Preparing for the next recession

[loutfard]

What are you doing now to prepare for an extended economic downturn? What have you done and what is on your to-do list?

Just general ERE. We can easily do much more than others with less.

A few things on our to-do list:
- Make more of our assets more portable. We're very heavy on real estate for own use at the moment and low on more liquid assets. One medium term plan is to move into my parents' attic after one of them dies, and have a super cheap place elsewhere ready to live once both of my parents are gone.
- Make our labour income sources more resilient by creating one or more private sector side income streams. We have incredibly robust jobs, but not very resilient. My wife's employer has let significant numbers of people go once since the 15th century, in the 1790's, due to the French revolution. My job is a tenured public sector position.
- Keep on growing our skill sets. Basic medical emergency skills are high on the list. Comes in handy right now with us living in the middle of nowhere >10% of the year.

What actions do you intend to do in case of an economic downturn, if at all? What's your 'break glass in case of recession' to-do list?

Observe very well. The extreme volatility might create opportunities. Hopefully grab undervalued economic assets for a song.

What is your list of known likely effects to your WoG in case of recession? Is your job likely at risk, your clients, your sources of income? Are there social systems and services you rely on that might change? Are there activities you engage in that cost $ that you would nix in case of a recession? If you are an entrepreneur or operate a business, how would your operations change?

- In a mere 2009 style recession, I expect government to nibble at my wage, pension and retirement date. We'd probably spend less on travel to my wife's native country, and more on fire sale assets.
- In case of economic depression, hyperinflation or stronger geopolitical turmoil:
- accelerate our move to relatives, produce food in their garden during down time
- stop work on one specific luxury business idea

How do you plan to SWAN despite the economic recession as it unfolds? What's your mental health plan?

I'm fairly confident I'd sleep well. It's just numbers in a game. The tap is just flowing less generously. I'm pretty certain I could help my dear wife keep calm.

How do you intend to show up for/support people in your life that might be less well positioned than you? How might this effect your WoG? (I just caught up with an old colleague who works in a volatile industry. A year ago he was going through tough times with his employment status and so was his BIL's family, who moved in with him because they lost access to shelter. Four adults, 7 kids, he nearly lost his house, etc. Stressy!)

I don't expect a mere recession to have a lot of impact on many close to me. In case of extreme economic depression, I hope we have enough portable assets to be able to put our own oxygen masks on first, then see what we can do.

How might a recession present an opportunity for your life system? Would you take a recession as an opportunity to get out from current WoG operation and do a very low-cost adventure you've always wanted to do, like ride a bicycle to another hemisphere?

- As said before, keep my eyes open for interesting underpriced assets if any.
- Should I lose (almost) all of my economic assets, I might be tempted to go the way of this Baltic sculptor acquaintance in the early '90s. He identified a wonderful piece of land absolutely noone was interested in in the remote countryside, lived there in an extremely ERE way and made it an incredible sculpture park. I'm pretty sure the economic shock would trigger my wife to join me in a quest for something purified without compromises.

[2Birds1Stone]

This is something I used to ruminate/stress about quite a bit during our accumulation phase and shortly after pulling the plug on very prosperous careers. So we implemented quite a bit of safety plans and rail-guards into our plan in order to lessen the anxiety around a recession or what "might" happen.

Then after a year or so of not working, we realized that we enjoyed living simply, thrived in other countries where cost of living is a fraction of what it is in the USA, met a bunch of cool people with similar goals and trajectories and quickly came to the conclusion that a recession (in historical context) wouldn't change our day to day lives much if at all. Some questions that might help evoke similar realizations would be;

If you suddenly find yourself without financial means, what sort of social/peer group do you have that could help get you back on your feet?
What skills or value do you bring to the table in a scenario where money itself becomes meaningless?
What does your identity hinge on? And does this identity rely on the current socioeconomic system?
How dependent are you on "the man?"

