The big news of late is how much more expensive it is to a) eat, and b) get around.

These are pretty basic needs. Most of us can’t walk everywhere we need to go and even if we could, the cost of fuel is pushing up the goods and services that have to be transported to the stores where we buy them. Eating… well… that just goes without saying.

So why does the consumer price index make it look like we’re in such fine shape? Inflation, while pinching us at the gas pump and in the supermarket, doesn’t seem to be reflected in the numbers we hear on the news. That’s because there are a lot of things that make up the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket including:

1. Food – 18%
2. Shelter – 27.9%
3. Household operations and furnishings – 10%
4. Clothing and footwear – 6.6%
5. Transportation – 18.3%
6. Health and personal care – 4.3%
7. Recreation, education and reading – 10.4%
8. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco products – 4.5%

The products in the basket are weighted based on their common usage – those are the percentages. The weights determine the impact that a particular price change will have on the overall consumer budget.  For example, a 5% rise in the price of milk would have a much greater impact on the average budget of consumers than a 5% increase in the price of tea, because people spend on average more money on milk than they do on tea.  The weight for Canada assigned to milk (0.69%) is greater than that of tea (0.06%).  Without weights, price changes for all commodities in the CPI basket would be given equal importance in the calculation of the All-items index. Here’s one of the problems: according to their own documentation the current set of weights refer to household expenditures for 1992. 

With housing prices having skyrocketed in the last decade, me’thinks the numbers could be a little off. Housing is eating way more than 28% of our budgets in many parts of the country. Ditto the fact that while some costs have risen dramatically affecting everyone’s budget, others have fallen, affecting only some people’s budgets.

The costs of computers, TVs, software, audio equipment, clothing, appliances and new cars have gone down, offsetting the increases in things like food and gas, to make inflation appear less dramatic than most of us are actually feeling in our wallets.

And while the price of a box of yogurt may appear to have remained stable, food manufacturers are dealing with the increases in costs not by raising their prices, but by reducing the amount they put in the box. So quantities are going down, while prices seem to remain stable. (Have you noticed that your food containers hold less food? Check it out.)

Ultimately, as the costs for covering our Essential Expenses rise, less and less will be available to spend on the bottom half of the CPI basket of goods. The problem with that is a vicious cycle: we don’t buy TVs or cars and the manufacturers have to lay off the workers who build them; then people laid off don’t have the money to keep body and soul together.

This would have started a long time ago had so many people not had credit available to buy the things they really couldn’t afford. We’ve been buoyed by a credit bubble that’s burst in the U.S., Australia, and elsewhere around the world. Don’t let the pundits fool you. We’re in deep doo doo and we’d better learn to live on what we make FAST.

There is no doubt in my mind that we will see increases in unemployment across the country as we come to terms with our new economic reality. The really sad part is that we might be able to hold on with one income in our family, if we didn’t owe money to every Tom, Dick & Harry. With our debt loads having reached record levels, we don’t stand a hope if we don’t get ourselves in the black. And SOON.

The economy, like the stock market and life itself, is a cyclical thing. Where we are today is not where we will be in six months, a year or a decade. But if we don’t have the tenacity (and the emergency fund) to hold us through the bottom of the cycle, the cost emotionally and to our families’ sense of well-being can be devastating.

So, what’s it going to be? A new TV? A better cell phone? Or the peace of mind that comes from knowing you can weather the economic storm that may or may not be just around the corner?