Author Topic: Anyone else post fire and?  (Read 3340 times)

Rdy2Fire

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Anyone else post fire and?
« on: March 04, 2021, 10:17:35 AM »
Post Fire people

Just wondering, I imagine the answer is yes.

You have plenty, or certainly enough, money to not work but you check the markets and as the markets sink, 3%, 4%, 7% or whatever per day, week etc.. You look at it and get a little concerned even though you know it could drop 10, 20, 30% and you'd still not have to worry at all?

I find it kind of strange that I do this but maybe it's normal
« Last Edit: March 04, 2021, 11:33:45 AM by Rdy2Fire »

Metalcat

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2021, 10:24:01 AM »
I'm sorry, what's the question??

Rdy2Fire

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2021, 11:29:57 AM »
I'm sorry, what's the question??

You look at it and get a little concerned even though you know it could drop 10, 20, 30% and you'd still not have to worry at all?

cool7hand

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2021, 11:43:00 AM »
I do what you describe sometimes. Financial insecurity is a challenge for me because of events in my childhood. If you're interested in what helped minimize these feelings, DM me.

Metalcat

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2021, 11:48:30 AM »
I'm sorry, what's the question??

You look at it and get a little concerned even though you know it could drop 10, 20, 30% and you'd still not have to worry at all?

Sorry, I couldn't tell if the question was about whether or not I look at the markets or whether or not I look at them and worry.

For me the answer is neither. I just don't look, and when I do, I give it very little thought. However, I'm not dependent purely on investments, so that's very easy for me to say.

First, I would examine where your fear is coming from. What is the basis of the habit of checking when you know it's just going to stress you out?

Why do you have this habit? Why do you have this reaction? Why do you continue to foster both?

Rdy2Fire

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2021, 11:49:13 AM »
I do what you describe sometimes. Financial insecurity is a challenge for me because of events in my childhood. If you're interested in what helped minimize these feelings, DM me.

Thanks for the offer...I am good and don't really feel an 'insecurity' but maybe subconsciously I do; guess I am not alone in doing this periodically; of course it doesn't help when people send you messages like look at the markets

cool7hand

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2021, 12:04:56 PM »
I do what you describe sometimes. Financial insecurity is a challenge for me because of events in my childhood. If you're interested in what helped minimize these feelings, DM me.

Thanks for the offer...I am good and don't really feel an 'insecurity' but maybe subconsciously I do; guess I am not alone in doing this periodically; of course it doesn't help when people send you messages like look at the markets

Understood. If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.

xbdb

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2021, 12:36:01 PM »
You have plenty, or certainly enough, money to not work but you check the markets and as the markets sink, 3%, 4%, 7% or whatever per day, week etc.. You look at it and get a little concerned even though you know it could drop 10, 20, 30% and you'd still not have to worry at all?

It doesn't feel good to watch, but it will recover. The market always goes up long term. I guess what really makes me feel the worst, is that I am missing out on a great buying opportunity.

Much Fishing to Do

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2021, 01:57:33 PM »
I'm FI but have only half-RE'd.

I guess I kinda apply my normal life strategies to this.  So I watch a lot of CNBC and follow the markets when things are good because I find it interesting, and that is when its not stressful.  But when the market is bad, I pretty much ignore it all (obviously I know things are bad, but I don't do calculations or keep the financial news on at all as it just piles on). 

I watch ESPN when any of my teams are good that season.  If both are bad I watch a good bit of HBO and old sitcoms and read sci-fi.  I never watch/read the real news anymore except for local stuff (I just assume its always bad and stressful).  When I bowl a good game I ask for a printout of the scores, when I don't I don't ask for the scores but do have another beer.  I don't post pictures of my aging self on facebook...but I post as many as I can of my hot wife and cute kids.

FreshlyFIREd

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2021, 01:25:39 AM »
I am in my early sixties. My wife is in her late fifties. Wifie watches the market and portfolio daily. I never bother.

We can experience a 50% drop and our lifestyle wouldn't change. We have double what we need. Since we have way more than what we need, I can be more conservative and less aggressive.

I've been through many crashes - the one that had the greatest effect on me was 2007-08. I was so scared, I couldn't even open the statements or look at the on-line info. At that time, I wasn't actively managing my accounts.

Since then, I slowly moved into a (Bogle inspired) three fund portfolio and I sleep well at night.

Rdy2Fire

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2021, 06:42:15 AM »
You have plenty, or certainly enough, money to not work but you check the markets and as the markets sink, 3%, 4%, 7% or whatever per day, week etc.. You look at it and get a little concerned even though you know it could drop 10, 20, 30% and you'd still not have to worry at all?

It doesn't feel good to watch, but it will recover. The market always goes up long term. I guess what really makes me feel the worst, is that I am missing out on a great buying opportunity.

I totally agree.. I bought some stuff and may buy some more.

As I said previously it was more of a curiosity question on do people watch it etc  and yes it will recover, last march I was down almost 40% and it came back plus.

Thanks for all the responses

reeshau

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2021, 06:48:02 AM »
I guess what really makes me feel the worst, is that I am missing out on a great buying opportunity.