That last one is for those who suddenly find themselves feeling insecure despite a seemingly bulletproof strategy thanks to government pensions/SS/benefits/etc.

Cool thought exercise, thank you for reviving this thread.

In a total SHTF scenario, simply being a part of this community would be a HUGE leg up for those willing to band together and help each other out, which DW and I would be more than willing/happy to do.

[Bonde]

Thanks for posting in this old thread.
Lately, I have been worrying about recession and even more about safety, Ukraine war turning to WW3. I think both recession and war time correlate a lot and solutions often apply to both.

My main thoughts concern flow of goods and services and cutoff points/when to act on certain threats.
Both DW and I work in the public sector with high job security so income should be stable.
We rely on wood pellets for heat but within the next year we will buy a heat pump so we only rely on electricity for heat and transport (EV).
We buy all of our food at a chain supermarket. Hopefully we will have time to grow some veggies during the summer since DS is a bit older and need less care from us and he also enjoys being outside. Self-sufficiency is key.

Concerning safety I try to balance my news intake so I do not get too doomie but I think that I have to stay somewhat aware to see what is coming e.g. the current German election results and Ukraine war. We live in Northern Europe, a place full of war stories and I am more and more concerned that peace will not last 10-20 years longer. Heck our Danish Defence "CIA" reported that within 5 years Russia will be ready for a full scale war in Europe.
I think that a recession will increase the likelyhood of war so in that sense I follow the markets for warning signs. Likewise war will many times also lead to a global recession.

So how do I prepare. Honestly, I don't. My time is too preoccupied with everyday life and hopefully it will never be relevant.
But what I would like to have is a plan for the big threats (recession, war, ethnic cleansing) which should include some cutoff points e.g. if a NATO county is attacked how should we handle it. That is already a grim position to be in, even if it is not my country being attacked, so the cutoff should probably be earlier like for some months prior to the war Russian troops gathered at the Ukranian border.
In such situation what should we do. Flee to another country? E.g. to relatives in UK. Or prepare to defend? Secure the basement and have all basic necessities there?
First I should talk to DW about this to see how aligned we are and move on from there.

Sorry for the derail!

[AxelHeyst]

I think your thoughts are relevant to the OP (conflict and economics are certainly related!) to be interesting so thanks for your thoughts Bonde. But caution! let’s not derail this thread into a *discussion* of geopolitics. Let’s not get this old thread locked.

“I think about possibility of conflict and have XYZ strategies in mind” should be a sufficient enough level of detail for this thread.

[Ego]

In a total SHTF scenario, simply being a part of this community would be a HUGE leg up for those willing to band together and help each other out, which DW and I would be more than willing/happy to do.

You two are certainly on our list of ERE Band of Brothers and Sisters.

Regarding recession: Together Mrs. Ego and I have been fortunate to do well financially, physically and psychologically during the last three recessions, and individually during the 1990 recession. The longer we've been together, the better we've done. Hopefully, that will be true for the next recession as well. Both the 2007-09 and Covid recession caused bumps in our road, but we were able to adjust without major disruptions.

Our continued cultivation of overlapping sources of income and overlapping sources of meaning have cushioned the blows. The fact that we have not been overly reliant on systems vulnerable to recession shocks has helped. For decades we have been operating on the assumptions that we will never completely retire, never collect social security and never have a healthcare system that we can fully trust, so we are less worried in general about our ability to cope.

Less worried. Not unworried. I can barely remember being troubled by the suffering caused by the 1990 recession. We were traveling for the 2001 recession and when we got home, the country was booming again, so we didn't really experience the difficulties others experienced. The 2007-09 recession was different. People we know and love lost jobs, marriages, and homes as a result. The Covid chaos and resulting recession, while shorter, was even worse.

