Retirement
HiTerry, My husband & I are retired 67 & 68 for 2 yrs! Scared & sold stocks & went to cash! So lost 27%. Now, not sure what to do with this rally! We are beating ourselves up over this. We do have a financial advisor & he advised us to stay the coarse! We now can’t sleep at night over the fact we could have made back our losses?? Please help! Thank you, ANN & Joe
Terry Says
OK, stop beating yourself up. The stock market does that to you! First, two years ago when you retired, you probably had less than you had in January this year. So what you “lost” wasn’t yours until you took it out. This is just a different mental perspective, not a financial answer.
I personally can’t stand being wrong. So I’m never “all in” or “all out.” It’s a question of balancing the percentages of in and out!
Panic is never a good strategy. But what’s done is done. Recalibrate your retirement spending in the knowledge that you won’t lose the fixed amount you now have. But don’t try to play the timing game to “get back in”. No one ever wins at that!
Leave the money in a money market account for now. Write back in 6 months.