Fortunately, this is the way I am wired.  I invest more actively than is typical here, so the first thing I do when the market drops is to check my current holdings and watch list to see if anything has really crashed, and so is worth snapping up.

I FIREd last January, after I was laid off.  I had 95% of my target, and thought that was close enough.  (i.e. not worth bothering to start a new job for 5%)  After last year, I am now at 140% of target, so I pretty much put SORR to bed, assuming I don't screw up anything big in the next years.

I also have a large cash cushion--2 years expenses.  I don't have any bonds, because they are priced higher than stocks. (meaning, historically low yields)  But the cash means that any bad news is meaningless, at least for the next two years.  Which is an eternity, if you think back two years from now.  It's very helpful to keep thinking calmly.

Greystache

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2021, 08:28:56 AM »
I just follow my plan.  I have a financial plan that includes an asset allocation and a rebalancing plan. Usually, I rebalance once a year. However, If my asset allocation is more that 5% out of whack, I rebalance immediately. For example, during the stock market crash last year, I rebalanced twice on the way down (sold bonds and bought stocks) and again when stocks recovered (sold stocks and bought bonds). I think I rebalanced my portfolio 4 times in the last year which is the most ever for me. Having a defined plan and sticking to it eases some of the anxiety when the markets get crazy.

Mr. Green

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2021, 03:58:51 PM »
Making the leap to FIRE (actually quitting) is the scariest part of this whole deal, in my opinion. If I trust the math enough to actually leave my career, there's no reason to worry about small dips. That's like being willing to run into a burning building but worrying about a lit match.

sui generis

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2021, 05:59:30 PM »
Making the leap to FIRE (actually quitting) is the scariest part of this whole deal, in my opinion. If I trust the math enough to actually leave my career, there's no reason to worry about small dips. That's like being willing to run into a burning building but worrying about a lit match.

Agree with this. I checked the markets daily pre-FIRE and updated my spreadsheet constantly.  After 2.5 years of FIRE, I've only updated my spreadsheet....3 times?  I haven't made any withdrawals yet and I just don't need to know unless it goes down by 50% or so.

I sort of plan to take a bit more active role in a few years, maybe when I get into the latter half of my first decade of early retirement to see how SORR issues ended up playing out for me and whether I want to play around with things based on that. 

In the end, I do *not* have enough time to be checking the market anyway.  I shouldn't even be posting here right now!

FR2000EE

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2021, 11:39:16 PM »
I retired 2/1/2020 about 13 months ago. I found myself looking at the market a lot. And in the beginning of retirement, I watched a lot of CNBC. But I realized in February right before the crash, that I should take less risk and moved to a more dividend stream portfolio, but when the crash came, it didn't help. My portfolio went from 2.2M to 1.6M in a few weeks. But the good news is that somehow I realized that I could survive on 1.6M or even much less, if the crash continued. So, by experiencing a crash right after retirement was good emotionally. So, I stayed the course and rode it back up. Now my account has 2.7M. Very strange 13 months. And since now the P/E is very high, I really wonder what to do; I still want to protect from downturns, and don't quite have the stomach to ride it out, even though I know I can stay retired in most situations, but because I experienced it, I don't feel the crazy fear, but I still don't like losing money. The other thing is I realized working some or part time isn't the worst thing ever, should I ever have to work again to keep my money in the market, however unlikely. This was probably a realization that while retirement is good in many ways, now working doesn't solve all problems. However, I do look forward to retiring when the covid lockdown is over, because the first year of my retirement was unusual. Sometimes I forget, part of FIRE, is being able to handle problems as they arise, even having to work again for a short time.

soccerluvof4

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #16 on: March 13, 2021, 03:05:41 AM »
I look at the market and spend every morning reviewing accounts for about 2 hours as i have a small active trading account of about 2%. More for the fun of it as I just like learning about companies and so on. But the swings in the market are something I for sure think about more when I am spending money like now remodeling my house then when I am just living on my budget. But as time goes on you become more calloused about these experiences and know that its more an opportunity then a disaster. Like a year ago March when we dropped 30% I invested alot of cash that I was taking out a bit more than usual on the market rise. This 10% drop we just had I added to a few names in my fun trading portfolio. Point being what you feel is normal but its more important on how you handle it and make good decisions about it. Its going to happen and knowing and preparing for it both mentally and financially is all you can do.

rae09

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #17 on: March 22, 2021, 07:44:37 PM »
I do check it when it's up. I try not to check much during the down time since, well, why stress myself for nothing? I don't need the money now and seeing all those reds make me think I should sell and cut the losses which is not a good move. So I stopped tempting myself unnecessarily.
I draw an imaginary line. If my balance drops below x, then I will cut some losses and change my investment strategy. Until then, I tune it out and enjoy my day.

Rdy2Fire

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Re: Anyone else post fire and?
« Reply #18 on: March 23, 2021, 01:29:14 PM »
I look at the market and spend every morning reviewing accounts for about 2 hours as i have a small active trading account of about 2%. More for the fun of it as I just like learning about companies and so on.

Same here, not the 2 hours but I have a 'fun' account that's about 1-2% that I play with. The irony is this is the account I look at not the large account LOL