I believe it is important for a well functioning society to allow people to experience, at least partially, the consequences of their bad decisions and I believe recessions play a role in making that happen. We have had several threads here about helping those who are struggling and I have not been particularly sympathetic/empathic in those because I believe that providing too much help encourages continued bad decision making, thereby encouraging increasing future pain and suffering. In nature, consequences have a purpose.

But it is terrible when people around you are suffering. I do not take pleasure in witnessing the consequences of bad decisions. From a purely selfish perspective, both individuals in crisis and a society in crisis can be dangerous to everyone around them, even those who consider themselves well insulated. It is challenging to jerry-rig interdependent relationships with those who are flailing to stay above water, especially when their panic causes them to pull you under in order to save themselves.

[7Wannabe5]

I believe it may be important to reflect on the fact that unless your income/resource-flow and that of most of those around you falls below approximately $4000/year PPP and/or you are too young or decrepit to provide yourself with basic care and/or you have an expensive medical condition and/or conditions have devolved beyond recession/collapse towards violence, ultimately you are just going to be concerned about status, level you have achieved in the "game", or size of your stash. IOW, for most of us here, it either will or won't be a psychological issue.

Also, for those of us who are old enough to be grandparents who have already experienced many years of life fulfillment, it might be more graceful to focus on the needs of the young at such a time rather than fretting any further about our own growth and survival within individualistic boundary. I would rather go out tutoring some of America's many poor kids and/or planting trees I won't see fully grown in my lifetime in a community garden and/or singing in a activist choir with bold emotion, than cowering in a cryogenically sealed community with other mean-spirited, muttering, sputtering, elder-elites.

[jacob]

I started grad school in 2000. At that point I had no money and zero interest in finance and economics. Typical student living stipend-to-mouth. My entire "journey" in terms of frugality, finance, ecology, overshot, ... started in fall 2000, so I got to learn by watching others. (This is to say a recession can easily happen to someone and they wouldn't even notice because they're on a zero-information diet AND accidentally not susceptible to the disruption. A lot of people live their entire lives this way and ultimately get away with it.)

In 2009, I got to stress test ERE for the first time. It works. Recessions are almost exclusively a problem for those who are leveraged with debt and whose WOG reduces to one single arrow: earn-buy-earn-buy with no accessible savings (see Stoa1 talk). Unfortunately, this is close to 100% of people, which is why recessions are a big deal.

Despite the 2009 recession being called many months in advance by many people, very few listened. I retired a week before the bottom. No worries since I had more than one source of income. The ERE robustness score for our household at the time was probably the highest it's ever been.

Investmentwise, the price-insensitive indexers learned that "stocks don't go up all the time" and became real quiet for a couple of years. This was a nice break from the previous rah-rah-optimism. It eventually came back because the memory span of a average human being when it comes to bad decisions is about 3 years. This in turn created the next recession just as the current behavior is setting up the recession after that.

I learned [the hard way] that just because a stock pays a dividend or has been paying one for a long time, it doesn't mean it's safe. Accordingly I experienced some [surprising to naive me] dividend cuts, but due to the robustness score above, it was merely annoying. It changed my investment strategy to focus more on the balance sheet and not just growing income.

We breezed throuh the COVID recession. Turns out my stock picks are basically the market's "safety picks", so every time the market drops significantly, I win. Of course, when the market goes back to risk-on with its FAANG/MAG7 obsession, the market is not exactly pilling into my portfolio type. Doesn't matter because out of 40 stocks, only one of them saw a dividend cut this time. This does mean that I miss out on the insane[ly] speculative gains the overall market is currently enjoying. However, I do enjoy not suffering the hangover from the metaphorical binge party.

In terms of other people, I agree with @Ego. Recessions are necessary in order to let those who are otherwise out of pedagogical reach learn by experiencing the consequences of their bad decisions. There are many people who are unable to see a bad decision before the outcome smacks them in their own personal face. Fair enough. However, most are unwilling to listen and ignore warnings as well. There's basically no way to reach them pedagogically w/o letting them experience the consequences of their choices. Doing so would in my mind constitute a disservice. I should note that this problem is not due to lack of intelligence but a lack of accurate beliefs about how the world works. Some just have to learn by making their own mistakes. There's no other way!

