Credit card statements on your phone are always so nice and colorful. What a wonderful user experience! You can look at the app and see the logos of all the places you spent money at during the previous month and remember all the good times you had there. Like when I went through the drive-thru at Schlotsky’s on June 6th for lunch and spent $11.32 on a French Dip Sandwich. I may have had Cheetos with it; I don’t remember as I tend to inhale those (and look at the bag wondering what happened to them). But I do know for a fact that $11.32 wasn’t the full combo cost. That was incurred yesterday. It was $13.92, for a drive-thru lunch combo – just for me.
Some of these charges are hard for me to mentally process, like the one on May 17th when I spent $42.55 for the family at Chick-Fil-A. I swear that sandwich bun was smaller too. Last year a similar meal on a 2024 statement I found (and we always order the exact same things there in my family) was $37.54, marking a 13.3% increase year over year. How about $412.36 at the dermatologist last month for a 15-minute appointment? It’s a good thing I didn’t stop on the way out of there to use the restroom.
Out of sheer embarrassment and much shame I won’t even disclose what I spent on a double-date night out with our friends at Coral restaurant before seeing Jim Gaffigan at the Peace Center (and paying a babysitter for the night). That number just takes my breath away. Unfortunately, it’s all adding up to a rather uncomfortable total for the month. And then there’s this laboratory bill envelope that’s been sitting on our kitchen hotspot for a good week that I don’t want to open. Maybe my troublemaker dogs could do me a favor for once and tear that one up instead of my windowsills and walls (which just cost me $2,000 to fix)?
I don’t know what the same combo cost me last year at Schlotsky’s, nor what the dermatologist ran me last year. I know I’ll never go to Coral again, even though my wife loves it, the food was good, and the service was excellent. On top of it all, I’m about to have another ceiling fan installed next month. This kind of thing happens when you buy a house built in 1981. Last year that ceiling fan installation cost me $225. This year it’s going to run me $550 for the same electrician for the same job. Different room. Same exact operation. I bet my electrician likes going to Coral. He and his wife could probably go there 3 times after he visits me.
We must be in the future because everything is bigger and costs so much more. If inflation has you down as well, don’t worry, because the government is here to help. After all, didn’t you all get a 2.5% bump in your Social Security payments last year? Guess what? That’s what it’s projected to be next year1. We’re no fools. We all know that goods and services are up more than 2.5% collectively. Gaming this inflation data out 30 years for your retirement is not easy but it’s part of the calculations we do for you. That doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is trying to do those calculations to make good projections for you based on fake data like Owner’s Equivalent Rent, a totally fabricated statistic, and the substitutions that the powers-that-be use to manipulate the CPI data. They are talking about the probability of rate cuts being a little higher after the “softer” inflation data2. Am I the only one that feels that the reported 2.4%3 inflation is just not jibing with reality here? I swear that McDonald’s line I pass on Pelham Road regularly is down probably 80% at lunchtime from what it was this time last year. Either the cost of a Happy Meal is turning those smiles upside down, or everyone’s finally figured out that the McDonald’s Big ‘N Tasty is neither big … nor tasty.
To sum up, there are cost impacts being felt and the way we as a country calculate the big macroeconomic data used to make the really big economic decisions is letting us all down and the biggest problems are still being swept under the rug. Let’s review the potential ways to address the underlying issue.
Cash – Dead, or Mostly Dead, like the hero Wesley was in “The Princess Bride”
Gold – Buying something, anything, that has gone up in value for a long time in a straight line isn’t the best idea
Bonds – Approaching zombie status after a 40-year-bull run came to an end 3 years ago
Buffered ETFs – A gentle, ethical way to put down the zombie bonds and hopefully earn a reasonable rate of return with minimal risk (Please call us if we can administer this cure)
Money Market – A way to tread water and keep your head above it … for now
Real Estate – Too vulnerable to interest rate cycles and not liquid enough to pay unopened laboratory bills
Stocks – Our only serious hope to help us buy a Schlotsky’s combo in 2040?
An inflation update we all should all note involved last night’s Israeli attack on the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran. Oil prices shot up 11% overnight to $76 a barrel, although they have cooled a bit since4. There were projections of $40 a barrel by Paul Sankey, who owns a firm that specializes in tracking that. Now it appears the price is headed the other direction. If those oil prices continue to climb, that’s inflationary and prices at the grocery store, at restaurants and other stores will ascend with it. 227 S&P 500 companies mentioned inflation in their last earnings reports5. Inflation is still a threat, both now and the future. It’s almost everyone’s biggest demon in their retirement planning. That’s why it’s important to stay in stocks to some degree over the long term to minimize its impact.
We’re taking a deep breath here as we monitor current events but we’re not going to drown in them. We’re managing for you for the next 30+ years of your life, not for the best return over a trading day. Give us a call if you need to vent on current events or the prices you’re paying when you are out and about. Sometimes it’s good to just get it out of your system, like I just did. If you listen to us, we’ll change your financial world …
Sincerely,
Scott Wright
The WTA Investment Committee
Sources:
1https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/11/social-security-cost-of-living-adjustment-may-be-2point5percent-in-2026-estimates.html#:~:text=In%202026%2C%20Social%20Security%20checks,Security%20and%20Medicare%20policy%20analyst.
3 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cpi-report-today-inflation-may-2025-trump-tariffs/
4@KobeissiLetter
5@FactSet
