Inflation buster: the 10 items that have fallen in price most this year

With the cost of bread now above £1 a loaf and petrol at £1.12 a litre, there seems no end to rising living costs. Just this week, the Consumer Prices Index, the Government’s preferred measure of inflation, shot up to 3.3 per cent.

But there is some good news for shoppers. Believe it or not, the price of many goods is actually falling, and by quite large amounts. Below we outline the price of ten items that have fallen the most on average over the past year and give an example of each product.

1. Mobile Phones: down 51%

Samsung E250 - 53% drop in price ~ May 2007: £75 ~ May 2008: £35

2. Digital Cameras: down 50%

Canon EOS 400D = 50% drop in price ~ May 2007: £700 ~ May 2008: £350

3. Flat screen TVs: down 40%

Philips 32 PFL 5522 = 43% drop in price ~ May 2007: £700 ~ May 2008: £395.99

4. Home Cinema: down 36%

Pioneer DCS363 5.1 Surround = 39% drop in price ~ May 07: £250 ~ May 08: £153

5. Apple MP3 Players: down 35%

Apple iPod Shuffle 1GB = 36% drop in price ~ Dec 07: £50 ~ May 08: £32

6. DVD Players*: down 33%

Sony BDPS300 BLU-RAY DVD Player = 31% drop in price ~ Sep 07: £350 ~ May 08: £242.99

7. Fridges: down 30%

Indesit GSE160 Integrated Fridge = 28% drop in price ~ May '07: £250 ~ May '08: £179.99

8. Camcorders: down 21%

Canon DC201 DVD Camcorder = 25% drop in price ~ May 07: £250 ~ May 08: £188

9. Washing machines: down 18%

Hotpoint WD865 Washer Dryer = 20% drop in price ~ May '07: £440 ~ May '08: £350.99

10. Dishwashers: down 10%

Bosch SGI45E16 = 12% drop in price ~ May '07: £370 ~ May '08: - £325

*(not including HD DVD which is now redundant)

List compiled with the help of Kelkoo, the shopping comparison site.

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Comments

[anthony wong]

i recently bought a laptop for £299 and am v happy with it. The guy who said these cheap laptops do not take the latest software forgets that many of us could not be bothered with the latest software. i have been delaying buying a digital camera, till it comes down some more. as for those who say it is last year's model, so what? they work just as well, if not better than the latest model with all the add ons that i dont want.
talking of last year's models being cheaper, how about applying that to food, there are great reductions on food when they are near their sell by date. Also, lidl and aldi sell at lower prices throughout their range.Its a pity there are no branches within walking distance of my flat. Granted there is not as much choice as in tesco, et al, but who cares. in fact with less choice it makes for a quicker shopping trip and less time spent comparing prices. tesco et al now realise they provide real competition, and alternatives, that might stop tesco et al raising their prices so much. u have to suspect profiteering when tesco et al increase their prices by so much, whilst aldi,lidl can still maintain their low prices. we can stop them by only buying from them their low priced goods, and shun them when they raise their prices. people forget that their buying do influence the prices these supermarkets can charge.

[Bill Peter]

Most of these items are only bought when moving house, and that's going to be less and less, so the reductions are effectively meaningless.

[Terry]

Ridiculous premise, who buys last years technology. If I buy an LCD TV this year for £700, the chances are that when I buy my next TV I will purchase the latest model at whatever price it sells for. How many people buy old technology?

[peter]

Silver is cheaper now than 28 years ago, can anyone beat that? see my comments on http://arabianmoney.net/2008/05/25/silver-is-now-my-top-tip-for-2008-as-abba-returns/

[Charlotte]

Several of the readers' responses above prove that in the main, Times Online at least enjoys an intelligent and well-informed audience. Shame that could not be said of the writer of this article. What a rubbish substantiation of price statistics! Lousy journalism indeed.

[littleone]

*Just becasue bread is up by 20 per cent doesn't mean that inflation is in total.
*

Dry bread is cheaper than fresh. Does it mean that there is no inflation at all? :)

[derek]

To 'pity the fools': I fear it is you who should get a grip. Electronic baubles are not necessities whether cheaper in real terms or not. The cynicism of this government in dropping RPI for CPI was to take out mortgage costs - the biggest single cost most of us ever incur - to make the index look better for them and keep pressure on pay down [public sector excepted, of course]. Now that the housing market is in trouble, people have seen through the CPI because their wallets are feeling the pain. One poster said this was lazy journalism. It goes way beyond that. It's Marie Antoinette saying if they have no bread let them eat a flat screen TV. Yet another reason why Gordon Brown's reputation was ill-deserved, after the pensions robbery, flogging the gold reserves cheap and endless tinkering with taxes. Begone!

[Guru]

Inflation busting goods, Useless rubbish more like.
The time of 'I WANT' (borrow to buy it) is now over, and with the end of 'I WANT' begins the time of 'NEED'.

Truth arises in the EAST, and ignorance arises in the WEST.

WELL AS WE ALL KNOW THE WORLD HAS NOW 'GONE WEST'(is knackered in other words), IGNORANCE (greed and selfishness) AS A WAY OF LIFE ARE NOW IN FULL CONTROL.

