Hopefully you have thought about retirement for many years. You have made plans and made adjustments along the way. You have diversified your money so the recent downfall of the market didn’t hurt you as bad. Of course the recent downfall hurt everyone who has any money in the stock market but you are okay? Aren’t you?
If you aren’t, there are things that you can do to make your situation better.
The first thing is to leave your 401k alone. I know that a lot of people are suggesting taking the money out. If you do that then you will be facing a hefty tax fine for early withdrawal. You may think that the market will never recover but it will eventually. You could also move it into a low risk fund that will gain very little but won’t lose that much.
Putting cash in the bank has been seen as a losing prospect in the past few decades. But now it doesn’t seem to be that bad of an idea. It is always good to have some cash that is easy to get to in a rough economy.
Start now to become a thriftier consumer. When you do retire you wouldn’t have as much money coming in so you will have to make up the difference somewhere. Start now so it wouldn’t be such a shock later. And definitely cut back using the credit card.
