I had been investing for about 5 years for my first crash in 1987. I got spooked and sold everything that weekend before the crash, unfortunately because of how mutual funds work got the lowest price in my Fidelity Magellan and other funds. I put the money back in that week, so no huge damage was done about 5%
I retired in 99 at 39 with 90% stock (heavily concentrated in Intel stock). By Jan 2000, I was sure that tech stocks were way overvalue so I sold all my tech stocks, and about 1/2 my Intel stock. I bought muni bonds and index funds. I moved 2/3 of my IRA money in TIPs bonds which were at the time had real yield of almost 4%, making my AA a more sane 70/30.
The 2008 bear market pretty much took me by complete surprise, eventhough I knew the housing market was over valued. I just hadn't seen the connection between housing market and the stock market. Although one smart guy in the Early Retirement forum explained exactly what was happening in early 2008. I was smart enough to listen to what he was saying but not smart enough to act on it.
The only time I got scared was when the Congress rejected the first TARP program and the market melted down another 300 or so points. I was never bearish but turned positively bullish, when Warren Buffet in Oct 2008 wrote and OP Ed in the NY Times telling people. to buy stocks. (Just FYI, if you had listened to Warren's relatively rare stock market calls over the last 40 years you'd have done very well or you could have just bought Berkshire Hathaway stock.) I was glued to CNBC and spent a lot time watching my Schwab account. I sold a lot of stocks to take advantage of tax harvesting and bought a lot of others. The market was falling so fast I ended up selling 3 batches of stocks and ETFs. On the Early Retirement forum in Dec 2008 with the Dow under 9,000 I predicted the Dow would hit 14,000 by Dec 31,2013. (turns out I was too bearish 16,500 by that date). i had run out of cash so I wrote long terms puts (LEAPs) on stocks like Apple, and GE, people were so spooked they were willing to pay huge premiums for insurance against further market falls, so I sold them insurance.
I did cut spending during this period, because I really didn't want to go back to work. Mostly cutting out things like travel, and delaying all home improvement type stuff.
By Feb 2009, I totally run out of cash and discovered that would have some liquidity issues if the market didn't recover by Jan 2010 so I stopped trading. I still reminding pretty bullish and urges others even if they were not interesting in buying to at least not sell at those levels.
I am particularly proud of this post
www.early-retirement.org/forums/f44/berkshire-hathaway-now-35239-5.html#post790278 I made a week before the market bottom in March 2009, explain why investment in Berkshire Hathaway was a good idea.