The Majans predicted the end of the WORLD would be 2012, NOT THE END OF THE 'EARTH'.

THE 'WORLD' IS NOT THE 'EARTH', THE WORLD IS A 'MAN MADE', STRUCTURE BUILT UPON THE EARTH.

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND, AND THAT IS MONEY/DEBT.

LOOK AT THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CLIMATE, AS 95% OF THE MONEY IN EXISTENCE IS DEBT BASED, SO THE MONEY SUPPLY IS SHRINKING DUE TO THE SUPPLY OF DEBT SHRINKING. THIS OF COURSE IS DUE TO THE MASSIVE AMOUNT OF INDIVIDUALS IN THE WORLD FORECLOSING ON THEIR MORGAGES/DEBTS.

The time of living in IGNORANCE/DEBT as a way of life, is almost at an end.

ALL DEBT IS, IS MISERY.

JUST LOOK AT THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU, THEY DO NOT EVEN HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ENJOY WHAT THEY HAVE, THEY ARE TO TO BUSY WORKING ALL THE TIME, TO PAY FOR IT ALL.

SO WHAT EVER COMES NEXT, AFTER THE COMPLETE COLLAPSE OF THIS SYSTEM, WILL CERTAINLY BE AN IMPROVEMENT UPON IT.

I GUESS THATS 'EVOLUTION'.

p.s. I dont think the Majans were far wrong do you?

[quentin]

When there's nothing more to export the manufacture of to China inflation will rise steeply.

[A. Choholic]

When I first moved to London a can of Red Strip beer cost £1.25. Today, fifteen years later, it costs 99p.

[Pity the fools]

What all the people commenting on this blog seem to be missing is that is does not matter whether the prices of products are coming down because they are old. They are still coming down! T

he fact is that it is much cheaper to buy a phone or TV now than year ago. Refusing to accept that because you are so angry abut the price of bread going up is pure flat earthism.

New models of electrical items may be more expensive but I bet they are not more expensive in real terms and they are all higher spec so you are getting more for your money. Get a grip!

[ALAN K]

Lazy, lazy journalism ! What is the point of listing 10 out of date products and then stating that their price has fallen?
Of course it has. They have all been replaced with updated models. Old models are discounted to clear - as they have been since white goods were initially marketed.
This is the most stupid and pointless article I've read in The Times for a while (and there has been plenty of nonsense written lately). Shame on you.

[chetas]

Nothing to do with inflation. All the products listed at at the end of their life cycle and the price cuts expected as they have already recouped their design and marketing costs

You should compare a E530 to a similiar samsung less then a year old.

[dan the man]

I think the governments got confused with CPI and RPI, just because you can buy a flat screen tele in Tesco doesn't mean you can eat it

[nick]

As others have said, prices of year-old electronics and white goods are not really that relevant to inflation. Computers and electronic items are particularly susceptible to rapid obsolescence (Moore's Law anyone?), so comparisons are pretty meaningless. More revealing is the news that Currys are closing 40% of their high-street shops.

[zulughana]

ha...people are struggling as it is to find money to cater for the very basics so i dont see how this list helps.

[F. Harvey]

The latest round of inflation is hitting people on low incomes hardest because prices are going up most rapidly on the items they spend a higher proportion of their income on, eg, food and energy.
Previosuly the middle classes have been hit harder as services such as public schools and nannies, which take up a large proportion of their income have gone up. The very rich are unaffected...

[Dippy Don]

@Don - if you think that the blogs are such drivel, can I suggest that you remove them from your RSS feed? Just a thought...

[Adrian]

Leaving aside the issue mentioned by others here, namely that most of these items are not something most people NEED to buy, nor do so regularly, this comparison is misleading for another more important reason: These are all models, which are more than one year old. The same companies have already brought NEW models to the market (or will do so soon), with better technical specification (resolution, storage space, features, etc.). No wonder, they try to get rid of old stock by dropping the price. Comparisons for technical items should not be made by model, but by specifications.

[janda]

Once the Chinese start exporting cheap bread, loaves will come down too.

How many of the listed items are manufactured in the UK?

[Don]

To the writer: Do you actually know what the terms inflation and deflation mean? Or is that a silly question? I get your blog every week in my RSS feed - snd it just makes me the laugh the crap you come up with for a story every week. Do you even know what journalism is? Its not lists and its not research from kellkoo thats for sure. What drivel you produce again - as evidenced from most of the comments here.

[Adrian]

@barry ashley
How does buying a new mobile phone or buying a new TV help towards paying for increases in food and fuel?

[james mclean]

You cannot eat anything which appears on this list of falling price items! So while you are listening to your cut price ipod, rest assured that their are more people in this country and other countries struggling to afford food.

[Dan]

What a load of rubbish.....

I mean literally all the things that nobody needs.

These are all one off purchase items, that the average Joe purchases every 3-5 years. These price reductions recorded here are more to do with product life cycles anyway, somthing which doesn't figure if you are buying eggs and petrol!

