Explore how inflation impacts your financial well-being and learn strategies to navigate it. Discover insights on inflation and its hidden costs.

Inflation usually feels like a gradual increase, a slow drip. We usually don’t notice it. Since the pandemic, however, inflation has felt more like a flash flood. Not only have some prices risen very noticeably, we are reminded daily in headlines, social media, and conversations that everything feels much more expensive.

By definition, the future is about what will be, not what is. When we think about our financial future, we must think about our life circumstances as they will be, not as they are. Much of what will be is uncertain, but inflation is certain.

Money and our personal finances carry and activate a lot of emotions. We react to dollar amounts because numbers carry meaning. Because we are emotional meaning-makers, we leap from a nominal dollar amount to the social and psychological meaning of those amounts, bypassing the “real value” assessment.