Page 86 - October 2023

FINANCIAL PLANNING
by Cade Peterson, Financial Advisor
INFLATION AND THE
ALL AMERICAN FUTURITY
As I write this, I’m on the way to Ruidoso for the Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale and All American weekend. The plane ride has me thinking about how crazy the sale prices have been at yearling sales the last few years. Not only the sale prices, but the prices of hay and grain speak to that as well. The economy has been volatile for the last three years or so and inflation is a big part of that. Will the prices in the equine industry ever cool back down or will they stay high?
INFLATION
If you study the inflation reports, they will show you that inflation is tapering down, but prices are still out of control.
It seems like you can’t buy a small bag of groceries for less than a hundred dollars nowadays. I went out to dinner with my grandpa recently and he was telling me the story of when he bought his first house. He told me his monthly payment was $90 on a nice home in Morgan, Utah. I pay more than that for my gym membership every month. It
is bizarre to realize what inflation has done over a 60-year stretch. My house payment
is over 30 times what his was. It makes
me wonder what my grandchildren will be paying for their mortgage every month. The upper class can make do with the runaway inflation but the lower-middle class is really struggling. An income of $100,000 per year really doesn’t get you that far anymore. While I was reading reports on inflation, I came across an article by Forbes and it was titled “The Price is Right: U.S. Inflation
84 SPEEDHORSE October 2023