You thought the inflation rate was down because of lower gas prices?

In recent times, we were reminded of the high inflation rate every time we got in the car and drove down the road. You know, those big signs that advertise gas prices, prices that made you actually cringe.

But since the average gas price has significantly lowered since July when it reached its peak, you would think the inflation rate would fall as well, right? Wrong.

Yahoo Finance said it best, “inflation is getting sneaky.” Now that the evidence is not posted up all over town on huge signs, it is harder to know what exactly is driving up the inflation rate.

While gas prices went down, prices for food and household energy went up. According to Yahoo Finance, “Groceries account for 8.2% of the overall inflation measure. Household energy accounts for 3.5%. Gasoline accounts for 3.7%. So groceries and household energy combined account for 11.7% of the overall price index, or roughly three times as much as gasoline.”

Utility costs have skyrocketed because of the rising price of natural gas. Some of this can be accosted to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine that forced US natural gas prices to rise. Additionally, the high prices of food are due to a large amount of energy it takes to produce and transport food as well as supply chain problems (the pandemic).

However, there is a small silver lining: the cost of transporting food is expected to decline due to the drop in gas prices which could lead to food-price inflation dropping as well.

With that being said, in a few months, it might not cost you an arm and a leg to buy groceries and pay your utility bill…maybe.