If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I am a finance professional and have been for nearly 30 years. The stock market has crashed, countries are banning assembly of people, companies are having people work from home. Yes this is a crisis, how long it will last is anyone’s guess. If you have anxiety like I do, one of the things we are thinking about is our personal economic situation. Here are 5 things for you to think about and consider during this current calamity.

1. Assess your income sources: This is the single most important thing to do. Income = survival in normal situations. If you still have money coming in you can still buy goods and services for now. If you think that your company might have layoffs, or you are a tip based wage earner your entire approach to this crisis is different.

2. Accumulate cash: don’t panic and sell of your investments (if you have them) or cash out your 401K’s but reduce your spending as much as you can to accumulate cash. Why? What if this gets worse? What if we are all stuck inside for 3 months? Think toilet paper is expensive now? I don’t mean hoarding physical cash in your home but cut down on spending if you can.

3. When you can, buy extra staples: You are going to use them anyway right? So you are at the store, buy a little extra toilet paper. I know this runs counter to item 2 but the point here is if this goes on longer than a month there could be supply issues. Buying a can of beans? Get 2-3. Don’t horde, other people need these items as well.

4. Don’t let Empathy rule your decisions: This is going to be a very hard one for some of you. People will ask you for help, friends, family etc. You have to be in a position to help, so if you don’t have enough money, goods etc. to be comfortable with your situation how can you help someone else? People play on empathy, I know in my family I have people who are practically travel agents for guilt trips. Help people of you can but remember to now allow that help to place you in a worse position.

5. Leave your investments alone: I realize many people who read my blog don’t have investments. If you do, leave them alone. Selling now in the middle of a panic crisis ensures you will have skewed results. Now isn’t the time to buy either, we are still in the middle of government reaction. There will be large swings in the market until likely the end of May. You could be up 10% one day and down another 12% the next. Now isn’t the time to try and be a market expert, hold tight, this will pass.

These are by no means the end all be all, hey if one small tip helps you that’s a good thing. God knows everyone has an opinion or an insight into what is happening. The best thing you can do right now is take care of yourself. That will put you in the best position long term to help others and to be okay once this all calms down. Having weathered a few, smaller situations like this in the past I suspect by June 1st things will largely be back to normal. Here’s hoping it happens way before then.

Take care of yourself

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