Contest|| The Effect of Rising Inflation on Everyday Life

Plantain, banana and other commodities in our good morning market

INTRODUCTION

Inflation is not good to the economic health of any nation. It affects every means of livelihood of people in the society.
The rate at which prices of commodities and services rise, calls for serious measures to be taken to make them affordable even to the common man. On a daily basis, prices are rising, making the goods and services that would have been ordinarily available at the lowest cost to go high. This makes the goods and services unaffordable to the lowest class of persons in the society. And to a larger extent, it increases poverty in the society.

WHAT IS INFLATION?

Tomatoes in our good morning market.

We may have come across this very term inflation during the days in high schools or tertiary institutions. I would say that Inflation is an economic term used to describe the rate at which prices of goods and services persistently increase or decrease over a given period of time. Inflation measures the overall price fall or increase of goods and services.

Inflation does not just occur. There are some causes highlited by economic experts which are the causes of inflation. Some of the causes of inflation includes:

• Devaluation of currency
  Devaluation of money could cause inflation. This happens when money sypply increases. If money supply increases, then the value of money falls as an effect.

• Cost-push inflation
  This inflation happens when there is a general rise in cost of producing goods and services. Some of these includes increase in wages and salaries, raw materials used for further production.

• Fiscal or expansionary monetary policy
  An increased Government spending on public infrastructures or pronects could lead to the increase in the demand for goods and services which could as a resultant effect, increase prices.

• Demand—pull inflation
  This inlation occurs when there is high demand of goods and sercices. This increase for the product or service would also lead to the increase in the prices of the goods and services.

While there are still other inflations not mentioned here, the fact is that inflation is a global economic indicators that measures the stability of prices over time. We use it to know if prices are increasing or decreasing.

Onions in our good morning market.

Over the years, the prices of some commodities has been on a constant rising with little or no efforts being made to bring the prices down. Food items has risen, cost of energy has risen, transportation, electricity, education; the price of everything has doubled if not trippled.

HOW INFLATION HAS IMPACTED ME

I remeber back in the days when tomatoes were quite cheap to buy. Back then, one could get one bsaket of tomatoes as low as 5,000 Naira in my local market and currency. Right now, it is nolonger cheap. One basket of tomatoes sells as high as 50,000 naira now. Many tomatoe dealers has gone out of the business because of this increas as they could not afford more capital remain in the business.

Families who prior before now, used to make their sauce with tomatoes are nolo ger doing so because of high cost of the commodity. They are now using the red oil popularly knowb as palm oil, to make their cookings.

Futhermore, high cost of food items have made many families to reduce their meal plan. Having **three square meaks a day is hardly to come bynow for many families. At most, they now eat two times a day with struggle. High cost of food items in the hvae soard high and so they could not have enough money to buy the thungs they need to make a delicious meals. This is how dangerous inflation cound be by eroding the purchasing of money that they have.

Another area is the cost of transportation. Due to the high cost of fuel or petroleum products, transporters have incresed their transportaton fare. This has also added to the existing cost of other products.

So by all these, inflation is really biting hard i people as the money is fast losing value.

I hereby invite the following to join the contest:
@emacoz
@enyddy
@wizzyboy3