How inflation works: why your money buys less every year

A $20 note kept in a drawer since 1990 still says $20 today, and it buys less than half of what it did. Nobody took anything from it. Prices rose almost every year, and the central banks that look after money want a little of that, on purpose. Follow one ice cream shop and learn what inflation is, how the inflation rate is measured, what pushes prices up (demand, new money, costs and expectations), and how a central bank uses interest rates to slow it down.