propelling himself around Tesco in a wheelchair after doing an Ed Sheeran* on the Shelley Fountain**.

Boy is smiling in the picture – he did love his wheelchair, and raising his thumb in a gesture that says “I’m fine – I am quite enjoying all the attention.” His broken leg is supported in a prostrate position with a piece of plywood gleaned from the building site that was our house, and he is partially wrapped in a blanket. After the initial shock of a femur crack, he was actually having a marvellous time. Tesco has the perfect flooring for invalid carriages, it seems.

But what caught my eye in the background of this photo was a promotional stack of the all-time family favourite, Pringles, and clear as day is the price. I could not believe it – they were (admittedly on offer at) a mere seventy five pence!

This, more than anything else I have witnessed recently, has proven to me just how inflation has been at work over the last eight years. We all know petrol has gone up, mortgage rates have risen and food is extortionate, but to see evidence of it in the form of an eight year-old tube of Pringles is quite sobering.

I didn’t buy any Pringles that day. I rarely do, because actually they are one of the more expensive brands of crisps. I probably didn’t even notice that promotional label when I was in store then, because, had I wanted to buy crisps, I would have headed to the appropriate aisle, where own-label snacks would have been located, and they would have been far cheaper…

I could go on, but crisp talk is boring. My point is that in just eight years, the promo price of a tube of Pringles has actually doubled (yes, I have checked the Tesco app – the Clubcard price today is indeed £1.50).
No wonder we are all up the money creek without a paddle these days. I know prices do go up over time, but… surely this is ridiculous! Eight years is not a long time ago…

Or is it? Boy Seymour was six then, and now he is fourteen. A teenager, who plays the drums, uses his floor as a wardrobe and steals a cheeky spray of Big Seymour’s Jean Paul Gaultier every morning. He can drive a car, manoeuvre a tractor and a dumper and is an accomplished budgie breeder – as evidenced by his new chick, Pogba. This very day, he is up on the South Downs, “hitting” 7ft jumps on a friend’s e-bike – although I can’t pretend I am not scared about that.
I struggle to believe that my little boy is a teen, but here we are, eight years on, and I have to face facts.

On Monday, I took Boy out with me to collect a bed, a “new-to-us” bed, that was being given away online. I had a plan to make his bedroom more grown-up, and I was on a mission. Boy was excited – until he took a dislike to the headboard, snubbed the base and decided he didn’t approve of the mattress.
Fair enough, said I. I hear you – but just let me try…

To his credit, Boy did let me try, and by the end of the day, we had teamed the “new” bed base with his original mattress and a lovely grey headboard we had in the shed (as you do), and all of a sudden, my young man had a Big Boy Bedroom! And he was chuffed.

The best part about Boy’s New Bed is that it has cost us nothing, and so, in this instance, we have escaped inflation. Our Pringles will be twice the price, but our beds will not. Which is a good thing, because yet again, we find ourselves with a MASSIVE house project and another teeny weeny budget. So any penny saved will help, as I dread to think what inflation has done to the price of a roll of Celotex…

*”When I was six years old I broke my leg”
** An ugly, rather pointless (and infamous) Horsham landmark