How has inflation affected your savings and investing?

[Kodok Bencot]

Inflation is very influential on the economy, I work with a salary of around $450 per month and have almost 3 years of salary increases below inflation so it makes a lot of things that I can't fulfill, to save is very difficult and I only rely on a few unproductive investments so my hope is right now is investing in cryptocurrencies.

[markdario112616]

Well for me, since I quite earn enough to make a living. I make sure that I don't touch whatsoever that I currently have invested, and my savings are still the same. I set my own budgeting in which I follow a rule 60-20-20, 60 % will go directly to my Expenses (Bills, Groceries, and etc.) 20% savings and 20% Investments/Wants. I may sometimes have a 10-10 split on my investments and when I sometimes want to buy somethings and etc. So yeah, my key to this somehow crisis is that I make sure that every penny is accounted for. I avoided, impulsive buying or spending too much on going out. I'm an extrovert guy, but I'd always set myself to spend this only for a certain let's say gatherings. It's not that I'm cheap, more on I want money to grow. I have plans, this is somehow a sacrifice for others but yeah I know this would benefit not only me but also my family.

[bryant.coleman]

Inflation is very influential on the economy, I work with a salary of around $450 per month and have almost 3 years of salary increases below inflation so it makes a lot of things that I can't fulfill, to save is very difficult and I only rely on a few unproductive investments so my hope is right now is investing in cryptocurrencies.

That is the case with most of the countries, even in developed nations. The salary increase is in the 4%-5% range for most of the people and it may be below the inflation rate. If you are in the top 10% in performance, then you may end up with 10%-12% increment per year. In order to improve your living standards, you need to change your job once every 3-4 years. The new job on average may pay you 25% to 30% more (I am talking about employees with >5 years of experience, and not about the starting level employees).

[Wong Gendheng]

Many factors affect our income and expenses, and the biggest factor influencing is inflation. If inflation is not under control then we can be sure that we will experience many financial problems, the presence of investment is certainly to be able to offset inflation so that we can survive and increase our assets.

[Sir Legend]

Inflation always happens and can't be avoided, actually inflation is good for making people more creative and increasing their income, but for many people of course inflation is a disaster because it makes prices more expensive and unaffordable, to overcome inflation the easiest thing I can do is invest in several posts and currently the largest portion is in cryptocurrencies.

[SquallLeonhart]

I have noticed as well and this has been going on since the last world economic crisis that happened in 2007, I know it sounds like a cliche but things are not made in the same way they were made before, now all the stuff you can buy is some cheap junk that breaks at the first opportunity, while stuff that was made decades ago is still working because those products were made to last and even if you abuse the product you can always restore it and it works as if it was new, something really difficult to do with the technology that is being produced today.

Well.. this is strange. But you can't generalize everything. I am using my laptop from Dell for the last 6 years, and so far I haven't faced any issues. The same can be said about refrigerators, washing machines.etc. In fact the refrigerator which I am using is at least 10 years old. But if you are talking about mobile phones, TVs.etc, then I have to agree. The LED TVs don't last for more than 4-5 years. On the other hand, the old CRT televisions used to last 20-25 years without any major issue. But then you need to chose between quality and durability.

I have a Dell Alienware laptop, 17 R4 , if you know about laptops then you will know how decent this laptop is, I am not going to say great because obviously there are better ones, but this was amazing, especially considering I bought it nearly 4.5 years ago (January 2017). Ever since I bought it, it had its plug broken, so they brought me new cable, then keyboard started to get lose and broken and not even just one case, it was 3-4 and then they came in and said it was a production error, shouldn't be getting this many this quickly and that was like first year.

I also got the battery swollen like crazy, which damaged the case as well, the empty space under the numbers is now swollen because of it, I got my warranty over after third year ended so I had to open it myself and took the battery out myself. Now I can only work if I plug it somewhere because it doesn't have a battery. It has so many software errors that I had to do a reset to default 3 times so far, and I am not someone that downloads too many things neither, I work as a content writer so my pc barely has anything, maybe few games from steam.

Moreover, these days the CPU gets hot, sometimes as hot as 90c and that should close the PC, instead it continues thankfully and I have to reapply the thermal paste on it. This is a 4.5 year PC that I paid top market price at the time, think of all the bad ones and how terrible they could be.

[Fatunad]

Many factors affect our income and expenses, and the biggest factor influencing is inflation. If inflation is not under control then we can be sure that we will experience many financial problems, the presence of investment is certainly to be able to offset inflation so that we can survive and increase our assets.

Therefore,  it is just sensible that we should really find off ways on making investment so that we would able to patch up in regarding with that inflation issue.We are already aware with this thing
and thats why some people do really tend to engage with investment so that they could make theirselves sustainable apart from the money or income that they do gain from their day job
they could also make out profits in various sources too.Its up to someone on how they would handle out their investments.

[rugrats]

Inflation is really a problem for the economy of some countries, it can even be said that most of the countries in the world are facing this problem. But reducing costs is not enough. must be a good choice at this point in time as the demand will continue to exist. And the thing that saddens me the most is that I myself need to increase my budget for my daily needs in order to be able to maintain it. the living expenses my family needs, my savings have been really affected by very high inflation so no matter what return I get from my investments. I hope that the problem will be solved and my life will be better in the future.

