JimD2, there is a very interesting and useful site run by an economist John Williams, called shadowstats.com. Though it is a paid site, there are several free articles and papers that one can peruse. Williams has explained the various tricks that have been introduced by the government (e.g. in 1996, with the Boskin Commission report that introduced tricks like hedonic pricing, geometric weighting, substitution etc) to underestimate the official inflation rates.

Williams also keeps track of what the inflation numbers would be today if they were computed as they used to be 20 years ago.  That turns out to be about 7.5% right now.  

I don't know what you buy, but I, like most people, spend money on food, energy (gasoline, nat gas and electricity), health care, day care, education etc.   In other words, I look at the prices of the things that I need (e.g.  food, medicines etc.) rather than that of things that I do not need (flat-screen TVs etc.) 

And most people's real-life experiences indicate that the rate of price increases they face is very much higher than what the government statistics report.  So much so that even business channel announcers these days say things like, "Well, here are the official inflation numbers, for whatever they are worth..." (my italics)

The fact that TIPS are based on CPI is the reason why I have ruled out investing in them long ago.  My inflation hedges have been foreign currencies, commodities and precious metals.  In my experience, since their prices are fixed by free markets around the world, they are far more effective in hedging inflation than the instrument issued by a government which has a vested interest in under-reporting the inflation numbers.

 -d