It's a little hard to be excited about doing any unnecessary spending, when seeing what inflation is doing to things. And unlike stocks, purchasing power doesn't "bounce back" after awhile, but rather continues to erode and erode and erode, though hopefully at a slower rate than lately.
CPI: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0
Separately, note that the U.S. stock market is down 3.70% since January 2021, based on Vanguard's Total (U.S.) Stock Market Index Fund VTSAX (this includes reinvested distributions, so it is total return).
So that means in purchasing power it's down 13.3% ( .90 * 0.963 = 0.867, (.867-1)*100% = -13.3% ) . Meaning the U.S. stock market investor , on average, has lost 13.3% in purchasing power since January 2021 on their U.S stock holdings (assuming no additions or withdrawals). Meaning this on-average portfolio that used to purchase say $100,000 worth of goods and services in January 2021, now can purchase only $86,700 worth. That erosion occurred in just 1 1/2 years, for chrissake.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VTSAX/history
Use the "adjusted close" column to get the total return.
However unlike purchasing power, which never "bounces back", I expect the U.S. Total Stock Market Index to surpass its previous high some day, in a few years if not sooner. But the inflation-eroding part will remain.
So I'm kind of in lock-down spending mode.
On purchasing power never "bouncing back" - purchasing power will increase only if there is deflation, which has been rare and short-lived in the past 100 years in the U.S.
Edit I picked January 2021 as my base for this because that's about when inflation started increasing markedly, and my original intent was to show the recent erosion of the purchasing power of a fixed dollar annuity.
= new reply since forum marked as read