Inflation is not a single phenomenon but a family of processes in which money loses purchasing power — sometimes through excess demand, sometimes through supply disruption, sometimes through the deliberate expansion of the money supply. Its effects are not uniform: it helps debtors and hurts savers, enriches asset owners and impoverishes those who hold cash. Knowing which kind of inflation you are living through, and whose interests it serves, is the beginning of navigating it.
Each step builds on the last.