The RPI, CPI and Inflation

The RPI and CPI fascinate me because of the wealth of data collected each month and the way it reflects our changing lifestyles. 

Finding the latest figures on the Nat Stats website is a challenge and my tip is to use Google with the words "RPI June 2010 UK" or whatever month you want.  The data is published on the second Tuesday of each month.

Details of the latest shopping basket of goods  (March 2010) shows that hair straighteners and liquid soap have been added to the typical shopping basket.

If you want to find out how it is all put together  look at Consumer Prices Indices Methodology - it is not as frightening as the title.

To see how prices have changed over an even longer period visit How Much is That, which is part of the Economic History Services, website where there's the data which you can copy into Excel. 

This is a good article on Consumer Price Inflation 1947-2004.