Personal Inflation Tracker

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the official CPI-U inflation rate?

The official Consumer Price Index blends spending into one fixed national basket meant to represent an average urban household: it is nobody's actual budget. This tracker uses the same official BLS category-level data but weights it by the spending mix you enter, so someone who spends a large share of their budget on housing and medical care, both of which have risen faster than the headline index in recent years, will usually see a personal rate above the official one, and someone who spends more on categories like apparel or recreation, which have risen more slowly, will often see a lower one.

Where do the category numbers come from?

Nine official BLS CPI-U major expenditure groups, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted: Housing, Food & beverages, Transportation, Energy & fuel, Medical care, Education & communication, Recreation, Apparel, and Other goods & services. Each is its own published BLS series, listed under Data sources below, last refreshed 2026-07-31.

Why does Energy overlap with Housing and Transportation?

Energy & fuel is a cross-cutting BLS special aggregate covering both home energy (electricity, natural gas, heating oil) and motor fuel, pulled from pieces of what Housing and Transportation would otherwise include. It is not additional spending on top of those categories. Put your utility bills and gas or EV charging costs under Energy, and use Housing and Transportation for rent or mortgage and vehicle costs excluding fuel, so nothing gets counted twice.

What is a "fixed-weight" personal inflation rate?

It means your spending mix, as a percentage of your total, is held constant at today's split and applied to how each category actually moved over the period, rather than recalculating your mix every year. This is the same basic method behind the official CPI-U itself between its periodic weight updates, and it is standard for this kind of estimate: it isolates the effect of prices changing from the effect of your own spending habits changing, which is a different question.

Why doesn't this convert to my local currency?

Every figure comes from official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, so it only reflects U.S. city-average prices in US dollars. Relabeling the currency would misleadingly imply the underlying price data was somehow international; it isn't. This tool is US-specific, the same limitation the site's regular inflation calculator carries.

Is this my exact personal inflation rate?

It's a genuinely better estimate than the national headline figure for anyone whose spending mix differs from the average, but it still uses national average prices within each category, not the specific prices you personally paid. Rent in one city can rise very differently from rent in another even though both feed the same national Housing index. Treat the result as a meaningfully more personal estimate, not a lab-precise measurement of your own receipts.

Is my spending data private?

Yes. Your entered amounts are stored only in this browser's local storage and used entirely client-side against the baked BLS data already shipped with the page. Nothing is sent anywhere.