Adjust reports for inflation

David K

To understand whether spending has changed (especially over long periods) I would like an option to adjust reports for actual inflation. The Federal Consumer Price Index reports true inflation in several categories but Quicken has no way to include that calculation. (In its planning option Quicken does let you guess what future inflation will be—for my purpose, the observed inflation is better).

For example, after a major home energy investment, did my costs for utilities change? Some years are hotter/colder than others, so comparing several years before/after the investment will be more reliable.

David K

The suggestion would be relevant to all Quicken platforms (Mac, Classic, Mobile, etc)

NotACPA

Should one also adjust the energy consumption for house guests? Periods of vacation? Significant changes in weather?

I just don't see that this is doable. Just produce a report of the amount spent … and draw your own conclusions.

👎️

Chris_QPW

Since when has the "The Federal Consumer Price Index" been the "true inflation"?

By definition is wrong for almost everything and everyone with the exception of anything that just uses it as a "guess". No different than the guess you can enter into Quicken's lifetime planner.

The likelihood of that number matching your personal inflation number is next to nothing.

It is based on a government assumption of the "average person's spending" and it is also altered by their opinions on the behavior of such imaginary people. For instance, if the price of a given cut of steak that they are using in their figuring of what the average person buys goes up too much they say "the average person will switch to a cheaper cut of meat" and then they will put that into the calculation instead of the steak that is now more expensive. Not to mention

But even if they didn't do things like that, your mix of good is most likely not going to be what they picked.

And on top of that you don't have the needed information in Quicken to properly calculate this.

For instance, you have a category Fuel. It is more this month than last month. Is that because of inflation or because your drove more?

Without the miles driven you have no way of knowing.

Your own statement proves that you don't have the needed information.

Some years are hotter/colder than others,

Not only do you not have the "units of energy used" in Quicken, you also don't have "why you used less or more" (the weather).

And even if you had all that information, you would need a very complicated maybe AI system to even start to evaluate it.

Rob46M

I would agree with David K. We don't need an exact CPI adjusted report. It doesn't even have to be adjusted for the region, although that would be nice. I would like to easily see how my total expenses have changed when adjusted for inflation in a report. For example, have college expenses going back to 2000 for my kids and I would like to be able to demonstrate to them how much we have spent on their education, roughly in today's dollars.

Jim_Harman

You could export an existing report to Excel and add the inflation adjustments there.