The theme this week on the One Minute Retirement Tip is “I Sold All My Stocks In 2020...Now What?!”. I’m helping you make a plan for getting back in the stock market if you cashed out last year or even if you’re underweight in stocks. 

Today, I’m talking about not losing sight of your long-term strategy. Many people who are close to retirement get spooked when big drops in the stock market happen. In my experience, I find that those within 5-10 years of retirement are most susceptible to selling their stock portfolio and moving to cash when the market takes a big drop.

People in their 40s still recognize that they’ve got a ways to go to make up for any losses, and people who are retired are surprisingly more likely to brush it off, which I credit to their experience, especially going through 3 major stock market meltdowns over the last 25 years. 

But what about those of you who are just a few years away from retirement. It’s a critical time and you hope and pray for good portfolio returns during your final working years and in the early years of your retirement. It’s the most dangerous time for a big stock market drop, and it’s the most dangerous time to abandon your long-term investment strategy. 

The key is remembering that even if you retire today, you still need to make your money last for 20-30 more years, and that means sticking to the plan you’ve laid out for yourself. If you’re 60 or 65 years old, you shouldn’t have more than about 60% of your portfolio in stocks in most cases anyways. That will help insulate you from the roller coaster ride of the stock market. 

You should also think through your plan B. If there is a prolonged downturn in the stock market just before or just after retirement, would you be willing to keep working, go back to work, work part time, cut your expenses, build up your cash savings - anything you can do to stop portfolio withdrawals for 12-18 months during a stock market downturn is going to help protect you in retirement. 

One last thing before you go...If you’ve been listening a while and you haven’t yet left a review in Amazon or in Apple Podcasts, could you take just a minute and leave me a quick, honest review? It’s been a while since I plugged reviews on the podcast, and it’s starting to show with some of the more recent reviews tending more toward hate and not love. So if you’re getting value from these tips on retirement, or even if you call me nefarious, like a recent reviewer, I would be very grateful for your honest review.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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