Fed

Awoke to the news that the Fed lowered the interest rate by .75% in an emergency move overnight. That scares the crap out of me - just the fact that the Fed guys were on the phone all night long trying to figure out what to do is enough to make me want to move to Canada.

Normally, we take the 'ride it out' approach to investing. And that's a good approach, most of the time. But my husband is entering into the 'retirement red zone'. He is less than 10 years away (Lord, hear our prayers) from the big "R" and in my wee mind, I think that means we should be more 'cautious'. We don't have decades to rebound from this mess. We have less than a decade.

I resist the urge to check our investments hourly. What's the point? The market is tanking. The economy is in a free fall. And as J. pointed out over the weekend, we have one more year of the George W. era to 'ride out'. So we wait. And hope.

And stash cash wherever we can.

On a good note, the lowering of the interest rate means our equity line just dropped. And since I'm paying as much as I can on that puppy each month, it will get paid down faster, now. Which is a good thing.

Buy low, sell high. So all our 'new' savings is buying low which will hopefully help when the market turns. Which it will. It historically has and will continue to do so.

And I admit - my fear of this entire debacle isn't that we'll lose everything we have. We won't. It's just the fear that we'll end up with J. retired and me still working - and feeling like I have to work FOREVER 'just in case'. Which isn't 'the plan'. The plan is for us to BOTH retire within a few years of each other. And if our retirement nest egg keeps dropping like a rock, the likelihood of that happening decreases exponentially. I'll HAVE TO work. And I hate that thought.