[justdimin]

Inflation is very influential on the economy, I work with a salary of around $450 per month and have almost 3 years of salary increases below inflation so it makes a lot of things that I can't fulfill, to save is very difficult and I only rely on a few unproductive investments so my hope is right now is investing in cryptocurrencies.

That is the case with most of the countries, even in developed nations. The salary increase is in the 4%-5% range for most of the people and it may be below the inflation rate. If you are in the top 10% in performance, then you may end up with 10%-12% increment per year. In order to improve your living standards, you need to change your job once every 3-4 years. The new job on average may pay you 25% to 30% more (I am talking about employees with >5 years of experience, and not about the starting level employees).

This is exactly why I moved to freelancing. There are two options of making more money in the freelancing world, either you charge more and earn more if you can find someone to work with, or you end up getting another job on top of your current job and start working two jobs which will pay you significantly more.

This doesn't mean that you will be capable of working like that forever, eventually one day your job could be over but that doesn't change the fact that it is certainly giving you a lot more freedom to earn as much as you can, instead of what your boss may feel like you should earn. I work for one place now and have another that I sometimes do and sometimes don't depending on how much money I need, and that wasn't an option when I worked, there was a salary and there were increases yearly and that's it, I couldn't decide how much I earned, which is why freelancing beats working for someone in my mind.

[Sithara007]

This is exactly why I moved to freelancing. There are two options of making more money in the freelancing world, either you charge more and earn more if you can find someone to work with, or you end up getting another job on top of your current job and start working two jobs which will pay you significantly more.

This doesn't mean that you will be capable of working like that forever, eventually one day your job could be over but that doesn't change the fact that it is certainly giving you a lot more freedom to earn as much as you can, instead of what your boss may feel like you should earn. I work for one place now and have another that I sometimes do and sometimes don't depending on how much money I need, and that wasn't an option when I worked, there was a salary and there were increases yearly and that's it, I couldn't decide how much I earned, which is why freelancing beats working for someone in my mind.

I am someone who has been doing freelancing for well over a decade. But doing so is not easy in my country (India). Here, receiving payments from abroad is not 100% legal. As per the existing laws, in order to work for a foreign employer and to receive payments from abroad, you need to apply for half a dozen licenses (which is not practical given the red tape in India). Most of the freelancers usually ignore these restrictions. The majority were receiving payments through PayPal earlier. Then a few years ago the government noticed this and asked PayPal to close down it's operations in India. Because of this, the freelancers have shifted to Bitcoin (still the legality issue remains). 

[iv4n]

Inflation is really kicking in, the cost of things are getting really high in the market and its not even december yet, its effects are evident on the price of food stuffs, transportation, electricity bills, gas bills and others. How are you handling it and how has it affected your savings/your percentage for investing (if you have one)?

Have you had to cut down on your expenses so as to maintain the percentage of your income you allocate to savings & investing?, Or you have adjusted the percentage for savings and investing so as to accommodate and maintain your standard of living?

Happening in my country too... the cost of living is going up like crazy, many stuff is over 100% higher than at the same time last year... my paycheck is the same as it was 4 years ago! So I think it's simple math, things are uncontrollable!

Luckily we have crypto, and as some other guys said already, I am trying to keep my crypto investments safe, which means not touch them as long as I can! I can remember selling Bitcoins for $200, and look where Bitcoin is now?! So crypto is a savior in my case, my old holdings, and my investments make me feel safe in these troubled times!

[South Park]

Inflation always happens and can't be avoided, actually inflation is good for making people more creative and increasing their income, but for many people of course inflation is a disaster because it makes prices more expensive and unaffordable, to overcome inflation the easiest thing I can do is invest in several posts and currently the largest portion is in cryptocurrencies.

Well it is true that to some extent inflation cannot be avoided, even gold which was the standard for a long time had inflation as its supply went up due to the gold that was mined during the year, however the issue comes when inflation is too high but still under control or when the inflation is obviously out of control, right now we are in the first scenario, the inflation is high and most likely will remain there for some years, but if something else were to happen I doubt we can remain in this scenario for long and that is when inflation could get completely out of control.

[oHnK]

This is exactly why I moved to freelancing. There are two options of making more money in the freelancing world, either you charge more and earn more if you can find someone to work with, or you end up getting another job on top of your current job and start working two jobs which will pay you significantly more.

Talking about saving and our income from a job is very closely related. However, we should all agree that the income generated based on projects or freelancing is much greater than working in office hours. Moreover, talking about inflation that haunts all lines, especially for workers who work 8 hours of work. They receive wage increases that are not even able to cover the level of inflation or at least equal inflation. And this often happens in my country.

