The more things change, the more they stay the same. How I apply that to inflation is if the value of the money I am making now goes down, then I find a way to make more to overcome the disparity. My first rule is never to fix a price by contract when I can do the work at will. If I am stuck in a contract employment with a fixed price for an extended period, I risk losing if inflation overtakes me. Thus contract work gets negotiated at my highest scale. At will work, (where I can leave or get fired with minimal notice and no remunerative impact) allows me to seek new employment in my trade anytime I think I can get a better deal elsewhere, or use the market trend to insist on more compensation from my current employer. If we have runaway inflation, then my employer can request a price adjustment from his client to compensate as that is a changed condition. In turn, one of his justifications will be that employee compensation must increase or he will lose his talent base and be unable to get the work done because he is not able to stay competitive. Since I have worked hard to acquire a skill set that is in high demand and I have located in an area where on-going employment is all but guaranteed, I keep the upper hand, and the only thing I have to do is continue to out-produce my competition. If I don't, then I don't deserve a competitive wage, and will lose income to inflation.

That's how the free market system works. Seems awfully fair to me. I didn't choose a career I liked. I chose one I was darned good at and that had a significant future demand potential. Then I worked hard for a long time to become very good at it. If it was easy and enjoyable, more people would be doing it and the value would thus diminish.

A person has to weigh their priorities in life and determine what paths will suit their needs and, if possible desires. There are very few who will just get what they want handed to them and never have to worry about earning it.

So the simple solution to inflation is to beat enough people at the game that you can make sure your earnings increase at a higher rate than inflation does. Either that or hope you are lucky. As Burgess Meredith once said, you can hope in one hand and dump in the other and see which one fills first. Not everyone gets to win. We got evicted from Eden a long, long time ago.