Financial Advice for Uncertain Times

by Daniel Christopher

Posted on Thu Mar 6th, 2025

2025 is shaping up to be the most uncertain and turbulent year of my adult life. Even after experiencing Trump 1.0, I was not prepared for the level of global chaos him and his administration are willing to inflict on the world this time around.

I'm feeling a lot of uncertainty, and I'm sure you are too. I'm not sure how much consumer sentiment matters to investment and financial security, but I've never seen the Fear and Greed index pushed so far to the left.

No one knows what the future would hold, and I am no expert in prepping for the calamitous situations. So I can't give you much specific advice, but I can tell you one thing you will not do.

You will NOT cash out your 401k or long term investments to time a potential crash. Repeat this again: you will not cash out your 401k early.

You made a long term investment plan when you were clear headed, and with a certain level of risk and reward tolerance. Once the risk actually manifests, the time is to stick to your plan. You never win by changing your plan under duress.

Some actual advice

Now that is out of the way, I can offer a few actual suggestions:

While picking stocks can be fun and occasionally lucrative, your primary investments should be in a target retirement fund like the ones offered at Vanguard. Let the experts handle appropriate diversification and rebalancing to weather any storm.
Hold on to cash. Investment performance is about time in the market rather than timing the market. The real disaster would be if I had to cash out any investment earlier than planned in order to make ends meet. Hold on to more cash than you'd otherwise be excited about in order to allow your long term investments to grow uninterrupted.
Setting up automatic contributions to maintain discipline. Don't make any decisions in a heightened emotional state.

That's about all there is to it. In 4 years we'll have another chance to push our country in a better direction. In the mean time take care of yourself, save some money, and we will make it through this.