LONDON (Reuters) — Ever wondered why official inflation figures bear little relation to the things that you buy? Now is your chance to find out.Britain’s national statistics office is launching an online “personal inflation calculator” to show how an individual’s experience of inflation differs from the national average.

The initiative is designed to build public confidence in national data at a time when price pressures are becoming headline news.

Consumer price inflation is running at its highest since records began a decade ago and retail price inflation, the basis for most wage settlements, is running at its highest in more than eight years.

Statistics have to come up with national inflation rates to help guide policy, but an individual’s experience may be vastly different.

Overall retail price inflation was just below 4 percent in November but a breakdown by component shows heating and lighting costs rose more than 30 percent while the price of clothing and audio-visual equipment fell.

Consequently, elderly people spending a large proportion of income on heating might experience a double-digit rise in their cost of living, while teenagers spending most of their pocket money on clothes and gadgets might have a negative inflation rate.

Karen Dunnell, head of the Office for National Statistics, said she had been concerned by the decline in public confidence in official data..

“As National Statistician I place a great deal of importance on making official statistics transparent and accessible to users,” she said.

The calculator can be accessed from today on http://www.statistics.gov.uk.