Price Inflation Report | See How Prices Affect Your Cost of Living

How fast are your prices rising?

Enter your monthly expenses below to see your personal inflation and the change in your expenses.

Our goal is to help Americans understand the changing prices in the economy and in their daily life.

Calculate Your Personal Inflation

🔒 Privacy Notice: We won't store or sell the spending data you enter for calculating the impact of inflation on you.

What is Inflation?

Inflation is the rate at which prices increase over time. Think of it like the speedometer in your car—it tells you how fast you're going, not how far you've traveled. Similarly, inflation tells you how quickly prices are rising, not how expensive things are overall.

A 3% annual inflation rate means that something costing $100 today would cost $103 in a year. The key word is "rate"—it's about the speed of change, not the price level itself. If inflation is 0%, prices aren't changing. If inflation is 10%, prices are rising rapidly.

We show both monthly inflation (how prices changed from last month) and annual inflation (how prices changed over the past year). Monthly rates are typically smaller but more volatile; annual rates give a better sense of the overall trajectory.

Let's Look at Price Changes by Expense Category

Overall prices rose modestly in February 2026. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks what consumers pay for a broad basket of goods and services, increased 0.3% from January and is up 2.4% over the past year. Shelter remained the single largest driver of monthly price increases, rising 0.3% for the month and 3.3% annually. Food and beverages climbed 0.4% in February and are up 3% year-over-year. Apparel prices posted the largest monthly gain of any category at 1.3% (2.5% annually), followed by medical care prices at 0.5% (3.4% annually). On the positive side, prices of communication services fell 0.5% in February and are down 2.2% over the year, and transportation costs remain slightly below the levels from a year ago (-0.5% annually).

For a typical American household, inflation is still present but running at a relatively contained pace. Rent, groceries, healthcare, and apparel costs continue to put upward pressure on budgets, while savings are available in phone and internet bills and at the gas pump and car dealership. With headline inflation at 2.4%, purchasing power is eroding more slowly than at any point during the peak inflation years of 2021–2023. Put simply, a basket of goods and services that cost $100 in February 2026 would have cost about $97.65 in February 2025.

Share Your Personal Inflation Story

Price changes don’t affect everyone the same way. By answering a few quick questions, we will tell you each month how price inflation is showing up in American households.

🔒 Privacy Notice: Your responses will be anonymous and combined with responses from other Americans across the country to show national patterns.

1. ZIP Code *

2. In the LAST 30 DAYS, how did your total spending change due to price changes? *

3. Due to price changes in the LAST 30 DAYS, which category's spending increased the most for you? *

4. Thinking about the LAST 30 DAYS, were you able to cover all your monthly expenses with your income? *

5. Over the next 3 months, do you expect prices in general will go up, go down, or stay where they are now? *

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Inflation insights for your real life.