[terrorJR]

Many factors affect our income and expenses, and the biggest factor influencing is inflation. If inflation is not under control then we can be sure that we will experience many financial problems, the presence of investment is certainly to be able to offset inflation so that we can survive and increase our assets.

this is not entirely true but not completely wrong either.
it is true that at least by having a minimum investment we can take into account and defend our future to avoid this.
but again inflation can occur at any time as long as the economy is not controlled and if inflation has occurred in a severe stage, investment will not be too guarantee even though it can still last a long time. at least people who invest will be a little calmer than people who do nothing.

[LUCKMCFLY]

In the case of my country it is very easy to detect, because there is simply no saving, when inflation occurs, only people dedicate themselves to satisfying their basic needs such as maintaining themselves with their food, services and medicine, everything changes when it is taken into account the savings in strong FIAT money, such as the dollar, some have physical gold and change in emergency measures.

Very few know the BTC, and those who start do not have enough confidence, however there are always ways out of it, inflation only begins to be fought with short and medium-term investments, this is the measure that many in my country are taking in mind and doing.

[Gyfts]

...

Direct costs of living, so housing prices and food prices are all increasing because of supply shortages.

The supply chain took a hit during Covid but there's always a lag in the inflation calculation as the market determines the price increase. And if you want to go further than that, despite having your income rise by 10x, you still had more purchasing power 5 years ago. Most centralize government banks will target inflation to be at 2 percent each year. Your country might have had higher inflation, so it could be worse. So, by design, you are losing 2+ percent of your spending power each year, even if it may not necessarily seem like the prices around you are increasing. The price increases are subtle, and by design.

[Sithara007]

We can still survive from this inflation if we know how to budget our money, there are a lot of things that we can sacrifice especially those things that we dont need but just only want. We can also save our money if we are going to buy things not in the mall or supermarket because as we all know the price of the things we have in the mall are high compared to the outside.

There is no problem in surviving like this. But then your living standards will go down. As you suggest, the individual will be forced to cut down on his spending and look for cheaper alternatives. Then another question comes. For how long this will be sustainable? If the inflation rate remains high, and if the salary is not increasing, then this strategy won't work in the long term. What you are suggesting essentially is to run away from the problem rather than confronting it. Not a very good idea, IMO.

[TheUltraElite]

Inflation is very influential on the economy, I work with a salary of around $450 per month and have almost 3 years of salary increases below inflation so it makes a lot of things that I can't fulfill, to save is very difficult and I only rely on a few unproductive investments so my hope is right now is investing in cryptocurrencies.

Consider the fact that one day you will need to sell that cryptocurrency for fiat assuming that your country does not accept bitcoin yet, you would still be facing the same inflation. Have you given that a thought?

What I said in my previous post, inflation comes back to haunt you as soon as you have to change from crypto to fiat, because the second one is the place where inflation is there. But if there was a method to directly buy/sell goods with bitcoin, things may have been different.

Many factors affect our income and expenses, and the biggest factor influencing is inflation. If inflation is not under control then we can be sure that we will experience many financial problems, the presence of investment is certainly to be able to offset inflation so that we can survive and increase our assets.

Your investments are also subject to inflation. Your stored gold will deprecate with time because the fiat value for that will decrease. However to reduce it by a major amount might take some decades, so it should work out during your lifetime.

So honestly speaking, there is no way to escape inflation like that if you are having to face the fiat economy at any point. A bitcoin based economy is far from its inception and so inflation is here to stay.

[Mauser]

Have you had to cut down on your expenses so as to maintain the percentage of your income you allocate to savings & investing?, Or you have adjusted the percentage for savings and investing so as to accommodate and maintain your standard of living?

For me the biggest pressure on spending came from the corona crisis. I was very scared in the beginning to lose my job and be unable to pay back my loans. The first step was to not go on vacation anymore. Both this and last year I was away less than 10 days in total and usually only visiting family for 1-2 days. The inflation just made everything worse. Inflation rates of above 2% make saving useless because interest rates are so low. At the beginning of corona I had around 50% in short term high liquidity assets to be able to cover any income losses. But now with the end of the corona crisis insight I am trying to invest 90% of my money. What I bought in the last 6 months to escape inflation was crypto currencies, stock index funds and a real estate fund.

[sana54210]

Your investments are also subject to inflation. Your stored gold will deprecate with time because the fiat value for that will decrease. However to reduce it by a major amount might take some decades, so it should work out during your lifetime.

So honestly speaking, there is no way to escape inflation like that if you are having to face the fiat economy at any point. A bitcoin based economy is far from its inception and so inflation is here to stay.

If the crypto investment we make is going up faster than inflation then we do not have to worry about inflation at all. Consider this (numbers are just examples, do not take them face value) let's say you start working for the first time in your life this year.

Your first job ever is 1000 dollars, after your first year, the inflation is 2%, which means you should be getting 1020 next year right? Well what if you get 1010 instead? That means you are paid less, or let's assume that you put 10% of your salary to crypto each money, you would have 1200 dollars total right? What if bitcoin went up 2x that year?

You would have 2400 but of course it won't be in the last second so let's average it and say 1800 dollars. That means you would have 10 dollars less each month than what you should be getting because your salary was under inflation, but you would have 600 dollars total which is 50 bucks per month that makes you earning more than inflation. This is just an example, you can change the numbers anyway you like to see the point.