This [inability compounded with an unwillingess to listen] used to bother me a lot more---why oh why do humans always gotta human---but I've increasingly come to accept that this is just the only or preferred way some people learn. While things are going well, it's everybody else who pays the cost of their bad decisions---but they don't see that either. As such I tend to see recessions as a kind of delayed learning process even if it is ugly.

I'm sympathetic to those who made good decisions but got thrown under the bus due to other people's bad decisions. Not so much those who made the bad decisions and caused themselves and everybody else to suffer. Doesn't mean my pain tolerance in terms of bad outcomes to others is infinite, but it is proportional to the destructiveness of someone's decisions. It would be better for society (and maybe even eventually for themselves) if they learned the consequences of their choices instead of getting bailed out. The more the cost of bad decision-making can be isolated to those who made the bad decision, the better. Harsh!

Zooming out, the societal network can be seen as a giant WOG. Bad decision makers effectively cause heterotelic effects to themselves and others. If they won't listen and correct those for ... reasons, the only response for the good of the total-WOG is to isolate those consequences as much as possible to avoid them spilling into the rest of the network. That's another way of saying in that I show up in advance before the bad decision becomes a problem. But if someone won't listen I'm getting better and better at "live and let die" and feeling less sad and frustrated by it.

[jacob]

One other thing of note: In 2008/09 I was seriously casting around for a Wall Street job and had gotten to the point of working with a couple of headhunters. The WS crash effectively killed hirings and replaced with massive layoffs for a few years. This would have been highly disruptive to someone just starting their career (as opposed to an ERE guy looking for a second career). As such, I'm sympathetic to the COVID generation---those who graduated right into the lockdowns. They're going to feel the effects of [other people's bad decisions] for years and perhaps their entire lifetime. OTOH, I think those who are older ought to know better. One should not live one's life or create a financial strategy as if recessions never happen or "only happen to other people" and then be surprised when they do happen.

[7Wannabe5]

I think it's within good practice to simply tell another adult "I love you, but I'm not interested in bailing out your bad decisions." I think it's bad practice to hide the fact that you have the means to bail out another human who is actively or intimately in your social circle, because ultimately it's a form of craven covert contract. You wouldn't remain in the relationship if you weren't getting something out of it yourself, so by not disclosing you are on some level cheating the other human within contract and also likely cheating yourself of some opportunities for personal growth. Usually, in this sort of situation, you are either afraid of dealing with a bit of conflict in your personal relationships or you are afraid of losing the relationships you have and then having the need to form new relationships. If you were truly okay with being a total loner, or if you were certain that bad decisions are almost always the cause of bad outcomes, then you wouldn't have to fear disclosure. Or another way to look at is that wealth actually is a form of social relationship(s), so when you are hiding your wealth from others, this is no different than hiding some other form of abstracted social relationships from others. For example, it is roughly akin to hiding the degree of your porn usage from others with whom you might also have sexual or even social relationship which your porn use is limiting. One way to see that this is true, is to consider the opposite; the situations in which a human might be most eager to disclose or even brag about their wealth. IOW, by not being transparent, you are trying to derive both the social benefits of being 'a regular Joe" and the social benefits of "being in the Elite." And you are thereby depriving yourself of growth towards true psychological independence.

OTOH, when it comes to children and youth in our society, there is too much at stake to not help them to some degree. Sure, there are human cultures that send children out to survive on their own at age 3, but those are also the most degraded cultures known. Anybody who does not recognize the risks attached to the number of kids in the U.S. who are growing up in poverty and not receiving assistance at the junctures in their development where in any rational systems analysis it can be seen the greatest difference that can make a difference can be made is likely living in a glass bubble. For simple example, do you think the quality of somebody's financial decisions at age 30 has nothing to do with the quality of their math education at age 8? Or whether their mother had easy access to prenatal vitamins when they were in utero? Focusing on the adult individual only is a penny-wise, pound foolish policy for which we all eventually (or quite soon) will pay.

