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You’re Worrying About the Wrong Kind of Inflation

bhw
4 min readJan 2, 2025
Photo by Sean Robertson on Unsplash

There are some people successfully saving half their income on minimum wage jobs. On the other hand there are just as many that are still living paycheck to paycheck even with six-figure salaries. Between the two groups, there’s sometimes one huge difference that splits them apart.

Lifestyle inflation.

The untold silent killer of wealth. Lifestyle inflation happens when an individual’s spending increases as their income does. It is an easy trap to fall into. When an individual gets a raise or gets an unexpected windfall, it’s almost impossible to not increase the amount they are spending. It’s a very common pattern and happens almost automatically.

Imagine getting promoted and your salary increases. You’ve been getting along fine and now each month you’ve got money left over. You might think to treat yourself a little bit here or there to celebrate your promotion. A few fancy meals or a new nice dress later and you’ve got less left in your wallet than ever before.

It’s easy to think “oh I just need to get to this position or I just need to make $X a year and then I deserve to have these nice things”. It’s that type of thinking that makes it so easy to go a little crazy or wild with expenses. The mental and emotional reason that we want to acquire more often has to do with our…

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bhw
bhw

Written by bhw

Personal Finance Enthusiast & Data Analyst in the Bay Area

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