Now that taxes aren’t such a big worry, what’s keeping investors up at night

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American actress Vera Miles stars as Lila Crane in the horror classic ‘Psycho’, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1960.

With individual tax rates down, a new boogeyman is haunting investors: inflation worries.

Those were the findings from the American Institute of CPAs’ Personal Financial Satisfaction Index, which measures investors’ “financial pleasure” or “financial pain” based on a range of economic factors, including personal taxes, inflation, job openings and real home equity.

Overall, the Personal Financial Satisfaction Index has crept up to 27.7 in the second quarter, from 27.0 in the first three months of the year. This reflects increased job openings and strong stock market performance.

However, inflation took the lead as a source of financial “pain,” edging out worries about taxes. The AICPA’s blended inflation measure in the second quarter was 2.3 percent, up 0.6 percent from the first quarter.

Up until the second quarter, taxes were the leading cause of “pain” for the prior eight quarters.

“Even though inflation has gone up, it’s still pretty darn low, relatively speaking,” said Michael Eisenberg, a CPA, personal financial specialist and member of the American Institute of CPAs Consumer Financial Education Advocates.

“People get nervous when they see or hear about inflation,” he said. “It eats away your purchasing power over time.”

Here’s what rising inflation means for your finances.