[Trevor]

I for one have bought one of these items in the last 3 years. Also, the basket is slow to raise the weighting for food when food prices are rising. I bet it has been just as slow to REDUCE the weighting of electronics (if their prices fall their weighting in our basket should too). Also, a washing machine bought for £300 in 1980 lasted 15 years. One bought today may have lots extras we don't use, but they break every five years (so do we really spend a lower part of our income on such machines over the long run?).

[Trevor]

I for one have bought one of these items in the last 3 years. Also, the basket is slow to raise the weighting for food when food prices are rising. I bet it has been just as slow to REDUCE the weighting of these (if their prices fall their weighting in our basket should too). Also, a washing machine bought for £300 in 1980 lasted 15 years. One bought today may have lots extras we don't use, but they break every five years (so do we really spend a lower part of our income on such machines over the long run?).

[Let reason prevail...]

What these people commenting don't seem to understand is that the large recductions in the cost of high value goods such as TVs does go some way to negate the increases in small value items such as bread when inflation is counted.
Just becasue bread is up by 20 per cent doesn't mean that inflation is in total.

[barry ashley]

11. Houses: Down 8% (so far)

[Nigel]

No sh1t sherlock... You have figured out that a 12 month old white goods/tech model is cheaper than a new one. Of course it is, and should be, as new lines come in and old models have to be shifted off shelves.

The whole article is just pure lazy journalism the type of which must make Murdoch proud.

[ajt]

Technology items deflate like mad as they are superseded by newer superior items at the same price point, for example the Canon EOS 400D has been replaced by a similar price point 450D and the remaining 400D stock is discounted.

Most consumer electrical devices fall into this deflation treadmill, where newer versions cost slight less and do far more, so any un-sold stock of the older item becomes worthless overnight.

White goods are in one enormous price squeeze at the moment, rising costs and falling demand so the retailers are absorbing the difference and their profits are dropping faster than the pound.

Except these non-essential items, which are in deflation, most essential items, like food, energy, transport and housing are in runaway inflation.

The BoE needs to put interest rates up to control inflation, which will make Brown and Darling very unpopular men...

[Andy]

The prices of particular models of high-tech / electrical goods often decrease over time: as new models are developed, they must progressively discount the old stock in order to shift it. This isn't deflationary, and these things should not be included in official inflation figures, because the old models become completely undesirable or useless or discontinued, forcing people to buy the newer more expensive models.

I'm not going to buy a "high def" tv that doesn't do 1080p lines. I'm not going to buy a digital camcorder that isn't high def. Or an mp3 player that only has 1Gb storage. Or a dvd player that isn't Blu-Ray. Or a "bargain" pc for 400 quid that is incapable of running the latest software properly. But I suppose all of these things are helping to keep the official inflation figure down to 3%.

[A. N. Man]

I don’t know about you but I think that a washing machine and dishwasher are essential items… I couldn’t live without them!

[Simon Ward]

Wow! You dudes are angry. Start a revolution or calm down...

[ADRIAN]

Non essential junk!! Typical government spin - take out the junk (things we don't need) and just keep it to the things we do need / have to pay for: food, fuel, electric, gas, council tax, clothing, shoes, insurance, etc

[Adrian]

The government and BoE use electrical items to try and fool us into thinking inflation is lower that it is. That way we don't have to get pay increases in line with TRUE inflation.

Increase in Money Supply = Inflation. Not the price of some rubbish mobile phone or DVD player. The BoE claim to have the goal of fighting inflation, yet then offer to print billions more £'s to bail out banks. Surely by keep interest rates low and increasing money supply they are infact creating inflation and are infact the problem.

[Lem]

How many of these items have fallen in price because newer `models have replaced them? (i.e. ipod shuffle, 1GB (3G) is £52)

[Olly]

This is an utterly pointless list - these kinds of items always fall in price as technology improves and new models come in to replace old. Check out 'walkman' on eBay.

[Jonathan Bryce]

The 1GB ipod shuffle will contain less silicon this year than the one you would have got last year. Technological advances mean more efficient use of materials, and some of that cost saving is passed on to consumers. That is nothing to do with inflation.

If you look at the price of silicon wafers, you will see a very different picture - offset by the fact that you can now get more 1GB chips out of each wafer.

[Victor]

Erm, so that means Curry's has a sale on.

Expect massive job losses in retail soon.

[Rui]

This is not a top ten! All these items fall into the same category. What we need to know is how much these item weight for HIPC.

I mean, a 50% price decrease in a category that accounts for 5% of the price index can hardly becalled an inflation buster, can it?

[John Johnson]

I blame Calamaity Brown and his pathetic puppet Dimwit Darling. They just don't have a clue...

[Nick]

These are all discretionary items. They hide the real pain which is in non-discretionary items.

This is food, heating, transport, and the services you are forced to pay with threats. ie. Anything from the government. Pay, even if you don't want them, or don't use them.

Nick

[Chris Johnston]

These 10 items are not exactly the things people buy regularly.
If only the items which people really needed to get on with their lives were included - food, fuel, gas, electricity, clothes then inflation would currently be at around 30% and rising. People are being crushed by the increasing true cost of living and it will be people on average incomes who will be worst hit.