It is exactly two years ago that prices in Germany rose after the first Corona crisis. Since then, the general shopping basket has become 16.4 percent more expensive. Our time-lapse chart shows which prices have risen the fastest.
In November 2020, prices fell compared to the previous month, but from then on things went up steeply. Only four times in the past 23 months has the monthly inflation rate been less than 0.4 percent.
On average, the shopping basket, which the Federal Statistical Office uses to measure inflation, increased by 0.7 percent month after month. That has now led to the record inflation rate of 10.4 percent in October – and that may not be the end.
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However, this shopping basket only represents the average price increase of products from 397 categories, which are all weighted differently. After all, in real life you pay more for your rent than for your handkerchiefs. However, the inflation rates in the individual categories differ enormously and also fluctuate strongly over time. To illustrate this, we have summarized the fastest growing price categories in a time-lapse chart.
Not surprisingly, this will be dominated by energy prices. As early as January 2021, liquid gas is leading the list of inflation with 24.9 percent in just two months. This is followed by heating oil (18.8 percent) and all automotive fuels such as petrol, diesel and LPG plus motor oil (13.7 percent). The three categories are still at the top today, with other goods or services only rarely intervening for a short time. But it will take until December 2021 before other raw materials for heating such as firewood and wood pellets as well as natural gas appear in the top ten for the first time.
With the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022, commodity prices then explode. The inflation rates for liquid gas and heating oil have doubled in just one month from around 80 to around 160 percent compared to November 2020. Petrol has shot up from 43 to 80 percent. Other goods are also made much more expensive by the war. Sunflower and rapeseed oil, for example, which were just 20 percent more expensive in December 2021 than in November of the previous year, suddenly rose to 110 percent, where it has remained to this day. Both types of oil are mainly grown in Ukraine.
Today, heating oil, firewood and wood pellets, sunflower and rapeseed oil, liquid gas, natural gas, car fuel and motor oil as well as coal occupy the top seven places in the inflation ranking. Other foods are behind them: butter, for example, is 60.5 percent more expensive than it was two years ago, and margarine and other vegetable fats are 52.4 percent. In the meantime, categories such as potatoes, eggs and vegetables that were also well placed at the top are now further behind again. However, their inflation rates of up to 36 percent are still more than twice as high as general inflation.
Other categories show seasonal fluctuations – and sometimes extreme. The best example of this is package tours abroad. Due to the high kerosene prices alone, they are rising sharply in line with energy prices. But: They play a role, especially in summer, when many people want to travel.
In 2021, travel prices increased by up to 70 percent compared to November 2020, only to fall back to a level of 2 percent in January 2022. Same thing this year: Package tours peaked at 87.8 percent in July, but are now only 61 percent higher and prices are likely to fall further in the coming months.
By the way: where prices rise so much faster than the average, there must also be a different ending. Since November 2020, DVDs, Blu-Rays, music downloads and music streaming have had the greatest price declines. They became 9.1 percent cheaper. This is followed by insurance for apartments (minus 5.7 percent) and computer software (minus 4.3 percent).
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