Milking us dry.It's been another bad week for consumers with price rises coming thick and fast. There was Ryanair's announcement that it plans to "encourage" people not to check in bags by significantly upping its baggage and check-in charges as well as a host of others.

Then there was the news that the price of milk increased dramatically - by around 12 cent a litre, in fact - over the last couple of weeks as retailers passed "soaring" costs on to the consumer. And we also had the head of the ESB warning that we could look forward to higher electricity bills to boot.

We were also just a little dismayed at the nearly 10 per cent increase in the cost of a large coffee in our favourite cafe, particularly as the main reason given was the rising price of dairy products. And that affects the price of our black coffee how, exactly?

Suits your budget

British supermarket chain Asda has followed up its recent release of a £15 (€20) men's suit with the launch of a complete women's office outfit with a price tag of a fiver (€6.60) - the price of the average lunch. The outfit consists of a pair of black, boot-leg trousers and a white blouse, a combination which, apparently, 91 British women wear to work at least three times a week. Some 11,000 of the outfits, which come in sizes 8 to 24 and different lengths, will be on sale until February 26th. While we haven't seen it, any outfit for a fiver can't be bad, can it?