Falling food prices starting to kick in
There is no better period of the year than Christmas for the supermarkets to start a price war and try to attract as many customers as possible for their Christmas fare. This year seems to be no different and we also have the added bonus that oil prices have come down and food prices were on the way down anyway. So what can we expect over the next few months?
We could see something of a rarity for the UK consumer, a period when the cost of living moves lower after a series of major increases over the last few months. While there were hopes that the energy companies would follow suit after the fall in the oil price, this seems to be something of a forlorn hope unless the government is able to step in and prompt some long over due downward moves.
So while the UK consumer looks set to reduce their average spend at Christmas it looks as though we will all still be able to get a turkey for Christmas and try to put the troubles of the last 18 months and the next couple of years behind us even just for a short period.
Share this..
Related stories
UK trade gap narrows in November
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the UK trade gap with the rest of the world narrowed from £7 billion in October to £6.8 billion in November. Analysts had been expecting a figure of around £7 billion so the reduction in the gap has been well received. But what does this mean for the UK economy? It is interesting to see that exports increased by 0.1% during November w...
Read MoreWhat is your New Year's resolution for 2009?
As we move towards 2009 with more certainty and more debt than ever before many people are now looking at their finances in a very different light. A number of the UK population have seen their savings decimated by reduced income levels and the need to dip into what they had hoped would be their nest eggs in the future. We have seen more and more UK homeowners having to pay their mortgages from sa...
Read MoreHas the government introduced another U-turn on spending plans?
Alistair Darling has this evening being quoted in the Daily Telegraph as suggesting that the UK government will in fact introduced a watered-down spending plan before the next general election. This is completely at odds with Gordon Brown's recent announcement that a spending plan prior to the next election was impossible because of the volatility of the UK economy. After attacking the Conservativ...
Read MoreIs Alistair Darling putting the UK financial markets at risk?
A number of prominent tax experts in the UK have stepped forward to criticise Alistair Darling's "smash and grab" with the introduction of a new banking tax on financial sector bonuses. This is a situation which has been ongoing for some time, with both regulatory costs and tax costs increasing for financial firms in the UK, but one which is starting to affect the competitive edge of the UK financ...
Read MoreIs debt consolidation as easy as many people assume?
As personal debt continues to grow in the UK more and more people will be forced to consider debt consolidation in order to alleviate pressure in the short to medium term. While the process of debt consolidation is fairly straightforward in principle, i.e. you bundle all your debts into one manageable package, is it really that simple?
The truth is that debt consolidation, and the t...