[loutfard]

This does mean that I miss out on the insane[ly] speculative gains the overall market is currently enjoying. However, I do enjoy not suffering the hangover from the metaphorical binge party.
...
Bad decision makers effectively cause heterotelic effects to themselves and others. If they won't listen and correct those for ... reasons, the only response for the good of the total-WOG is to isolate those consequences as much as possible to avoid them spilling into the rest of the network. That's another way of saying in that I show up in advance before the bad decision becomes a problem. But if someone won't listen I'm getting better and better at "live and let die" and feeling less sad and frustrated by it.

You just explained part of my slight frustration with fiscal regulations here. For securities outside this very small country, I pay 40.5% on capital distributions (interest, dividends, spinoffs, ...), zero capital gains tax on stocks or index funds. I would like to build a dividend portfolio, but decision makers decided to punish that with a punitive tax rate. I don't like that centrally forced behaviour...

[Jean]

I graduated during the last recession. I never got a career probably partially because of it. I'm ok, but I would be okayer if I had spend my few workyears in a lucrative career instead of odd jobs and a phd. I would like to see a doctor for a few issues, and I can't really afford it.
This would have been a complete other story if I had been less frugal, but maybe it would have made me more motivated to get a real career for a few years.

[7Wannabe5]

Oops, I am going to have to scratch half of what I wrote above for half the audience. I keep forgetting that according to the super-verifiable science of Evolutionary Psychology, the males of our species retain the semi-conscious desire to hold on to wealth and status well into their 80s, due to innate sexual strategy which holds out hope of one last chance to attract and impregnate a much younger female. Ergo, village or community level altruism is really only innate to the strategy of older human females. Although, it is also the case that males should be more motivated to invest in their later life fertile partners and offspring. Only the rare sort of man who might also be a kind stepfather would be motivated to care for the unrelated young in his community.

[jacob]

In terms of actionable tasks, here's the minimum reality check.

First some perspective:

Recessions typically last 6-12 months but may last as short as 2 months and as long as 18 months. The king of all recessions, the great depression, which followed from mismanaged tariffs and adherence to the gold standard, lasted 3.5 years!

Recessions typically increase unemployment by about 5% but it may go higher. In case of COVID, it was almost 10% higher and the unemployment during GD was much higher (IIRC around 30%?). So look to your left, look to your right. About 1 in 20. However, the layoffs are typically concentrated in whatever sector has been booming.

In 2000, this was dotcom companies ("The amazing new innovation called the internet is going to change the way business is done blabla"... it didn't). In 2009, this was real estate: mortgage schemes and construction ("Amazing new financial innovation has made it possible to eliminate risk so everyone can afford to own a home now"... no it hadn't and no they couldn't). In 2020, it was monetary policy ("We may have reached a permanent stage of zero interest rates. Equity is the only asset class..." ... no we hadn't and no it wasn't).

In terms of spill-over, also consider where the bubble is. The 2009 recession was bad because everybody lives in a home and pays rent or mortgage. Dotcom was only bad for investors and the specific industries because the internet wasn't critical to consumerism and industry yet---that bubble was only wrong because it was 10 years early! Similarly, BTC can lose billions in market cap w/o affecting the economy because very few actually hold/use it. The great depression was really bad because everybody uses money (gold) and goods connected to imports (tariffs). Insofar this reasoning is true, the only current risk is to MAG7 investors and those software engineers who if they're honest about it doesn't really work on something that is actually useful/has demonstrated its usefulness as opposed to its novelty yet.

