But when the Statistics Department talks about a "shopping basket,'' it has something grander in mind than the one at the local supermarket.

The statistical shopping basket -- used to calculate the Consumer Price Index which is important to wage negotiations -- includes much more than groceries.

Rent, clothing, footwear, tobacco, liquor, fuel, electricity, appliances, services, transportation, education, recreation, health, and personal care are all taken into account.

The last time Government conducted a survey to find out how much Bermudians spend on what was in 1982. Back then, the average household spent about $537 a week on goods and services. That amount has likely doubled since.

More importantly, new goods and services have come on the market since 1982, and gradual shifts in spending patterns have likely continued.

For example, the percentage of the household dollar spent on food plummeted to 18.1 percent in 1982 from 25 percent in 1974 and 41 percent before that.

"When we're finished this survey, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go down a little bit further,'' said Mr. Keith Stanton, an economic statistician in the Statistics Department.

As of yesterday, about 100 people began fanning out across Bermuda to conduct a new survey of 1,500 households selected at random and notified by mail.

Ms Janet Smith, Government's acting chief statistician, said those selected would be interviewed about their spending habits and asked to keep a diary of daily expenditures for two weeks.

All information received is confidential under the Official Secrets Act and will be pooled in such a way that no individual household can be identified, she said.

Results from the 1982 survey were put to use in the CPI -- a measurement of the rate of change in the price of the shopping basket -- starting in 1985.

Results from the current survey might start being used in January of 1995.