The Campfire Trail: September 29

September 29, 2022

Day 363 of the Adventure

Once again, I feel I need to address the whole idea about rising costs and inflation. In economics, the definition of inflation is "a general increase in the prices of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduction in the purchasing power of money". This past year, the increase in the cost of goods has been staggering. A little increase in the cost of food is tolerable, as is a little increase in energy, A little increase in fuel is aggravating. Increases in rent are to be expected I suppose. BUT...... when all of these "little" (or big) increases are combined, it can become suffocating.

The reason I bring this up today is a short story of someone I know who is about to be crushed under the weight of inflation. She is an elderly woman on a fixed income. Her rent has not been increased for over seven years. In fact, it's the same as when she moved into her home. Being on a fixed income, there's only so much to go around when it comes to paying bills. As the cost of everything in her world has gone up, she has suddenly become unable to pay her rent. Unfortunately, to compound the problem, moving from a modest three bedroom house to a small efficiency apartment would not even save her anything due to the steady rising in rental costs. The small units are as expensive as her larger one at this point. That's if she could even find an available unit. Inflation is about to claim her as another victim of the slow creep in the costs of everything.

Is there an answer? Probably nothing that will stop inflation, but I believe that a return to more of a self-sufficient life is a remedy to lower the effects of inflation on our lives. I could only guess whether inflation will increase or decrease over the next year or two. I can almost certainly say that no matter what it does, life will not get significantly easier unless we as individuals begin to take some control over how badly the economy affects us. Learning and adopting self-sufficiency lifestyles will be a large part of that solution.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “Being frugal doesn’t mean slashing your spending or depriving yourself of things that you enjoy. It means knowing the value of a dollar and making every effort to spend it wisely.”

― Frank Sonnenberg

Base Camp Coffee of the Day: Lost in the Dark (Colombia Dark Roast)

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