In Spain, all of us who go to the supermarket ask ourselves the same question and that is how the shopping basket has risen so much. But to really check how prices have risen, it is best to take an old ticket and compare it with a current one to see the variation in prices. This is precisely what Juan David Ramírez, a financial expert and known on Instagram as @ramgaldavisin a video in which he reviews, product by product, how much a typical basket has become more expensive since 2004.
Using an old ticket as a reference, he explains that the total price of that purchase would have increased by 124.21% in twenty years, going from 51 euros to 99.17 euros. The experiment leaves an open question: “The total increase has been 124.21%,” he says, calculating that the same purchase today would cost 99.17 euros compared to 51 euros then. From there he asks a direct question to his community: “In 20 years, has your salary increased by 124.21%?”
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Comparing tickets
The expert reviews line by line and leaves several references that connect with the real basket of any home. He quotes, for example, “the Canarian tomato from 0.75 to 1.80 (+140%)”, “a Dutch cucumber from 0.58 to 2.45 (+322.41%)” and “the pâté sandwiches that I ate from 0.47 to 1.75 (+272.34%)”.
In preserves and sauces, “guess the ketchup… from 0.37 to 1.15 (+210.81%)”, while “a Margherita pizza has not risen much either: from 1.90 to 2.20 (+15.79%)”. In meats and derivatives, “chicken wings from 1.37 to 4.91 (+258.39%)” and “frankfurter sausage from 0.23 to 1.30 (+465.22%)”.
Among the pantry staples, “a liter of sunflower oil from 0.76 to 1.80 (+136.84%)”, “natural ground coffee from 1.17 to 5.40 (+361.54%)” and “baconcito from 1.39 to 2.30 (+65.47%)”. The “large eggs from 1.09 to 3.90 (+257.80%)” also stand out. With the entire list calculated, the result offered is a basket that is 124.21% more expensive than in 2004.
A specific basket is not the same as the CPI
Ramírez’s exercise is illustrative and connects with consumer perception, but we must keep in mind that we cannot compare this with the official basket published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which weighs thousands of prices and changes each year according to real household consumption. Even so, similar comparisons with tickets from 2004 have gone viral this year and showed results close to “double” for real purchases replicated in 2025, with totals that went from about 51–52 euros to between 90 and 98 euros, according to television and press reports that cited these viral cases.
Now, what does the INE tell us? According to statistics, the group “Food and non-alcoholic beverages” has increased in price by around 75–80% since 2004. Media that reviewed the official series this year placed the increase at 77.7% for food and non-alcoholic beverages since 2004, and the general accumulated CPI at 53.7% in the same period. That is to say, food has risen much more than the prices as a whole.
If you consult the CPI base By ECOICOP groups of the INE, the strong rise of group 01 (food and non-alcoholic beverages) compared to the general index in the last decade and a half is also confirmed. These dynamics help to understand why, when replicating a specific ticket, the result can approach “double” even though the INE average for food since 2004 is lower.
And the salaries?
Ramírez closes with a key question: “Has your salary increased by 124.21% in 20 years?” The comparison is pertinent because the loss of purchasing power occurs when salaries grow less than prices. Official data show that, as a whole, prices have risen a lot since 2004 and food prices even more so; That is why the feeling of an “impossible basket” has become more pronounced in recent years.