Not news. A story, told the way I'd tell a friend.
This morning the government put out its monthly price report. Prices overall went up 0.4% in October, after 0.6% in September. Fox Business reports that economists had expected 0.3%, so "prices rose faster than expected" is true as far as it goes. A few pieces of it land right in the house: groceries up 0.4%, beef up 0.9%, snacks up 1%, electricity up 0.9%. Piped natural gas went down 0.8%, and used cars went down too.
Here's the rest of the story. The number most of us really want is how much more we're paying than a year ago, and it isn't in the report. Nobody collected prices for October 2025 during the government shutdown, so for most of this report the government says it can't publish how much prices changed from a year ago.
The national number is an average of everybody anyway, and mine could be well above it or well below it. What I'd do tonight: pick three things I buy almost every week, put this week's price next to an old receipt or online order from a few months back (or last fall), and shop around on the one that jumped. Three pairs of numbers on the back of an envelope is my own inflation rate.
These are numbers, but the most important number is how your expenses feel to you.
Sources:
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index release (8:30 a.m. ET, 2026-11-10): https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Fox Business, 2026-11-10: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/cpi-inflation-october-2026
The full story, free every weekday: https://www.yourmoneyactually.com/?utm_source=yma_podcast
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