According to the Office for National Statistics, prices of everything from food to furniture have gone up at their fastest rate in nearly 30 years, alongside an energy bill crisis that has seen inflation rise to its highest level since 1992.

And while the data is worrying, it can be hard to comprehend just how much of an impact the rising cost of living will have on our everyday lives.

But as food writer and author Jack Monroe demonstrated in a recent series of tweets, the effects of soaring food costs are already being felt widely.

“Woke up this morning to the radio talking about the cost of living rising a further 5%. It infuriates me the index that they use for this calculation, which grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least. Allow me to briefly explain,” she wrote in a thread that has garnered over 60,000 likes and been read by 10 million people.

The popular thread prompted the ONS to say it accepted that every person had their own inflation rate and it would do more to capture the impact of price increases on different income groups.

Monroe, who is drawing up her own inflation index to track basic food prices, tweeted: “Delighted to be able to tell you that the @ONS have just announced that they are going to be changing the way they collect and report on the cost of food prices and inflation to take into consideration a wider range of income levels and household circumstances.”

Monroe has been a voice on social inequality for over a decade and has written multiple books based on her own experiences as a single, low-income parent. Her series of tweets illustrated the shockingly steep price increases on basic items from bread to tinned spaghetti.

“This time last year, the cheapest pasta in my local supermarket (one of the Big Four), was 29p for 500g. Today it’s 70p. That’s a 141% price increase as it hits the poorest and most vulnerable households.

“This time last year, the cheapest rice at the same supermarket was 45p for a kilogram bag. Today it’s £1 for 500g. That’s a 344% price increase as it hits the poorest and most vulnerable households.

“Baked beans: were 22p, now 32p. A 45% price increase year on year.”

“These are just the ones that I know off the top of my head - there will be many many more examples! When I started writing my recipe blog ten years ago, I could feed myself and my son on £10 a week,” she added.

Indeed, experts have repeatedly warned that the poorest families are those who will be hit hardest by the rising cost of living. The pandemic has led to an increase in food bank usage, particularly among families with children, with the Trussell Trust delivering over 2.5 million three-day emergency food parcels between 2020-2021.

“The system by which we measure the impact of inflation is fundamentally flawed – it completely ignores the reality and the REAL price rises for people on minimum wages, zero hour contracts, food bank clients, and millions more,” Munroe continued.

Ending the thread, she called for the bursting of the “bubble” around how rising living costs are understood by the government and reported by the media.

“I mean of all the things, the Prime Minister claiming that he’s cutting the cost of living while the price of basic food products shoot up by THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR PERCENT is the one I’m properly angry enough to riot over,” she added.

Images: Getty