Inflation rates experienced by different groups of consumers within a country vary. This is because the prices of goods and services and the expenditure patterns of consumers differ. The published inflation rate is used for important decisions regarding the preservation of consumer purchasing power. These include the adjustment of social grants and minimum wages by government and the benchmarking of returns by investors when making investment decisions. It is thus vital that inflation is measured accurately to ensure the purchasing power of consumers is preserved. Current measures of inflation published by Stats SA are applicable to typical consumers and are not relevant to each individual. This resource supplements a study that seeks to provide a publicly available model that can be used by consumers to calculate their personal rate of inflation.
This model is the 2021 update of the original Personal Inflation Calculator published in the link shown under "References".