So what is inflation and how does it affect our lives? Does it really matter what happens to inflation as it is just economics and doesn’t really impact on us? Sometimes it is hard to know with all of the political discourse at the moment how exactly inflation and other political issues that are discussed actually affect us.

If we break this down into the simplest of terms, inflation affects the cost of the items and products that we buy in our daily lives.

At the moment inflation is set at 10.10% and this has risen by 8.8% in the last 12 months. This means that what you bought 12 months ago that cost £100 will now cost £110.10. Now that may not seem a lot, but when you apply this to every item and utility and product that you buy on a weekly/monthly basis it all mounts up. To put this another way, your £100 today will only get you £90.82 worth of stuff compared to this time last year.

Then couple this with the impact of your income not rising at the same rate as inflation and this means that your money will not stretch as far.

Inflation is an issue across the world, however in the UK one of the reasons this has been so noticeable in the past few months is that we have also had a change of Prime Minister; who then produced a Mini budget with her Chancellor that arguably adversely affected the economy and the value of the pound.

In these situations, I think it is always important to look at our own personal lives and how it affects us individually. A great place to start is to work out monthly expenditure and check it against income. Knowing how much is left after all the bills have been paid is the best way to know how inflation is impacting your life.