Dear Listener,

It’s over. The longest continuous period of deflation (falling prices) since World War II came to an end with the November inflation figures. The Retail Prices Index rose for the first time since February. Admittedly the increase was small. Prices in November, as measured by the RPI, were just 0.3% higher than in November 2008. But deflation is over. And inflation is back.

Of course, it never really went away. The RPI includes housing costs and specifically mortgage rates. Many people are enjoying low tracker and variable rate mortgages so inevitably that part of the index was pulled down sharply and that led to prices falling overall. But if mortgage costs are excluded then inflation has never been zero. A measure called RPIX – which is the RPI without mortgage costs – has never been below 1% and rose sharply to 2.7% in November. So the bulk of the adult population who have no mortgage – and some of those who have a long term fixed rate – have not seen their overall monthly bills fall at all.

Just to confuse things, the Government’s preferred measure of inflation – the Consumer Prices Index or CPI – has also never been negative. It troughed at 1.1% in September and rose to 1.9% in November. CPI also excludes housing costs (and several other things) and the arithmetic is different from RPI. The Government’s target is that CPI should be 2%. Its latest forecast in the Pre-Budget Report never shows CPI higher than that. But the Treasury expects RPI inflation to rise sharply, reaching 3% by next September and then sticking at around 3.25% for the next three years.

Some commentators think that the £200 billion of new money the Bank of England has magicked out of thin air for its quantitative easing programme will lead to prices rising much more than the official forecasts. And the rise in VAT on 1 January – when it reverts to 17.5% – will mean that prices for VAT able goods, which is most of what we buy, will rise by more than 2%.

So inflation is definitely back.

That’s one cheery forecast for 2010! Money Box will have more forecasts next week. We are on air on Boxing Day discussing the housing market and on 2 January looking – as Janus traditionally does – back to last year and forward to next. But this week…

…even more than usual we are still not quite sure what will make it into the programme. News is certainly not taking time off to do its Christmas shopping!

A Standard Life customer wins a court case after his Pension Sterling Fund – which was supposed to be safely in cash – lost money. He sued and won.

If you have been shopping online how can you protect yourself against goods not arriving?

There will be no more cheques in the UK from 31 October 2018. But what will replace them? We hear how the banks in other European countries got rid of cheques some time ago.

As most of the UK freezes we look at the complex cost of fuel.  Thousands of tariffs, loads of ways to pay, and all for the same product delivered by the same company to everyone.

And another listener tells us why he won’t accept a £595 payment after he was promised a lot more by a major insurer.

If you are fed up with Christmas shopping why not spend a quiet half hour doing the Money Box Christmas Quiz? Officially launched on Saturday it is available now on the front page of our website bbc.co.uk/moneybox. There are twenty questions but zero prizes. Can you do better than the Money Box team? And some of them wrote some of the questions! Once you’ve warmed up with that there is fiendishly arithmetical quiz from our colleagues on More or Less? - the programme that doesn’t just celebrate numbers, it wallows in them. Half the questions but twice as hard.

Make sure you have finished both by the time we are on air at noon on Saturday, repeated at 9pm on Sunday (which gives you longer to do the quizzes) or of course anytime on the web (which gives you as long as you need!). Or download the podcast and listen while you are doing your Christmas shopping.

And at www.bbc.co.uk you can also read stuff, watch videos, follow up items, download transcripts and documents, and send us problems you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say on this week’s topic – not confirmed yet.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

e-mail Paul Lewis