What has friendflation actually cost you?
Enter roughly what you spend on seeing people. We will tell you what the same social life cost in February 2020, and how much of the difference is friendflation rather than ordinary inflation.
Free, no account, and nothing you type ever leaves your browser.
Friendflation has cost you
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Where it went
| Category | You spend now | Same thing in Feb 2020 | Risen by |
|---|
How this works, and what it cannot tell you
You supply the prices. We supply the inflation. That division is deliberate, and it is the honest way to build this. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish average prices for services, so there is no official figure for what a restaurant meal, a cocktail or a cinema ticket costs in America. Any calculator claiming to know what your night out "should" cost has invented that number. This one asks you instead, then applies the published rate of change.
Every multiplier below is the ratio of two real, published CPI index values, not seasonally adjusted, US city average. February 2020 is the last month before the pandemic. June 2026 is the most recent release.
| Applied to | BLS series | Feb 2020 | Jun 2026 | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meals out | Food away from home (SEFV) | 289.781 | 395.633 | 1.3653 |
| Drinks out | Alcohol away from home (SEFX) | 359.716 | 456.834 | 1.2700 |
| Events | Admissions (SERF02) | 392.645 | 503.546 | 1.2824 |
| Comparison only | All items (SA0) | 258.678 | 333.952 | 1.2910 |
Index values pulled from the BLS public data API and cross-checked against FRED, June 2026 release (USDL-26-1191, 14 July 2026). Note that October 2025 is missing from every CPI series because collection lapsed during the 2025 shutdown; it does not affect these figures, since both endpoints are real published observations either side of the gap. The Admissions series moves about a percent month to month with no trend, so treat the events line as approximate.
What this is not. It is not a budget, a benchmark or advice. It cannot tell you whether you spend too much, because there is no such thing as the right amount to spend on your friends. It excludes weddings and group trips from the inflation comparison, because no price index covers them, so those are simply added to your total and left alone. And it assumes your habits have not changed since 2020, which for most people is not true. The point of the exercise is the gap, not the total.