This can quickly turn into a philosophical debate rather than an economic one. Which value went up first, the chicken or the egg? Personally, I think the way

This can quickly turn into a philosophical debate rather than an economic one. Which value went up first, the chicken or the egg? Personally, I think the way it makes the most sense is thinking of inflation as the change in the value of money rather than the change in the cost of goods, in large part because costs rise for non-goods too. For example, my employer pays me more today than they did in 2019 despite my employer not selling any goods or buying many goods outside of laptops for their employees and they obviously don't care about my personal expenses when determining annual raises.