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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why you're subtracting inflation. Yes I know doing so gives you the 'real terms' increase in value, but if you stuff £3,000 in a mattress and pull it out after a year you don't notionally add inflation to it's value when comparing it to the value of savings. The savings in that account would still be 3% more than your mattress money, not 2.4% more. Unless you're comparing it to spending all the money right now.

Anyway, £6 (or £7.50) is the price of a meal. £72 (or £90) is the price of a few decent Christmas presents. These things add up.

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He's probably subtracting inflation to make the interest rate of Tesco relative to the rest of the economy. Stuffing money in a mattress is a pretty poor idea when it should be very easy to find an investment scheme that covers inflation.

It's not like the rest of the economy is immune from inflation though. Do we adjust everything for inflation? It just strikes me as pointless complication. Really, the only point I can think of is comparing saving to outright immediate spending.

Certain statistics are usually inflation adjusted, like GDP. Real Gross Domestic Product measures economic output adjusted for inflation or deflation. If inflation is 20%, and you're earning 3% interest, your losing purchasing power. If inflation is 1% and you're earning 3%, you're gaining.

Real, not nominal, returns are what people care about.

> If inflation is 20%, and you're earning 3% interest, your losing purchasing power.

Yes but I think the point the person you're replying to is trying to make is that it doesn't matter because the inflation rate is not dependent on where you put your money.

Shouldn't the comparison be to the interest rates and risk with comparable places to put/invest your money? I suppose if inflation were extremely high or low compared to interest rates then it would affect your appetite for risk vs interest rate, but I don't think that's the case here.

You need to consider real returns only if the inflation rate varies between things you're looking at, i.e., across countries or time.

But investing in 'the economy' generally means investing in the stock market. Which introduces risk, which isn't great for an emergency fund - and you'll no longer be covered by FSCS.

When you're storing small sums of money (less than 10k €/$), the amount you lose from inflation from stuffing money in a mattress over a year is negligible.

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