How much should retirees worry about inflation?

Inflation can be scary for retirees. True, Social Security provides inflation increases in line with the consumer price index, or CPI. But any portfolio income, save allocations to inflation-protected bonds, isn’t inherently inflation-protected. And if inflation occurs early in your retirement, those higher prices will do more damage throughout retirement, potentially jeopardizing your portfolio’s ability to last.To gauge your inflation risk and how strenuously you need to defend against it, ask yourself three questions.1. Where are you spending?You may not have stopped to consider it before, but CPI is meant to capture the spending experiences of all consumers. Categories like housing receive the biggest weighting in the CPI calculation, while recreation and apparel get smaller weightings