Great Read This Morning About Inflation

One of my preferred lenders turned me on to a lady that talks about financial ideas, suggestions, options. Needless to say, she is one of the ones that I get an e-mail drip from & I read them start to finish every time.

Today was really good. It reminded me of complaining to my mom about waking up in the middle of the night and stressing about losing sleep. She said.....'It is what it is, don't fret about it. Nothing you can do. Catch up the next night.' Damn, I hate it when mom is right! LOL

But, when I read the info in my e-mail this morning, it was the same sentiment....about inflation....it is what it is and you can't do anything about it.....well you can't stop inflation, but she did, of course, have some suggestions to work with it!

Copy & Pasted directly from her info, of which some was from the New York Times:

"We can all use a little refresher course in inflation at a time like this — and The New York Times complied. Here’s the skinny: Inflation, though it can be frustrating for consumers, is a sign of a strong economy. Last year, the American economy grew 2.3 percent — better than anticipated — and it’s expected to rise 3.2 percent this quarter. This will likely increase the prices on the things we buy every day. How and why? The Great Recession ended in June 2009 (I know it didn’t feel like it ended, but statistically it did), and the U.S. began a slow, plodding recovery. It took until a couple of years ago for wages to begin to tick up. But that’s finally started to happen, and with more money in their pockets, more people are buying more goods and services.

That demand for more goods and services means that more hands on deck are needed to make those goods and produce those services. That increased need for labor pushes wages higher (again, more money in our pockets). But companies that produce the goods and services don’t want to see their margins squeezed, so they raise their prices. And those higher prices get passed along to you.

The inflation rate you read about in the headlines is a measurement of those prices. There is the Producer Price Index (or PPI) — the price that producers charge for their goods and services — and the Consumer Price Index (or CPI) — the prices consumers pay for goods and services. Generally, they move in tandem (although the PPI sometimes moves first). But the CPI is the one used to track increases in the overall cost of living.

Should you be worried about this? There’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t waste your energy. Instead, focus on the moves you can make: locking down your short- and long-term interest rates before they move higher (as the new Fed Chair Jerome Powell has indicated they will). This may mean a balance transfer on a credit card or refinancing your student loan debt. And take the time to make sure you’re capturing the best interest rates as possible on your liquid savings. The best savings rates listed on Bankrate.com are around 1.5 percent (you can get that with no minimum from Goldman Sachs Bank, Synchrony Bank, Dollar Savings Direct and others, although there are also no check-writing privileges). The average savings rate? It's 0.09 percent. Ouch."

Thank you Jean Chatzky, for another informative piece!