Second what every non-child ought to do/have:

Always have an emergency fund. This is DaveRamsey101. This should be in cash or cash-equivalent such as a CD ladder, perhaps spaced out like a paycheck. Don't get tempted to try to squeeze a few extra percent out of it by arguing how you can always sell some stocks or how your stocks are particularly conservative if you don't want to sell them at a 30-50% loss. In the light of the above, 12-18 months will be good for almost every situation.

Obviously this is easier to find/save if you live on $10,000/year than if you blow through $30,000 or $50,000/year. Still, to put it in perspective, the E-fund is asking for 1.5 years of the 25 or 33 years' worth you're already accumulating for FIRE. This is one of those things when human memory span doesn't serve people well. It's most needed when most people have finally forgotten why it's needed.

Third, what to consider:

Workwise, recessions tend to hit sectors disproportionally according to what has recently been booming. Their function is to correct malinvestment. Those most at risk are those earn very high salaries for disproportionately little skill working on things that don't matter. Think of it as salary/years of required education. For example, during the dotcom bubble people were hired at top decile salaries straight out of HS insofar they spent a few months teaching themselves HTML. The modern equivalent is code-camp. Similar examples would be the fracking boom with ditto for the ability to drive a truck and show up reliably.

As such have a realistic assessment of how replaceable you are and how speculative/faddish an investment you are from the perspective of your employer.

Fourth, how to plan:
This really shouldn't be a "I heard there might be a recession, so I better change things a bit..." but a general life-strategy that depends on the realistic assessment of what role one plays in the economy as per above and that recessions and other outcomes of human stupidity are a predictable fact of life. Those working in speculative enterprises is best off thinking like "weed", the plant. Easy come, easy go, quick to move and resettle. This means not being anchored into the current location by stuff and obligations or dependencies. This is the number one failure point of most strategies. Your choice of career might require you to move but if you can't there goes a lot of career options, perhaps all of them! OTOH, your role in the economy might be more like an oak. If so, plan according to that and so on.

Minor stuff aka tips and tricks and hacks:
Always max out your 401k first thing in the year. That way if you get fired in June, you already contributed the full amount and now it's ready for you to deduct and seriously reduce the amount of taxes you owe. For those subject to the US health care system, it's also better to get sick or start elective procedures early in the year than late in the year. (Everybody else now goes "Wait what?!") But yeah, I'm talking checkups for those into that and dental procedures like cleaning, snaggle tooth, etc. Maybe even a pregnancy. Anything that can be planned ahead in order to complete it before the year rolls over. If you just live like that, it won't have consequences that happen when you don't.

General good ideas:
Doing dry runs are overall a fantastic idea. Just like you can test your survival strategies by having a friend call you randomly and declaring "no electricity and water" for a random amount of time to test your water/electricity resilience, ... test out your strategy by not using anything from your paycheck for the next 7 months.

Hey, why not try that right now? Or at least think in terms of what you'd do in terms of accounts and cash flow. If this idea makes you break out in cold sweat, you got work to do.

[7Wannabe5]

Second what every non-child ought to do/have:

Agree. In fact, I would go further and suggest that there is some minimum amount of cash you should have on hand even if your current non-discretionary living expenses are $0. I would also suggest that you should think of your cash in terms of two “envelopes “, one labeled Reserve and the other labeled Roll. Reserve being towards a passive response and Roll being towards an active response.

I would also suggest that every non-child should develop and test-run a completely moneyless plan. And also have three independent reasonably recession proof skill sets they might turn to or optimize. For example, survival services, luxury goods, and alternative production are often recession/depression proof for different reasons, and Childcare, rare book dealing, and market gardening would be examples from each of these.

It’s entirely possible that given where we are in the historical cycle, the bubble soon to arrive again will be “over-production of the elite” (too few top echelon influential positions in society for too many up and comers who believe they deserve them) and this is the type of bubble most likely to be catastrophic when it bursts. If things do get that bad and any of you have trouble caring for your youngest dependent children, you can drop them off with me and just pay me with the occasional bag of apples or oats or anything else useful that you can forage. I might even take a dog, but, sorry, no cats!

