An income that does not have a built-in COLA to keep up with inflation is a path to poverty. Cutting back (if you are reducing your quality of life) is not the answer, increasing you income you must. You customers and employers certainly should understand your prices and pay must keep up with inflation. The medical insurance subsidy threshold and the tax brackets should also escalate with inflation, not that you have any control of that beyond the ballot box. It is great that you are frugal and are finding even more savings but that can only go so far before it impacts your quality of life. Inflation is a going to continue so you need your income to keep up with inflation. I think you might have missed the window to do a little greedflation of your own, at peak inflation you should have demanded raises and price rises. Back in the early 80's when we had high inflation, I was getting 10% a year COLA. This year my COLA was only 3%, I should have bitched, the Social Security COLA was more than 8%.

Incomes must rise to keep up with inflation and if they don't, we must make a fuss.

TEK