The rate of inflation varies depending on the category. I expect that too much competition in the new car field has held prices down. It somewhat also suprises me that greater efforts where not taken to integrate a lot of car brands to lessen the competition. Maybe this is in the future.

Without excess competition I have no ideal what we would have to pay for new cars today. What is even worse consumers seem to have lost some judgement. Better cars can cost substantially less overall .

For example as the Honda accord was mentioned. We do not own one incidentally The much higher value on resale usually is large enough to well offset the additional initial purchase cost if any. This compared with the vast majority of brands. Compound this with a far less over the miles maintainence cost. It is actually a steal compared to the majority of brands. Same seems to apply to Toyota products to some extent.

As for many things I have to buy in the building field most have heavily inflated. As well inferior products added as substitutes to the market in the same period in the higher price catagories. Today I am using much inferior plywood at a lot more per sheet cost. The plywood market suppliers for here have shifted to south America and the Baltic states for much I use. Mind that constant regulatory changes substantially increase costs . Manipulation of almost everything is a reality or becoming so.

The wife says occasionally the groceries are way up . We do not in general track the cost of our food at all. Do we have twice as much money clear in overall income per month as back then? Funny I really cannot answer that as our income varied frequently a lot back them. I do seriously doubt it was anywhere near only half as much.

Utilities have jumped far more than double at our location since 89 though. Once a total incidental they are now a signifigant item. Property taxes based on heavily increased current property valuations are also up signifigantly. Phone and communication household costs where maybe seven dollars a month or so. Today in excess of two hundred with all the add ons we seem to need today.

The one item I think that has been well below the suggested to me at least flawed official inflation rate is insurance costs. Both property and automotive. They do not seem to have jumped that much.

Heating costs easily passed the official rate of inflation. About that time we burnt 500 gallons of fuel oil during the harder months of winter and it did not bother us. This was in a large house of two apartments we rented out. Today that amount of fuel oil would be over 2,500 a month here in eastern Canada.

At our advancing age not much of it is relavent anymore. Other than how this continuous trend may afflict our children, grandchildren, plus people in general after we are gone.

All in all the wife and myself had an easier ride than the younger generations seem to be having. Maybe we had lesser expectations. Still the wives in general stayed home with the kids and one salary was enough Today that seems to be pretty much history. Most women we know work out as well . For quite some time actually. Yet the average families today seem little better off if any overall than we were.

Try to remember my generation did not need to carry debt basically. Even if there was a mortgage it was usually small and easily serviced. I feel the easy credit today has a lot to do with excess inflation. It may be about the only component that keeps things going in general today at the same time. Perhaps even is hiding some of the more serious realities of the current times.