Andy Parsons, advice team manager and fund manager at The Share Centre, gives his thoughts on rising food and oil prices in the first in a series of blogs for WhatInvestment.co.uk

Within my role of advice team manager at The Share Centre, I listen to and review many calls made to my team of advisers, and over the past couple of months one topic keeps popping up, the state of the economy and the inflationary pressures we’re all facing.

Having listened to, and read, the news over the past week or so, its fair to conclude that investing is not currently for the faint-hearted.

Furthermore, a trip to the local supermarket for the weekly groceries and refuelling of my ‘Chelsea tractor’ only leaves me feeling more depressed.

When will the government wake up and finally acknowledge that inflation and fuel prices are hitting us hard in the pocket.

Arriving at the garage kiosk and queuing to pay, I notice how many customers are using credit cards rather than debit cards to pay for the fuel, a sign of the rapid price increases we are being faced with – people resorting to credit rather than directly exposing their bank accounts to such large immediate withdrawals.

It’s while standing in the queue that I glance across at the variety of motors lined up and try to estimate the mileage per gallon the owners are getting from their vehicles. At this point I quickly remember that I have now resorted to occasionally coasting down hills to save fuel. Have I really sunk this low?

Returning home from the melee of the supermarket, my wife and son decide it’s time we tidy the back garden. Now let’s be clear, I find gardening a massive chore; with weeds always creeping up and entwining themselves much like the inflationary pressures on food and energy prices.

As I stand and survey the daunting task ahead, I suddenly hear the sound of the chickens currently residing in the garden of next-door-but-one!

Inspiration suddenly flashes past my very eyes! Why not convert the back garden into a self-contained smallholding similar to that great 1970s sitcom ‘The Good Life’? Could I see my wife and myself as the new ‘Barbara and Tom Good’?

That’s the answer. Beat all the inflationary pressures on food by growing our own and becoming self-sufficient.

I can just picture it wheat, corn, potatoes, variety of vegetables as far as the eye can see (or the garden will allow). One minor problem will be my complete distaste for gardening, but when needs must and all that.

While continuing to let my vivid imagination run wild, I notice that my son is busy digging away. A quick enquiry as to why and a throw away comment from myself along the lines of ‘are you digging for oil’ brings a sweet, innocent question back ‘how far do I have to dig to find oil, Dad’?

If only everything in this current economic climate could be as simple, and easily thought through, as that.

Realism dawns on me. The self-sufficient dreams are simply that. No corn or wheat fields and definitely no oil pumping station in the back garden – I haven’t even had time to consider where the refinery would go.

It looks like inflationary pressures and higher fuel prices are here to stay for the time being and will continue to ‘pinch on the purse strings’.

Hopefully, by the next time I write, things may have changed.

You never know!