Your $1,000 Buys 40% Less Than in 2006: Inflation Explained

Can $1,000 in a drawer lose value without a single dollar going missing? In this video, Rayvest explains inflation with official numbers: US consumer prices (CPI-U) rose about 66% between September 2006 and September 2026, so the same basket that cost $1,000 now costs about $1,660. We look at what that means for purchasing power, why small yearly numbers add up (Rule of 72), what prices are doing right now, and what savings accounts earn in comparison. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 $1,000 in a drawer 0:34 What inflation is 1:16 Twenty years of prices 1:51 Purchasing power 2:21 Why small numbers matter 2:46 Inflation right now 3:19 Not every price rises the same 3:38 What cash earns 4:19 A twenty-year what-if 4:55 Cash still has a job 5:13 Five things to check next 5:55 The lesson in one sentence SOURCES US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index news release (September 2026 data, released 14 Oct 2026: 12-month changes for all items, core, energy, gasoline, shelter, food): https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm BLS / FRED, CPI-U all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (CPIAUCNS; September values 2006 to 2026 used in the example): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCNS FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps (national average savings account rate, September 2026: 0.37%): https://www.fdic.gov/national-rates-and-ra... Federal Reserve, what is the Fed's inflation goal (2 percent over the longer run, measured by the PCE price index): https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/econom... TreasuryDirect, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), official terms of one kind of inflation-linked government bond: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/marketable-... Calculations by Rayvest: CPI ratio 336.94 / 202.9; basket values rounded to the nearest $10; 2.6% a year is the 20-year average rate (compound); the one-year and 20-year savings examples use fixed rates (0.37% and 2.6%); Rule of 72 is a rough estimate. Verified three ways (Decimal script, spreadsheet formulas, pipeline model); files in projects/video-03/calc/ Voice: Kokoro-82M text-to-speech, Apache-2.0 licence (github.com/hexgrad/kokoro); 3D scenes: three.js (MIT); music below MUSIC Music: "Rayvest Ambient 01", an original track created by Rayvest for this video (generated with tools/make_ambient.py). AI disclosure: the narration is AI-generated (Kokoro text-to-speech, Apache-2.0), the animations are made by us in code (including 3D scenes built with three.js), and some illustrations may be AI-generated. The mascot Ray is an original character made for this channel. Script, math and editing by Rayvest. Educational content only, not individualized financial advice. Inflation figures are national averages (CPI-U) and are rounded; your own prices and rates will differ. #Inflation #PersonalFinance #FinanceExplained