TUESDAY 10 APRIL 2007 - INDEX FIGURES

Whilst buying some bananas and other vegetables at my local greengrocer (I ran out, obvoiusly my list making is not as good as it used to be) I asked for a bag to carry it all in and found in the bottom an old Sainsbury's bill from January 2004. With this in hand and a little investigative research at this week's trip to Sainsbury's (the Tuesday after Bank Holiday Monday - very quiet) I can produce my own SPRINTY (Sainsbury's Price Rises IN Three Years) index. Anyway, more of that later. On the way into my Sainsbury's I noticed the banner headline on the Financial Times saying that the Sainsbury family are 'holding out'. This is all to do with the takeover bids that are floating around. I have to admit that I'm not really following it - you will remember I said I would buy some shares and just as I said this in came the bids and up went the price! So I'm a bit miffed and not following it on a point of principle. Whatever, good for the Sainsbury family! Why would they want to sell out the family business? It seems to be doing OK and as sure as eggs is eggs a new owner would no doubt make 'improvements' such as redundancies, store closures and the like and it would be a disaster if a deal was done and my local store got closed before the end of my year! So, Sainsbury family, if you're a bit short I've got a bit put by to help out (every little helps, as the saying goes ... ). How about some Nectar points or Active Kids vouchers? Moving on, as I said, it was very quiet today and although I was just about the only customer one of the other customers was a man of more certain age than I am who was rabbiting on to one of the vegetable stocker uppers. On and on he went with "It wasn't like this in my day", "When I was young ... " - you know the sort of thing. The young stocker upper was clearly disinterested but, good for him, still had customer care uppermost in his mind and agreed with everything that was coming his way and just kept on smiling. As I was waiting for this little ensemble to break up so I could get to the mini cabbages I noticed that the stocker upper wasn't in fact stocking up but was about to reduce the price of ... the mini cabbages! I immediately seized on an opportunity to barter. "How much are you reducing them by?" I asked. "5p" was the reply. "How about 10p?" I asked (every little helps). "Maybe later but not now". "Are you sure?" "Yes". "Done!". Now I know 5p doesn't sound a lot but it's equivalent to a discount of 12.8% so not a bad return for the minute I spent half listening to my fellow customer's drivel. And, if my math is right, 5p for 1 minute is £3 an hour, half the minimum wage for doing nothing! Nice work if you can get it. The store looks really uncluttered this week as all the promotional stuff has gone (plates, wooden boxes, duvets etc etc) as have the Easter eggs, chocolates, chicks etc etc. Before I bore you rigid with my SPRINTY index a little bit on the checkout experience. I was standing in a queue when the lady in front of me proudly announced that the next door man was empty. My goodness, I thought, either I'm going deaf or she has eaten too many Basics! Whatever, having looked around in vain for a skeletal male I eventually realised that what she meant was that the next check out was clear and must have been for some time because the cashier was busy ... yawning. So, through I went and clearly he was half (or completely) asleep because not only did he not offer me cashback (a hanging offence) but also he gave me 20 Active Kids vouchers for £31.06 of expenditure. You'll be pleased (amazed) to know that I've got to grips with Active Kids vouchers much more quickly than I did with Nectar points so I can categorically say that £31.06 of purchases equates to 3 vouchers (1 voucher for each complete £10 spent) so I'm 17 vouchers up! By the way, I'm still waiting for an e-mail from a school asking me for my vouchers - I suspect that now I have 25 vouchers my inbox will be overflowing! And, I've decided to include them in my sums at the end of each diary entry. Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for - my SPRINTY index. I have to say that it was not that easy to find exactly the same products as were bought by Customer X in January 2004 and I had to give up on a good number but here are the ones I managed to find (the 2007 prices come first then the 2004 prices in brackets):

Baked beans in tomato sauce - 28p (31p) = - 10%
Tuna steaks in olive oil - 88p (79p) = + 10%
Lady Grey tea bags - 189p (159p) = + 20%
Mushrooms closed cup (.225 kg ) - 52p (54p) = - 4%
Tomatoes (4.85kg) - 72p (62p) = + 16%
Bananas (.85kg) - 72p (67p) = + 7%
Semi skimmed milk - 66p (58p) = + 14%
Olivio - 228p (215p) = + 6%
Tropicana organic orange - 244p (248p) = - 0%
JS ham & pineapple pizza (yuk) - 299p (269p) = + 11%

Total - 1242p (1242p) = + 7.7%

So, my SPRINTY shows a 7.7% increase in just over 3 years. Now, the National Statistics Office website (very uninteresting) shows that the All Food index was 152.6 at 16 December 2003 and 161.4 at 13 February 2007 (the latest available). The increase works out at about 0.2 per month so if I add 0.4 to the February 2007 index this takes us up to mid April 2007 (come on, keep up!) and an index of 161.8. So, the Food Index has increased by 6% over the period, compared with my SPRINTY index of 7.7%. So are Sainsbury's ripping us off? Probably not as my index is not representative (how many men on the Clapham omnibuses (or is it omnibi?) buy Lady Grey tea?) and can only be a rule of thumb guide. I guess what it shows is that Sainsbury's increases are pretty much in line with everyone else's which is what you'd expect in such a competitive market place. And with that, I will wake you up to tell you that that's it for this week and you can go back to sleep.

Items bought 27
Cost £31.06
Average cost per item £1.15
Checkout number 13
Nectar points 1062
Active Kids vouchers 25