Cost of living will stay high.Tighten your belt and invest in yourself as more instability looms

Inflation pressure is not going to go away: As we head to the holiday season, cost of living will stay high. If you are young and don’t remember past periods of high inflation, and high cost of capital, get used to it. Data that came in on October 12th, confirms that inflation has increased slightly and that cost of living will stay high for longer than expected. Month over month, overall inflation increased 0.4% in September. In August, the month-over-month rate was 0.6%.

Core inflation, the measure of prices excluding volatile food and gas prices, is considered by the Fed to be the best measure of where inflation is headed. In September, core inflation posted a second consecutive monthly gain of 0.3%, which is roughly half the rate of inflation during summer 2022. That’s still a bit too high, based on the Fed’s target.

What does high inflation mean to your wallet? Rising costs are causing household budgets to tighten. Aside from higher prices on everything you buy, persistently high inflation means that interest rates on credit cards, loans and auto financing will also remain elevated. That’s because the Fed has been trying to slow inflation through a series of rate hikes that started in March 2022. The central bank’s benchmark rate is now in a range of…