Recently in one of the UK newspapers, there was an article about the Austin
Mini. (The original Minicar)  BMW are just about to release its successor.

The article said that when it was first built in 1960, it cost UKP 496.95.

All well and good, said I, but what's that in today's money ?

So I did some digging, and have managed to obtain both the Retail Price
Index (RPI) and the Average Salary for the UK since 1900. In fact the UK
Office of National Statistics sent me records for the RPI back to the year
1200 !

Although the data is just held as a series of weighted indices, it was
cumbersome to use a spreadsheet, so of course I wrote a program to work it
out (you were wondering when I'd get around to FB, weren't you ?)

The program has other uses - you can use it so see if you're being paid more
in real terms than you were 10 years ago, for example.

I would be quite delighted to include the indices for other countries, so if
you don't live in the UK, and would like dig them out from your National
Statistics and send them to me, please eMail me off-list.

I will be releasing the program as freeware.

Phil.

PS. If you're interested, if you take the original price of the Mini forward
against the RPI, it should cost UKP 6,574 today. But if you take it forward
against the average wage, it should cost UKP 13,276. In fact it now costs
UKP 9495.00. So it's now about 30% cheaper in real terms than it was in
1960.