[theanimal]

Alaska has a boom/bust economy so the state also occasionally suffers additional recessions beyond those at the national level. The most recent happened in 2015-2018 due to low oil prices. The three pillars of Alaska's economy are oil, tourism, and government (both federal and state). With two of the three affected, it does often result in slashing of services and jobs.

Beyond low expenses, we have organized our lives to be resilient to such disruptions. Both Mrs. Animal and I have multiple avenues that where we work/can find work in sectors that are independent of each other. Actively, we place most of our emphasis on establishing food resiliency and community. These often go hand in hand. This season's new additions will include expansion of our garden, adding cold frames (eventually a greenhouse), and keeping bees. We make an effort to establish and strengthen relationships within our area, helping others when needed and asking for help if we need it, realizing when circumstances change on a macro scale it will be too late to start doing so. We will have an extra bedroom in our new addition and are planning on constructing another building with sleeping quarters that could be rented out if need be.

[Stasher]

I'm going to quickly respond that this has been weighing heavily on me lately and why my uptick in visitation once again here on the safety net of the ERE Forums. As a Canadian I have never felt the fear and anxiety for our country, our economy and our personal day to lives like this before. It is currently being rocked to the core and has equally created more empathy, compassion and understanding that our dear EU friends experience first hand with the eastern block volatility.

This has led me to changing the the breakdown of my index fund allocations, putting more into bonds and more cash into our short term high rate savings for better emergency cash wedge, plan to refinance the rest of my home to max term and lowest payments possible to free up cash/lower expenses. Going 100% in on the shop and support local/province/country wave happening right now. I'm stocking up on an emergency kit/stash supply on food, supplies, etc.

The vibes right now feel a whole lot different then other recessions, it isn't Covid and it isn't just greed of a failed banking system... it is massive geo-political upshake unseen since Vietnam/Korea. As mentioned above, wife and I are in a good spot and worked hard since 2012 with MMM/ERE mindset but now as our kids are adults and on their own starting lives/families it is what i think most on how will we help them and do whatever it takes to support them. Not about my oxygen mask in a crash but about theirs, a totally new experience for us without kids at home.

Also, reflecting on downsizing my home right now from both a liability perspective (repairs, maintenance, property tax, heating/cooling) but also natural risk as we just had an earthquake last week here in the PNW that rattled the house hard. Then the flip side if we downsize is no longer having that refuge space for the kids to move home and help hunker down to weather any economic storm.

I feel confident in my skills due to my work experiences, upbringing on a do it yourself attitude and early years economic hardship that collective the wife and I are shit hit the fan ready.

[CzechRetireeWannabe]

It is currently being rocked to the core and has equally created more empathy, compassion and understanding that our dear EU friends experience first hand with the eastern block volatility.

Thank you. As ex-soviet influence sphere citizen, I developed chronic abdominal pain (likely psychosomatic) and get hand tremors randomly in past few months. Stuff I never experienced before. I'm OK with being poorer, but fear for safety does number on me.

[chenda]

Whilst we obviously can't discuss politics, it's important to keep a sense of perspective. I would recommend a news fast (maybe for Lent?) if ones mental health is suffering.

I suggest preparing like it's 2008 not 1938.

[Stasher]

Well in that case, 2008 wasn't even a blip on my financial radar so then I will be fine. Did end up shifting 10% of my portfolio out of equities and into bonds yesterday though just to create a little more solid base to weather any pending recession creeping in.

[chenda]

Did end up shifting 10% of my portfolio out of equities and into bonds yesterday though just to create a little more solid base to weather any pending recession creeping in.

I think that's a good idea. Although the bond market isn't looking great either, and there have been vague threats from a certain someone about not paying government bonds. If I was US based I'd lean towards cash and money markets.