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Fixed Basket
An inflation index that never swaps steak for chicken
Official inflation lets the basket change — when steak gets expensive, it assumes you buy chicken. This one doesn't. The same 17 categories, priced monthly since 2000 from primary sources, with zero BLS CPI. A 2000 dollar now buys 41¢ of that cart. Build your own basket and see your number.
Hi PH
Official inflation stats do something most people don't realize: when a price rises, the basket changes. Steak gets expensive, the model assumes you switch to chicken, and the measured increase shrinks. That's defensible economics — it's also not the question most people are asking, which is "what does the life I actually had cost now?"
So I built the stubborn version. The Fixed Basket prices one unchanging cart of 17 everyday categories — rent, groceries, gas, healthcare, tuition — every month since January 2000, and never substitutes anything for anything.
Zero BLS CPI series. Not as a source, not as a bridge, not as a fallback. Every number traces to a primary publisher: BLS, EIA, Census, CMS, KFF, Zillow. Apparel is literally four physical goods — a pair of Levi's 501s, Chuck Taylors, Dr. Martens 1460s, Dickies 874s — priced from catalogs and archived retailer pages.
The result: 3.55%/yr since 2000. A 2000 dollar buys about 41¢ of that cart today.
What I'd actually like feedback on: the site publishes its own gaps. There's a coverage timeline showing exactly where each category's data starts and stops, a substitution log explaining every change ever made, and plain-language notes on the weak spots — the drug basket can't see medicines invented after 2000, medical prices use Medicare rates (a floor, not what private insurers pay), and rent is national-only. Nothing is interpolated to fill a hole.
It's free, no account, and there's an open JSON API. Would genuinely rather hear where the methodology is wrong than that the design is nice.
About Fixed Basket on Product Hunt
“An inflation index that never swaps steak for chicken”
Fixed Basket was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 0 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #25 on the daily leaderboard. Official inflation lets the basket change — when steak gets expensive, it assumes you buy chicken. This one doesn't. The same 17 categories, priced monthly since 2000 from primary sources, with zero BLS CPI. A 2000 dollar now buys 41¢ of that cart. Build your own basket and see your number.
On the analytics side, Fixed Basket competes within Data & Analytics — topics that collectively have 5.8k followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Fixed Basket performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Fixed Basket?
Fixed Basket was hunted by David Thompson. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
For a complete overview of Fixed Basket including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
David Thompson