With prices continuing to rise, you might’ve noticed the cost of your food shop or household essentials increasing.

If you’re wondering how much each item has increased in price, look no further as there’s a spending calculator which helps consumers calculate their spending.

The calculator compares the average prices of items in May 2023 and the latest annual growth rate.

How do you use the online spending calculator?

The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) online spending calculator is easy to use and you can customise it so that it calculates only the items that you would usually buy on a food shop for example.

You can also check the change in price for different categories: clothing and footwear, food and drink establishments, health, household items, recreation and leisure, services and transport.

5 ways to save money on your weekly food shop

First of all, add the items listed to your basket or search for your own using the calculator tool.

You’ll then see a list of all the items you have chosen as well as an overall price and a breakdown of the average price of each item plus the price last year and the annual growth as a percentage.

The calculator also tells you how much your basket total has changed compared to last month and last year.

It also highlights the item in your basket that increased the most in price.

You can find out more about the spending calculator via the ONS website.

We tried the spending calculator tool and this is what we found

We added a few food shop essentials to our basket which totalled £32.67.

The items we included were: granulated white sugar, baked beans, baking potatoes, carrots, bananas, semi-skimmed milk, eggs, cheddar cheese, multipack crisps, cooked ham (sliced), instant coffee, butter, breakfast cereal (low-sugar/non-chocolate coated) and white sliced bread.

The calculator’s results told us: “Comparing with items available, this was £0.20 more than last month and £6.27 more than last year. This was an annual increase of 24%.”

It also found that out of all the items in our basket, granulated white sugar increased the most, by 50%, over the last year.