At the beginning of September, Northern launched their latest Flash Sale, promising a million train tickets for 50p, and a further three million for £1. It's actually quite staggering how little you can buy for 50 pence these days.

I was in Nottingham recently on a cheap return journey to meet a friend for lunch, and make the most of one of my five Mondays off this month, when I did a double take at the railway station shop. They were selling a single Wham bar for 65 pence! The last time I paid any attention to their retail price, I'm sure it was 10 pence. Dental work not included.

A quick Google search shows Tesco's retail price at the time of writing this piece is 40 pence, so there is most likely an element of marking up going on to reflect the shop's location at a busy city railway station. Indeed, a vending machine at one of my local stations charges £1.30 for a single pack of Quavers. I would have to be extremely hungry to countenance paying that princely sum! But in more general terms, what on earth is going on with pricing?!

I'm certainly no economist, but the soaring cost of everyday items can't all be put down to inflationary pressures, surely? It's difficult to swallow the cost of the food shop, and we're apparently supposed to be celebrating because food inflation decelerated last month to 9.9%, according to the British Retail Consortium's Shop Price Index. School uniforms, dairy, margarine, fish and vegetables all apparently came down in price. But I'm guessing not filling-threatening confectionery, based on the price of Wham Bars and Mars Bars.

I remember as a kid going to the village newsagent and getting a "10p mix-up". It was always guaranteed to contain a minimum of ten sweets, but if you were lucky, you got a couple of extra cola bottle or foam bananas. The Mr T cola flavoured lollipops (which I seem to remember were in the shape of A Team legend BA Baracus!) were about 8 pence each. A 99 from the ice cream van was definitely less than a quid.

Now, I appreciate that I grew up in the 80s, which is obviously quite a long time ago. I work with people who were born well after the date when I started working in radio, which always makes me feel ancient. Pretty much everything has got a lot more expensive since the days of Rick Astley and Spandau Ballet being top of the pops, but it's really difficult now to name anything that a 50p coin can buy you. Many products have shrunk in size (so-called shrinkflation) and either stayed at the same price or (more likely) continued to cost more. The coffee pods I buy have fewer per pack compared to a couple of years ago. It's the ultimate first world problem, but a tin of Nescafe Azera (acceptable instant coffee, in my book) has got at least 10% smaller, whilst soaring in price.

Things are made less straightforward by the two-tier pricing system which some of the major supermarkets operate. Go in without your loyalty card, and you will certainly get stung at the till. It makes my mate Tom extremely cross, as he says he refuses to join any of the schemes such as Nectar, and doesn't want anyone to track his shopping habits. I doubt anyone would find my retail preferences particularly interesting, so that element doesn't bother me that much, but I would rather retailers just charged a fair price for stuff, for everyone. I understand it's in their interests to lure us in, but I don't think many of us can afford to be loyal. We go where stuff is on offer, and most people flit between several places to get the best deals.

I did get an unexpected 50p paid into my bank account the other day, mind you. A couple of my Northern Flash Sale trains were late, so under the terms of the Delay Repay scheme, I put a claim in and got a Bacs payment of a princely 50 pence! I've worked out it's enough to get me two Freddos, so I'll give you my spare one as a thank you for reading this far into the column.

I've also just remembered too that the price of unleaded petrol was 49.9p a litre when I passed my test in 1995 in a classic Mini City. Imagine that! At more than triple the price now, someone somewhere is doing well. And it's definitely not my wallet.