4 Simple Ways to Make Progress During a Bear Market
When your portfolio value is down, it is easy to feel like your progress towards a strong financial plan is halted. We are officially in a bear market… most people who have been invested this year are experiencing some negative numbers. That said, just because you are not making headway on your dollar amount goals this year, doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish things that are important to your overall financial life.
Fun Fact: 3 out of 4 years in the market have been positive, historically.
➡ Here are 4 Suggestions on what you can accomplish in the NEGATIVE years:
1.) Check your insurance policies.
Storytime! When I was a teenager, my sister and I were in a car accident where a fellow teenager rear-ended us. It demolished my mom’s brand-new Odyssey minivan… The other family thought they had car insurance; However, they soon realized that when they switched providers, the coverage on that particular car was mistakably dropped. As you can imagine, that was a pretty bad situation for them.
Story #2. Our basement flooded last year. We didn’t realize we were lacking back-up water coverage. Guys… It would have cost us like $20 to have added that coverage, if ONLY we realized we didn’t have it.
So, hopefully these stories give you the motivation to read over your car, home, liability, and any other insurance policies to make sure they are up to par. Better yet, ask your advisor to review them or get in touch with me!
Note: Home prices have gone through the roof these last couple of years. Your home might be worth A LOT more than it was a few years ago. Check your dwelling coverage to see if your home value is fully covered.
2.) Consider if you can buy more securities on sale.
If you are still working or have excess cash, these bear markets can actually be an opportunity to buy more shares at a discounted price. It’s like Black Friday shopping, but without the long lines. If interested, check out my blog on hacking stock market volatility!
3.) Make sure your end-of-life plans (aka. estate plan) are in order.
If you have yet to even start this, here are 4 steps to get you going. Really, just sit down for 20 minutes. Log into your accounts and check your beneficiaries to make sure they are still who you want them to be. Perhaps if it has been a few years since you wiped the dust off your old will and/or trust documents, consider flipping through them. Not to be grim, but are all the people you had previously listed having authority – still alive, healthy, and willing to serve? Time passes by FAST. Your documents will be a decade old and untouched before you know it.
4.) Enhance your online security.
We all know we need better passwords. We all know we need to check out credit reports. We all know we will never actually do these things because we “don’t have time.” But truly, ensuring that your online information is protected is extremely important, and there can be real financial repercussions if you don’t. Consider the stories in the article I wrote in January: Cream Cheese and Cyber Security – You Don’t Miss Them Until They’re Gone.
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These points are just to remind you that you can keep moving forward in the midst of market downturns. Progress doesn’t have to stop! Sometimes the most meaningful things are done behind the scenes and don’t have a clear dollar value attached.
