WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Skim the most recent round of inflation reports, and you?ll get a real ?don?t worry, be happy? sense of the world.

Both producer and consumer prices fell in September, and gas prices declined 22 percent, according to government reports. So it looks like there?s no need to run out and hoard commodities for fear that double-digit price hikes are around the corner.

But dig a little bit deeper, please. Those figures were skewed by a decline in energy costs. Core wholesale prices, excluding food and energy, were up a hefty 0.6 percent in September, and core consumer inflation has gone up more in the last year than it has in a decade.

And who excludes energy anyway? Oil is at the heart of the American economy, and anyone who expects gas prices to keep falling or even stay where they are is pretty Pollyannaish, if you think about it. Last week, even as US economists were contentedly reviewing those inflation reports, oil prices were rising and OPEC was planning production cutbacks.

If this is confusing to the Federal Reserve policymakers and their band of Wall Street followers, it?s downright dumbfounding to everyday savers and investors. How are you supposed to protect yourself from inflation that could spark at any time, without wasting your dollars in defensive moves that don?t do you any good the rest of the time?

Very, very carefully. Here are some possibilities.

Keep an inflation kicker. Many advisers tell their clients to always keep ten percent of their portfolio in investments that do well when inflation takes off. That would include a wide range of possibilities, including real estate, commodities and energy companies.

Of the money you?ve got in bonds, keep at least some in short-term investments, suggests Jerry Webman of Oppenheimer Funds. If prices rise and interest rates go up with them, long bond holders will suffer. Short-term bonds, short-term certificates of deposit, and money market funds will be able to move their rates up more rapidly.

You could also buy inflation-protected bonds, or i-bonds. They adjust their yields to keep pace with inflation, as opposed to regular bonds that tie more directly to interest rates that can move independently of inflation figures.

They?re available from the Treasury (http://www.treasurydirect.gov) and in fund form via Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities, (VIPSX) or Fidelity Inflation-Protected Bond (FINPX). Or from some corporations at http://www.internotes.com.

Delve deeper into the way inflation cycles among various segments of the economy. Real estate is typically an inflation-protector, but it has already had its big run-up, and many homebuilding companies are losing sales and giving away incentives now. Less attention has gone to shares of lumber and paper companies, and some commodities, although they?ve all done well over the last few years.

Think about buying oil stocks while their prices are down. ?Oil?s drop from $76 a barrel to $58 over the last few weeks offers a great buying opportunity for investors who regularly rebalance their portfolios,? says Jerry Miccolis, a financial advisor with Brinton Eaton Wealth Advisors in Morristown, New Jersey.

He?s telling clients to sell fat real estate investments and buy commodity companies as they get weak. ?When they?re tanking, that?s usually when you want to buy more.? (Remember that this is something that you would do only in a contained way, in that small inflation-kicker part of your portfolio, and not through big trades that skew your whole portfolio.)

Don?t go overboard. Over long periods of time, staying in the stock market will suit you better than putting too much money into inflation-fighting sectors.

Stay diversified, both domestically and internationally (where inflation might arrive on a very different schedule than it does in the United States), and keep watching those reports for signs of a turn in either direction.

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