How Are You Handling The Stock Market Drop?
 

Are you selling, buying, or hunkered down and just riding it out?

I'll start it...I bought all that I could spare the cash for.

I hope my timing is fairly accurate. Last time I got in on the very lowest day. WooHoo!

I'm handling it the same way I've handled every bear and bull market...by not having any money to invest.

no money to invest but my 401K is down 37+ percent.

crap

Beef, you will visited in the future by the Dollar Cost Averaging Fairy. She's not as pretty as the You Won The Lottery Fairy, but she's dependable...

Yeah my 401 K is down, but I don't concern myself with that. Its going to be at least 30 years before I collect any money from it anyway. Pleanty of time to recover.

-Jay

i have the same attitude as before the recent decline. that is continue on buying company stock via payroll deduction as it is relatively safe(food); and maintain 401k contributions tho it is down.

the only exception would be that i've lowered my portion of the 401k down to 1%(from 6). that is more related to work being a bit slow than to low Dow Jones confidence. i need $ NOW to makes ends meet.

with the new year around the corner, i'm considering cutting supplimental insurance to further cuts.

very good thread starter!

I understand the need to make ends meet now, but I'd also like to add that now is the perfect time to increase contributions to a 401K. Think of the shares of the funds you're buying into as being "on sale"

-Jay

Fortunately, my company's 401k allows a large selection of funds from which to choose. I don't have to buy just one company. That really helps.

I saw this coming last year and changed things to give better performance on the downturn. All my 401k picks are still in the black, though there were a couple that were better performers.

I'm sad that it had to come to this. Congress really screwed the pooch on this one. I hope they don't get away with making everybody think it was just the Wall Street guys' fault.

Jay,

your point is well taken, but we've already made cuts and i was pulling $ from savings to cover bills. a single income for 5 people calls for extreme decisions at times.

if and when consumer confidence returns resulting in work returning to good growth in sales, i will at that time increase my 401k%. besides, we're focused on increasing savings at this time.

maybe we should revisit hypermiling at home to refresh and share ideas.

Boortz brought up a good point today concerning that and the economy. he said some are sooooo misinformed that they are going to vote for change based on blaming a political party for perceived economic woes.

https://ihosedyourgoat.com/Child%20Labor.jpg


You can always put the youn'uns to work like I did, Bowtieguy.

They whined a little, but they enjoyed getting out of the house.

I'm unemployed atm so the stock market is going like my mood

We sat back a listened to the gloating while our money sat in insured CDs.

Now I don't even feel like saying I told you so.

Talked with Pop today he was 8 years old in 1929. 16 people lived in one small house on $100 a month income.

I have lived through the terms of 11 Presidents, soon to be 12. I don't let the hype get to me much. There is a huge amount of wealth accumulated by people who just didn't buy the hype.

Dont get mad at me for guessing right, we still have lost a lot of equity in our home, but I built it, and it cost much less than it should sell for (emphasis should).

regards
gary

I sold a little motorcycle just recently. Thinking about putting the money into to our IRA's as, like was said, everything is on sale. Still doing monthly contributions to the wife's tax sheltered annuity.

Yup, we got it made.

My dad grew up on a farm in the Depression and through the war. No electricity there until after he came home from the Korean War. Biden's comments about FDR on TV about the crash...LOL!...made me think about how my dad and his parents wouldn't have had a radio hooked up to electricity to listen to the radio. He's gone now, so I can't ask. But there never was anything more than "outdoor plumming" there either.

With a cell phone, WiFi internet, DVD's, and over 100 channels to choose from, things should never be considered bad.

Umm.. my choice wasn't available... you know, the one with the guy doing the "alright!" fist-making elbow drop?

Seriously, anyone who didn't see this coming was living in a dream land. Nothing can grow forever. If I were smart enough to write that into a law, I would. Unfortunately, I do not possess the mental prowess of people like Newton and such.

Get ready for the ride. The models that the overpaid fat white men made are turning out to be garbage. Whether you believed these over-"educated" idiots and bought into the whole stock market lie or not, we are all going to go down the ****ter together. Welcome to reality.

At least we will see who the fittest are!

I'm feeling particularly blessed right now. Our 401k is being moved from one provider to another, and as a part of the process got moved into a money market fund right before the big drop, and will be there for a few more days before being put back into the various fund offerings. So all in all, it looks like I may actually come out ahead.

Some people called me crazy for keeping my whole 403b 10 years of retirement savings in the 3% "safe savings" plan rather than going with the 10-15% growth stock plans.

Now they are the ones that are stressing about their retirements.

Its all evens out in the end- I just prefer the slow and steady, no stress/no worry approach to retirement planning.

careful!

i know you've lived in the states, but were you educated here?

point being that certainly there were many of this type that made the USA the greatest nation in the world. if not at the time of their sacrifice, likely some retired a little plump.

not to discredit men(and women) of color, but your generalization did not put blame there.

besides the market is so volitile, NO ONE can accurately predict it.

One other thing to note... Fund managers are paid to buy & sell stock. If a manager thought the market was going to tank and sell to try to maintain his fund he would not have a job for long. If they sell a stock they pretty much have to buy something else to replace it.

-Jay

Market volitility is what makes it valuable, up or down. Yeah, it was going to come down. But even with down turns before, it still averages extremely well, even for not very fat or very old anything.