What cost €1,000 in 2015 cost €1,267.92 in 2025. What it means for your savings and what you can do.
Key findings
- With Spain's HICP, prices rose 26.8% between January 2015 and January 2025.
- The same money bought 21.1% less.
- A 2% savings account would have fallen 3.9% behind prices.
What inflation does to your money
Inflation is the general rise in prices. It does not take money out of your account, but every unit buys less. Using Spain's official harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP, from Eurostat), what cost €1,000 in January 2015 cost €1,267.92 in January 2025: prices rose 26.8% and the same money bought 21.1% less.
Not every year is the same: between January 2021 and January 2023 alone, prices rose 12.4%.
When a savings account falls behind
If that €1,000 had been in an account paying 2% a year over those ten years, it would have grown to €1,218.99: more euros, but less purchasing power than at the start. The real return, after inflation, would have been −3.9% in total. What matters is not whether your money grows, but whether it grows faster than prices.
How to protect yourself
- For the short term and your emergency fund, safety and access matter more than returns. At least look for an account that pays something.
- For the long term, idle money loses value year after year. Investing over a long horizon has historically beaten inflation, at the cost of accepting falls along the way.
- Check your pay against inflation: a rise smaller than prices is really a cut.
- Think in real terms when setting goals: 100,000 in 20 years will not buy what it buys today.
Your personal inflation
The official index measures the average of a basket of goods and services. If you spend more than average on housing, energy or food, your inflation can be higher or lower than the official figure.
Work out what money from any month since 1996 is worth today with the inflation calculator and check whether your salary has kept up with pay rise vs inflation.