Greetings!
In this week’s edition of Advice for the Good Life, we explore one of the most important forces shaping nearly every corner of modern life: inflation.
In today’s Wealth Advisory, we unpack how inflation affects consumer spending, the bond market, interest rates, and ultimately the cost of borrowing itself—from mortgages and credit cards to corporate debt and investment opportunities. We also discuss why the likeliest cure for inflation may ultimately be inflation itself.
Next, our Wellness Navigator, Christine Despres offers a deeply thoughtful and timely reflection on mental health, brain health, and why lasting wellness has far less to do with willpower than systems, structure, support, and self-compassion.
And in Etcetera, I simply want to say thank you—and ask for your help shaping where we go next together. What topics would you most like to explore in the weeks and months ahead in the realms of happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise?
As always, thank you for reading along. If you find this edition meaningful, please enjoy, share, and encourage others to subscribe.
Wealth Advisory: Inflation, Interest Rates, and Why Borrowing Still Feels Expensive
Inflation is no longer raging the way it was in 2022, but neither has it fully disappeared. That matters because inflation sits at the center of nearly every major economic force affecting households today: consumer spending, mortgage rates, bond yields, credit card interest, auto loans, and the Federal Reserve itself.
The latest Consumer Price Index data shows headline inflation running near 3.8%, with Core CPI—which strips out food and energy—closer to 2.8%. That’s progress, but it still remains above the Federal Reserve’s long-term 2% target. Tariffs, oil prices, and persistent service-sector inflation continue to keep upward pressure on prices.
And yet, despite years of inflation fatigue, consumers continue to spend.
Retail sales growth has remained surprisingly resilient, even in the face of weak consumer sentiment and higher borrowing costs. Americans may not feel great about the economy, but many are still traveling, dining out, shopping online, and financing purchases.
That resilience is both a blessing and a curse.
On one hand, strong consumer spending has helped avoid recession and supported corporate earnings. On the other hand, continued demand can keep inflation elevated longer than policymakers would prefer. If consumers keep spending and businesses maintain pricing power, the Fed has little incentive to aggressively cut interest rates.
That brings us to the bond market.
Over the past several years, Treasury yields have climbed dramatically as investors adjusted to a world of “higher for longer” interest rates. Today, the 10-year Treasury yield sits well above its long-term average, and the yield curve has re-steepened as markets recognize that inflation may prove stickier than expected.
In practical terms, this affects nearly every borrower in America.
Mortgage rates remain elevated. Corporate borrowing costs are higher. Credit cards continue charging historically painful rates. Auto loans and commercial real estate financing have become materially more expensive. Money itself now has a higher carrying cost.
The irony is that higher rates are both the medicine and the symptom.
The Federal Reserve raises rates to slow economic activity and cool inflation. But as rates rise, the cost of servicing debt rises alongside them—for consumers, businesses, and even the federal government itself.
At the same time, higher rates have created something investors haven’t seen in years: meaningful bond yields.
High-quality corporate bonds now offer yields that many investors haven’t been able to capture since before the Global Financial Crisis. Even investment-grade bonds are generating income levels that can once again compete with equities for capital.
Of course, not all yield is created equal. High-yield bonds continue to offer attractive income, but they behave much more like equities during periods of market stress. In other words, investors must still balance yield, quality, liquidity, and diversification carefully.
For investors and households alike, the key takeaway is this:
Inflation affects far more than the price of eggs or gasoline. It changes the entire financial ecosystem. It affects spending behavior, interest rates, savings accounts, bond portfolios, housing affordability, business investment, and ultimately the cost of future opportunity itself.
And the likeliest cure for inflation may ultimately be inflation itself.
Bottomline, over time, persistently higher prices and borrowing costs tend to slow demand naturally. Consumers pull back. Businesses delay expansion. Credit becomes harder to justify. Economic activity cools—not because policymakers force it to, but because inflation eventually exhausts the system beneath it.
