It's not your imagination: it buys less and less

josevas217 (80)in PussFi 🐈 • 12 days ago

Hello PussFi friends, good day to all. Today I want to talk to you about something that is affecting us all, without exception, and that is inflation, that phenomenon that makes our money buy less and less, and that when we go to the supermarket we realize that with the same amount of money we can no longer buy the same things as a few months ago. It is a reality that hits us directly in the wallet, and particularly in Colombia, as in the rest of Latin America, we have been feeling it quite strongly.

_Source

Inflation, to put it simply, is the general increase in the prices of goods and services over a given period. When this happens, our purchasing power decreases; that is, with the same amount of Colombian pesos (or your country's currency), we can buy fewer things. Now, this technical term translates to the fact that if you used to buy your weekly groceries for 200,000 pesos, now you need 250,000 or more to buy the exact same amount. This has a significant impact because our salaries aren't keeping pace with prices.

In Colombia, we've seen basic food items skyrocket in price: rice, oil, unrefined cane sugar, chicken—everything has gone up in price. And let's not even talk about eggs, which at one point were incredibly expensive. And it's not just about food; it also affects transportation, utilities, gas, rent—absolutely everything. So you end up juggling your monthly budget, taking money from here to put it there. I think it's something many people have experienced, and you have to have multiple sources of income, because otherwise, you might not make it to the end of the month.

_Source

The tricky thing about inflation is that it has multiple causes. It can stem from increased production costs, for example, when international oil prices rise, this is reflected in the transportation of goods, and obviously everything becomes more expensive. Supply chain disruptions also play a role, as happened during the pandemic when everything spiraled out of control. And let's not forget government economic policies, because depending on how they manage the money supply and interest rates, they can either accelerate or control inflation.

This is felt particularly strongly in Latin America because our economies are more vulnerable. We depend heavily on imported goods, and when the dollar rises, which is quite common here, everything imported becomes more expensive, from appliances to medicines. In Colombia, for example, we've seen how the devaluation of the peso against the dollar directly impacts our daily lives.

_Source

And the truth is that for the working class, for ordinary people who have nothing more than a salary, this is very difficult to cope with. Because while the government talks about figures and percentages, about inflation being at such and such a level, what people feel is that it's increasingly difficult to make ends meet, that we have to cut back on expenses, stop buying things we once considered essential, or many end up going into debt to cover their needs.

The worst part is that there's no magic bullet. Controlling inflation takes time and requires sound economic policies, but in the meantime, we citizens are the ones who pay the price. We have to be very careful with our personal finances, try to save whenever possible, look for cheaper alternatives, compare prices before buying—in short, do everything we can to stretch our money as far as possible, and don't stop investing in things that generate additional income; this is key.

It's a complicated reality, and it affects us all, which is why I wanted to share this with you, so we know what's happening with our money and why it's buying us less and less. Goodbye, take care, have a good weekend.