Economy

I'm single. Older, 73. I own my own home, am paying a mortgage. And paying somewhat more each month than required, so that I can pay it off early.

I was around for the inflation of the 1970s and remember it quite well. I also remember the largely forgotten wage and price controls instituted by Richard Nixon, which made inflation vastly worse. At the time he mandated them, those who understood those things essentially said, "Bad idea. It will come back to haunt him." Instead, Jimmy Carter got blamed for inflation he had nothing to do with, other than the misfortune to be in office at that time.

Because I live alone, and because I'm happy to cook all of my meals for myself, and freeze portions, my food costs are far less than they used to be, before the pandemic, when I'd eat out several times a week. Because of the way I budget my money, by taking out a fixed sum of cash from the bank each week, putting most of it into envelopes labelled: health and well being, yard work, cat, entertainment, Christmas club, clothing, and miscellaneous; budgeting is really simple. If I need to buy clothes, I spend what's in that envelope. If I want to go out with friends, I have that envelope to pay for it. There really is a lot of flexibility, and notice the miscellaneous one. That is very useful.

The rest of the money I take out each week mainly pays for groceries. When I get gas, which is at best every third week, I put it on my credit card. I used to include a gas envelope, but since the pandemic I'm driving so little, that simply using the credit card makes sense.

And if I haven't spent all of my weekly money it goes into an envelope I think of as Super Miscellaneous. And I can draw from that as needed.

So I am not experiencing much in the way of inflation, and I'm doing quite well, even saving money. Lucky me.