Guest Post by Noel Holston

Inflation is killing us, OK. Paychecks don’t go as far as they did, like, oh, two days ago. Fixed incomes are anything but that in adjusted terms. A gallon of gas costs as much as a latte with a shot of hazelnut at Starbucks.

We keep waiting for the President or the Congress or the Fed or the DOE or the NRA to make it stop.

But this is not entirely a top-down issue. We can do something about inflation ourselves. We are not powerless.

If you read up on our current surge in prices, you will find that economic experts widely agree that the uptick-tick-tick is the result of multiple factors, including global supply-chain snarls, disruptions set in motion by Russia’s monstrous attack on Ukraine, and pent-up consumer demand bursting out of the pandemic lockup like steam from an overheated boiler.

We can’t fix the supply chain and, sad to say, we can’t collectively will Vladimir Putin to melt like a wicked witch in water.

We can do something about our own spending. Demand does have an impact on price.

So, we could:

Drive less. I don’t mean stop altogether. Most of us have jobs to get to, kids who have soccer practice or piano lessons, votes to cast. But we could all reduce our weekly mileage by 10 percent or more if we just planned better and walked and biked more. We Americans burned up 135 billion gallons of gasoline in 2021. Ten percent of that is 13.5 billion gallons. Multiply that by $4 or $5. Not small change we’d be saving.

Eat less. Don’t starve your kids or yourselves, for Pete’s sake, but come on. Have you seen our country’s obesity numbers? There are a 100 million of us, easily, who could stand to eat less every day. Go on a diet. Eat more garbanzos and kidney beans and less meat.

Walk. Yes, I’ve already mentioned it once, but it can’t be mentioned enough. Don’t just walk for fun, either. Find someplace you can reasonably reach on foot and go there for a product or service you would ordinarily drive to.

Some of these ideas may sound familiar, and not just because they’re obvious. Some of us are already making these kinds of changes.

But they’re the sort of things President Gerald Ford was talking about in 1974 when his administration launched Whip Inflation Now (WIN), a campaign aimed at getting everyday people, private citizens, to change some habits in hopes of bringing down inflation that was running 12.3 percent.

Suggested actions for citizens included carpooling, lowering thermostat settings, and planting home vegetable gardens.

Corny or not, WIN wasn’t a stupid idea.

Complete with lapel buttons like something from a home-front solidarity campaign during World War II, WIN never caught on big and was mercilessly ridiculed. Skeptics and naysayers wore the buttons upside down, turning WIN to NIM and claiming the letters stood for “No Immediate Miracles” or “Need Immediate Money.”

But there was actually nothing wrong with the WIN ideas. The problem was the feeble response, the widespread refusal by citizens to take personal responsibility and act collectively.

We, the people, can’t end this inflationary cycle by ourselves, but we can make a difference. And taking actions individually with the common good in mind would not only have some impact on prices, it would be better for the planet and our own health.

I think that’s what’s known as a WIN-WIN proposition.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.