How many of you have heard the overused cliche that you need to “make your money work for you” and not simply leave it in the bank?

I have.

I’ve sat through countless seminars and workshops in the past couple of years where I have heard this phrase being thrown around.

They will give the example that a plate of chicken rice that costs $2.50 ten years ago now costs about $4… and this is due to “inflation” eroding the value of our money.

But, if you take a little initiative and check SingStat’s reported inflation rate for 2018, you’d be shocked to see that it is only at 0.4%?

How can this be? We know things are getting more expensive every year and our salaries are stagnating…

Could it be that 0.4% is the inflation rate for our salaries only? Hmm…

One common indicator used to calculate inflation rate