The new Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers confirm what you already know: life is getting more expensive by the minute. In May prices rose a larger-than-forecast 0.6 percent, driven by everyday essentials like gas and food. That was the CPI's biggest increase in six months, and it capped off a 12-month period in which prices rose 4.2 percent, up from the 2.9 percent they had risen in the 12 months ending in April. In May fuel oil prices were up 10.4 percent, putting them 64 percent above where they had been a year ago. Milk prices have jumped 10.2 percent over their year-ago level.

None of that is very surprising to consumers, who have been paying more at the grocery and feeling the pain at the pump. Washington is worried, because inflation can snowball when fear of rising prices gets everyone behaving in a way that pushes prices yet higher. Left untreated, it can choke off economic growth. The Federal Reserve, which may have started that ball rolling when it pumped market-saving liquidity into the economy earlier this year, now is expected to begin raising interest rates soon to tamp down that feverish feeling.

So it could get worse before it gets better, as policymakers try to squeeze those inflationary pressures out of the economy (and us). That's their job. Your job is to resist the squeeze play by protecting your own purse from the inflation scourge. Here's how.

1) Hoard
Not to a degree that requires Oprah-like intervention, but act as if you expect everything from toothpaste to toilet paper to cost more next month. It probably will. Stock up big when your favorite brands are on sale.

2) Try to Bump Up Your Earnings
If it seems like the price of your time is the only thing that hasn't gone up, you're right. Median household income has risen 16 percent since 2000; consumer prices are up 20 percent, so you are going backward. Most economic policymakers want to keep it that way; they worry about wage-driven inflation that spirals out of control. But the rest of us worry about salaries that can't keep buying the gas and groceries they bought last week. Use the calculator at http://www.bls.gov/CPI/ to see what your salary should be if it is to keep up with inflation. Bring that figure into your next annual review. If the situation around the office is grim, consider other means of bumping up your income. Look for a better-paying job, moonlight, start a side business from your hobby or take the class that will make you more valuable next time you get a review.

3) Buy Protection for Your Protection
Make sure your homeowner's insurance and your long-term-care insurance carries some sort of inflation protection. Many home insurers have dropped their "total replacement value" guarantees, so you might have to call your insurance agent every year to see whether the numbers need to be bumped up. If you're buying long-term-care insurance, make sure it includes automatic benefit adjustments for rising health care costs.

4) Lock in Your Loans at Fixed Rates
It's still a good time to lock in a fixed-rate mortgage. If you're carrying a balance on a home equity line, consider switching it to a fixed-rate second mortgage to limit your exposure to rising rates. Between 1972 and 1980 short-term rates rose from 4 percent to 16 percent. "The coming interest rate increases may need to be faster and bigger," suggests Bud Conrad, chief economist of Casey Research, a company that specializes in commodities. If you have a variable-rate mortgage and expect to stay in your home longer than three to five years, strongly consider refinancing to a fixed-rate loan. If you already have a mortgage that is costing you 6 percent or less in interest, don't be in a hurry to pay it off fast. It's a cheap loan.

5) Stop Lending at Low Fixed Rates
For the same reason that you want a low-rate fixed mortgage if rates rise, you don't want to have a lot of money in long-term bonds. If rates rise by 1 percentage point, your 20-year Treasury bond would be worth 10 percent less immediately. Keep the bond part of your portfolio in shorter-term bonds and bond funds, suggests Harold Evensky, a Coral Gables, Fla., financial adviser.

6) Continue to Buy Stocks
They usually do well during periods of moderate inflation, according to Morningstar, the Chicago research firm. Focus on blue chips that are cash-rich and healthy and produce necessary products, so they have room to raise prices when their costs go up, says analyst Chris Davis. Invest some of your money in the companies that do well when inflation spikes. Oil companies make more money when oil gets expensive, because they mark it up on a percentage basis. The same can be expected of companies that produce food, metal, paper, gas and other commodities. You can find them all in natural resources mutual funds, like the T. Rowe Price New Era Fund favored by Bohemia, N.Y., financial planner Ron Rogé.

7) Buy TIPS, Carefully and Sparingly
Treasury inflation-protected securities have built-in guarantees that the principal you invest in them will keep pace with inflation, but their yields right now, at 1 percent, are quite low. Accepting a low yield like that is a sacrifice that might be worth making for "insurance" against inflation, says Evensky. "If we buy them and they're not that attractive, the yield is not that high, we'll get a lousy return with a small part of the portfolio," he says. "But if inflation spikes and we don't have that kind of hedge, it could be catastrophic." You can buy TIPS through a fund, such as the Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX) or the Fidelity Inflation-Protected Bond Fund (FINPX). They are best held in tax-advantaged retirement accounts, because of the way they produce taxable income. Foreign inflation-protected bonds have been offering bigger returns that U.S. TIPS. You can get them through a new exchange-traded fund, SPDR DB International Government Inflation-Protected Bond ETF (WIP). Better returns and the same inflation guarantees can also be found through corporate inflation-protected bonds. Some are sold at http://www.incapital.com.

8) Change Your Behavior
Think public transportation, smaller car, walking more often. Eat cheaper, too: have a nonmeat night, popcorn (the old fashioned way, on the stove) instead of buying chips, and consider growing some of your own food. Even a tomato plant in a patio pot will give you better flavor, some grocery savings, and fewer salmonella worries.

9) Don't Go Overboard
Protecting yourself against inflation is smart, but remember that the Fed is also taking on that challenge. The result could end up being a slower economy instead of an overheated one. In that case, you wouldn't want all of your money in oil stocks and gold. But you'd still be able to use the toilet paper you squirreled away.