Playbook to overcome inflation – The Hindu

Inflation is a persistent concern for households trying to protect buying power. Beating inflation means aligning spending, saving and investing with data on price trends, real returns, and risk.

India’s inflation is more stable now vis a vis 2010s though still uneven. Over the last decade, annual CPI inflation has averaged at about 5%, broadly within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) 2-6% target band. Headline CPI fell to multi-year lows in 2025 but inflation edged up again by mid-2026 with September CPI at 5.54%. This is still high enough to erode real returns on low-yield assets.