Explainer · Stories
10 July 2026
Why is my grocery bill changing?
Inflation is a national average; a grocery bill is personal. Forty-five years of the consumer price index — and the week-by-week price of the fuel that moves every trolley — explain the gap between the number on the news and the receipt in your hand.
+1.9%
is the official inflation rate for August 2026 — prices across the whole economy, against the same month a year earlier.
That number is real, and it is honest. It is also an average across everything the statisticians can price — thirteen divisions of spending, from food to transport to the barber. Nobody buys the average basket. Which is why the number on the news and the receipt in your hand can both be true and still disagree.
Malaysia's consumer price index has been kept monthly since 1980 — 560 readings deep. This story reads the gap between its average and your trolley.
The gap, measured
Food inflation is below the headline right now — by 0.0 points.
All prices (headline)
Food & beverages
In August 2026, food & beverage prices ran at +1.9% against +1.9% for everything — food is currently the calmer line.
It has not stayed on one side. Over the last two years the two lines have swapped places; the widest gap in the window was 1.1 points in Mar 25. A household that spends a third of its budget on food lives on the red line, not the blue one.
DOSM — cpi_headline (monthly Consumer Price Index by division), via the OpenDOSM / data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 16:51 UTC
Official DOSM index, monthly from 1980-01; overall plus 13 division indices. Inflation figures on this page are year-on-year changes computed from the index, data as of 2026-08. A monthly statistical release, not a live reading.
The price under the prices
Every trolley rides on a litre of fuel.
Fuel moves groceries twice — once to the shop, once to your kitchen — and its price is set weekly, in public. As of 8 October 2026: RON95 at RM4.67, Peninsular diesel at RM5.27 — and, for eligible motorists, a second, subsidised RON95 price of RM1.99.
RON95 (RM/litre)
Diesel, Peninsular (RM/litre)
RON95 · BUDI95 subsidised (RM/litre)
The flat line is not missing data.
The longest unchanged stretch in the record: RON95 held at RM2.05 for 241 consecutive weekly sheets — 27 February 2021 to 25 September 2025. Administered prices move by decision, not by market drift.
One litre, two prices.
From 30 September 2025, the official sheet begins carrying a second RON95 series — the subsidised BUDI95 rate — alongside the unsubsidised pump price. Which price you pay now depends on who you are, and the gap between the two lines is the subsidy, made visible.
MOF — fuelprice (weekly retail fuel prices), via the data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 16:51 UTC
Weekly posted prices from 2017-03-30, level series only; RON95, RON97 and Peninsular diesel charted, first sheet of each month. Data as of 2026-10-08 00:01. Prices are set weekly, not continuously.
The long view
RM100 in 1980 does the work of RM342 today.
9.7%
the worst year in the record — 1981
2.7%
the average year since 1981
1
year in which prices actually fell — 2020, at -1.1%
Today's +1.9% sits below the long-run average. The full 46-year series, year by year, is in the Cost of Living chapter.
So why does your bill feel different?
Because the index prices the country, not your kitchen. It averages across thirteen divisions in official weights, across every state, across households that drive and households that don't. Your bill overweights the handful of items you actually buy, from the shops you actually visit. The national number tells you which way the tide is moving; it cannot tell you the depth at your feet. District-level item prices — what the same fish costs in Kota Bharu versus Klang — are the next layer of this chapter, and they get built only when that data is verified.