Netflix and flip-flops: how stay-at-home Britain spends its money

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Netflix and flip-flops: how stay-at-home Britain spends its money

Tim Wallace

Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 3:47 AM 4 min read

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Netflix subscriptions have been given a greater weighting in the basket of goods used to calculate the UK’s inflation rate, as households spend more money on streaming services and less on DVD rentals.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said spending on DVD rental had plunged to such a low level that it had removed it from its list of products monitored each month to instead focus on streaming subscription services.

An estimated 17.3m households had access to Netflix late last year, according to industry data from Barb, as viewing habits have transformed over the past decade.

The ONS has also added yoga mats to the inflation basket as the market “has grown considerably since the pandemic, when people started to exercise at home and have continued in organised exercise classes”, officials said.

Men’s “sliders” – a form of sandal similar to flip-flops – have been added to the inflation basket, as have virtual reality (VR) headsets as people spend more time entertaining themselves at home.

Stephen Burgess, deputy director for prices at the ONS, said: “Men’s slider sandals step into the basket as a rapidly growing part of the male footwear market, while yoga mats also limber up as a new addition because of their increased popularity since the pandemic.”

The decisions, which are based on changing spending patterns by households, will feed fears that the abandonment of the office has led workers to be lazier and more antisocial.

About 13pc of workers are exclusively home-based, according to an ONS survey from October. Another 28pc work part of the week at home. The ONS found that remote workers sleep more and work less than those who commute.

Many bosses have been trying to bring staff back to the office amid concerns about the impact of home working on productivity and creativity. Lord Rose, the business veteran and former Asda chairman, has said working from home was “not doing what I call proper work”.

Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, accused air traffic control engineers of being “at home watching morning television instead of being where they are supposed to be” when a system glitch grounded hundreds of flights in 2023.

The ONS itself is currently in dispute with its staff over demands to come back to the office. Hundreds of staff have voted to strike over demands to come in at least two days a week.

Netflix is the most high profile of a range of subscription services which have boomed in popularity in recent years, including Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Sky’s NowTV.

In January, Netflix announced its subscriber base had risen to above 300m for the first time, bolstered by the company’s push into live sports.

Accompanied by a crackdown on password-sharing by customers, the increase helped take annual profits to above $10bn (£8.1bn) for the first time.

Of interest to the ONS will be its recent price changes, including an increase in its cheapest advert-supported subscription from £4.99 to £5.99 per month, and a similar rise in its premium service to £18.99.

Netflix has been among the star performers of the US stock market since the pandemic, and despite the recent turbulence its share price is still up by more than 50pc over the past year.

Elsewhere, convenience foods are being added to the inflation basket as Britons put less effort into making traditional meals such as Sunday roasts.

The ONS has decided to stop checking the price of oven-ready gammon or pork joints, “replaced by pre-cooked pulled pork as consumer preferences are reported to have moved to pre-cooked products which can be incorporated into a meal in less time”.

Ready-to-use noodles have been added to the basket to further reflect the trend for convenient cuisine, with smoked salmon and mangoes both included in the inflation calculations to account for more exotic tastes.

‘Desire for convenience’

Mr Burgess said: “The desire for convenience amidst our busy lifestyles also plays a part in this year’s basket changes. Consumers are choosing easier options in the kitchen, so oven ready gammon joints make way for the quicker choice of pulled pork.”

Fixed-price energy tariffs are in as more households seek to protect themselves against shock moves in gas and electricity bills instead of relying on the energy price cap, which changes each quarter.

Meanwhile, newspaper advertisements are out of the basket as more people choose to use social media instead, while fewer people are also buying in-store cafe meals – driven by both increased visits to casual dining restaurants and the closure of more high street stores, many of which hosted cafeterias for customers.

The ONS monitors prices for more than 752 specific items every month to build up a picture of inflation facing households. It changes some of the goods and services in this “shopping basket” each year to reflect changing spending habits.

Annual consumer price inflation was 3pc in January, above the Bank of England’s 2pc target though firmly below the peak of 11.1pc reached in October 2022 at the height of the cost of living crisis.

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