You hear it all the time: inflation is coming down.

Then you buy groceries, fill the gas tank, renew your insurance, pay a restaurant bill or look at the cost of taking a short trip — and you wonder, Down from where?

There’s an important distinction that often gets lost in the headlines.

When inflation slows, that generally means prices are rising more slowly. It does not mean prices have returned to where they used to be.

The latest federal numbers make that especially clear. Consumer prices rose 3.4% over the 12 months ending in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In August alone, prices increased 0.4%, with gasoline accounting for more than a third of that monthly increase.

So when someone says inflation has improved, that can be statistically true while your household budget is still telling you something very different.

Think of it this way.

If something that once cost $100 rises to $120, and the rate of inflation later slows dramatically, the price doesn't magically fall back to $100. It may simply climb from $120 to $122 instead of jumping to $125.

That distinction matters because families don't live inside percentages. We live with price levels.

And once higher prices become part of the monthly budget, people adjust. Maybe you eat out one less time. You postpone replacing the car. You comparison-shop more carefully. You reconsider a vacation or put off a home improvement project.

None of those decisions necessarily make headlines.

But multiplied across millions of households, they tell an important story about how people actually experience the economy.

There is another lesson here too: economic statistics are useful, but they don't invalidate your own experience.

Both things can be true.

Inflation can be improving compared with an earlier period, and life can still feel considerably more expensive than it did a few years ago.

Perhaps the better question isn't simply, “Is inflation up or down?”

Maybe it's:

“Can people comfortably afford the lives they are trying to live?”

That is a much harder number to put on a chart.

But for most of us, it may be the number that matters most.