Wellness Navigator and Holistic Brain Health Coach, Christine Despres,RN,NBC-HWC,CDP
Why Willpower Isn’t Enough
We’ve been sold something that sounds reasonable. Eat better. Move more. Manage your stress. If you just want it badly enough, you’ll get there.
I want to talk about why that’s not the whole truth.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I come back to this again and again. Mental health and brain health are not two separate conversations. Your mood, your motivation, your ability to stay consistent under pressure, that’s all brain. The same brain working overtime managing your life, your work, your family and the avalanche of conflicting health information coming at you every day.
Midlife is hard. I say that because I’m living it, and because the women I work with are too. Balancing careers, children, aging parents, shifting hormones, changing bodies and a wellness industry that keeps adding to the list. All of that load is real. It has a biological cost.
Here’s what we know about willpower. It fails. Not because people are weak, because it’s a finite resource and it depletes. Only 9% of people accomplish their New Year’s resolutions. Because the brain doesn’t run on willpower. It runs on structure, repetition, and reward. When you combine an understanding of how your brain actually works with real health knowledge and someone to guide you through it, that’s where the magic happens. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, that’s not a character flaw. That’s a missing system.
And here’s what nobody talks about. The guilt after a skipped workout. The shame spiral after a week off plan. That quiet background noise of “I know what I should be doing.” That noise isn’t benign. Chronic stress and self-criticism activate the same inflammatory pathways that damage your brain and your cardiovascular system. The very thing you’re trying to fix becomes harder to fix the longer you beat yourself up. That is unfair, and it’s worth saying out loud.
The U.S. POINTER Study confirmed what I’ve believed for a long time. Structured programming with coaching support produces significantly better outcomes than self-guided effort alone. Health coaching improves nutrition, physical activity, and mental health, with outcomes comparable to psychotherapy. This is not a wellness trend. This is evidence-based.
The CDC found that wellness programs with coaching yield up to three dollars in return for every dollar spent. Coaching is not an expense. It’s what makes every other health decision you’re already making actually work.
People don’t fail because they don’t know what to do. They fail because isolated good intentions don’t become habits on their own. A coach is a guide when the path isn’t clear, a troubleshooter when life gets in the way, a cheerleader when you’ve forgotten why you started.
You deserve a system that works and someone in your corner to build it with you.
Reply to this email or grab a spot on my calendar. A real conversation about where you are and where you want to be.
Your brain is worth it. And so are you.
Not someday. Right now.
And if you’re ready to start investing in your greatest assets, I’d love to be your guide.
👉 Book a free Brain Health Strategy Session here: Click Here to Schedule Your 30 minute Strategy Call
With compassion,
Christine
The Wellness Navigator | Holistic Brain Health Coach | RN, NBC-HWC, CDP
https://www.thewellnessnavigator.com/
Before signing off, I simply want to say thank you.
Thank you for reading along, for sharing these weekly notes with friends and family, for replying with thoughtful observations and questions, and for allowing me a small place in your inbox and your life each week. In a noisy world filled with hot takes, outrage, and endless scrolling, I don’t take your attention lightly.
My hope with Advice for the Good Life has always been straightforward: to provide perspective, encouragement, and practical wisdom around what it means to live not just wealthier lives, but fuller ones—happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.
With that in mind, I’d genuinely love your feedback.
How can we make Advice for the Good Life even more meaningful and useful to you?
And what topics would you most like to read about next?
It could be anything:
- Building wealth and navigating markets
• Health, longevity, fitness, and wellness
• Family, faith, purpose, and relationships
• Estate and tax planning
• Behavioral finance and decision-making
• Parenting, marriage, or generational legacy
• AI, technology, and the future
• Books, ideas, architecture, travel, or history
• Or simply questions about living a calmer, steadier, more intentional life
Some of the best future editions often begin with a thoughtful question from a reader.
As always, thank you for being here. I’m grateful for you, cheering for you, and honored to walk alongside you on the pathway toward the good life.
Warmly,
