Most people don’t understand the effects on inflation on their finance. In fact, they will never notice the effects of inflation until it is probably too late to do anything about it. Inflation will generally lower the value of your money as the prices forconsumer products go up. This means that for an investoryour future dividend and interest payments will not be as valuable as you had anticipated.

However, there is good news. You can actually proactively protect yourself from the effects of inflation. Here are 5 tips on how to go about it.

1 You must invest in real assets

In economics, the best way to protect your money from losing its value as a result of inflation is to invest it in real assets such as property, gold, agriculture and eveninfrastructure. These are markets that usually perform well especially during times of inflation because they continue to rise even as inflation rises.

2 Ensure you get the best interest rates

During times of inflation, people lose money on their investments because they did not get a good interest rate that is high enough to protect their returns from the effects of inflation. It is therefore important for you to ensure that you have done the math to ensure the interest rate you get is sufficient to cover the eventuality of inflation.

3 Use your savings as opposed to borrowing

During times of inflation, borrowing means you will have to repay the money with a high interest rate. It is therefore advisable that if you have money available in your savings account, to use it as opposed to taking in debt to finance your expenditure. However, try not to spend all your savings or your emergency money, and be sure to refund this money into your savings account when things stabilize.

4 Be sure to protect your pension

One of the biggest victims of inflation are usually pensioners who are living on a fixed income. Their spending power will drastically go down owing to the rising prices of goods and falling value of money. It is therefore important to start building you retirement nest egg early in life, and ensuring that you maximize on any of the available savings options and offers such as employer matching options. This will ensure that by the time you get your retirement, you have more than enough set aside to cushion you from the effects of inflation.

Be sure to take these simple measures and you are on your way to financial stability.