CPI is financial TV content. Your inflation rate is the one that matters. If your grocery bill, insurance, taxes, and housing costs are rising faster than your portfolio, your FIRE plan is getting weaker even if the headline number looks fine.
That’s why the classic stock-and-bond playbook deserves more scrutiny than it gets. A retirement plan built around 4% withdrawals and a big slug of fixed income assumes inflation stays tame enough for your assets to keep doing their job. I wouldn’t bet on that. We just lived through a reminder that the government’s preferred way out of debt problems is to make the currency worth less.
So the real question isn’t whether inflation is 2.9% or 3.4%. It’s whether the assets you own can outrun the rising cost of your actual life. For me, that means spending intentionally, being careful with bond exposure, using fixed-rate debt wisely, and owning bitcoin as the asset with the best chance of staying ahead when the money gets weaker.
If you’re building toward financial independence, this is the piece: https://firebtc.io/p/will-inflation-eat-your-baby
That’s why the classic stock-and-bond playbook deserves more scrutiny than it gets. A retirement plan built around 4% withdrawals and a big slug of fixed income assumes inflation stays tame enough for your assets to keep doing their job. I wouldn’t bet on that. We just lived through a reminder that the government’s preferred way out of debt problems is to make the currency worth less.
So the real question isn’t whether inflation is 2.9% or 3.4%. It’s whether the assets you own can outrun the rising cost of your actual life. For me, that means spending intentionally, being careful with bond exposure, using fixed-rate debt wisely, and owning bitcoin as the asset with the best chance of staying ahead when the money gets weaker.
If you’re building toward financial independence, this is the piece: https://firebtc.io/p/will-inflation-eat-your-baby