Is the cost of living crisis over?

Grocery inflation over the past 12 weeks was running at just under 3 per cent. During the same period last year it was almost 13 per cent. So our shopping baskets are still getting more expensive – but at a slower rate. So that is some of sort of good news, isn’t it?

Energy prices are down from their peak, interest rates are set to fall and new entrants are expected to drive down prices in the banking and insurance sectors.

So why does everything still feel so expensive?

Irish Times consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope explains why the sums aren’t adding up for most people and how, though we didn’t realise it at the time, we were living in an era of cheap food that is simply never going to return.

And he explains why shrinkflation hurts, what the French are doing about it and why own-brand products should be top of our shopping lists.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan.

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