Just the other day, I don’t remember how but I stumbled upon this nice light bulb on the internet. Don’t ask me how or why. I looked down at the price and I was surprised by it’s $90 cost. $90 for a light bulb is surely too much. You may have realized in the past years that things are getting more expensive than they were when you were born. For example, someone in Denver who set out a lease for a house for $400,000 in 2011 is now worth almost a million. This is becoming a problem, but we can’t continue without talking about inflation.

What is inflation, and why do we care about it? Why do you care about it? For those who don’t know, inflation is filling a balloon up with air. The other—more important meaning is inflation is a general increase in prices and fall in the value of money. One dollar in today’s money is only worth $0.74 in 2011. Despite seeming like only a 26-cent difference, it has made a big impact. Zooming out to over 100 years ago, there is a humongous difference. Yes, humongous. One dollar in 1913 is now worth $30.88 today.

To put this in perspective, an 8-ounce bag of Lays chips today costs around $3.68, and (if it had existed then) would’ve cost 12 cents. A Ford Model T, one of the first official cars ever made, cost about $500 in 1913 and now costs $16,000. I mean, it is affordable but the difference is incredible. Also keep in mind that these cars are practically nonexistent today, and would probably sell for a lot more.

I say that the downsides outweigh the upsides of inflation, but there are upsides too. Inflation allows the adjustment of wages and at least is better than deflation (the opposite of inflation). That said though, it’s (well to me) crazy how things are blowing up like this. It will continue to rise, and we’ll just have to go with that.