Personal Inflation Rate Calculator

Use our Personal Inflation Rate Calculator to see how fast prices are rising for your own budget — not the average household’s — and what your monthly spending will cost in the years ahead.

Enter what you spend a month in each category and how much its prices changed over the last year. Each category counts in proportion to what you spend on it, so a big jump in a small expense moves your rate less than the same jump in housing or groceries. For example, $500 rising 3%, $300 rising 8% and $200 falling 1% gives a personal rate of 3.70%: 1.50 points from the first category, 2.40 from the second and −0.20 from the third.

Add the official inflation rate — such as the 12-month change in the Consumer Price Index — to see whether your prices are rising faster or slower than average. The calculator also projects your budget with each category rising at its own rate: that $1,000 a month would cost $1,210.64 in 5 years, an average of 3.90% a year — a little above 3.70%, because the fastest-rising costs become a bigger part of the budget.

Your spending mix stays the same and each category keeps rising at the rate you enter, so treat the results as an estimate. To check whether a pay raise keeps up with prices, use our Cost of Living Raise Calculator; to plan where your money goes each month, our Monthly Budget Calculator. To see how much of your spending growth is lifestyle rather than prices, use our Lifestyle Inflation Calculator; to check whether a product got smaller for the same price, our Shrinkflation Calculator.