I wouldn’t take all your cash out right this minute. Because one of the fears is just straight up usd and cash has the same problem. But I also wouldn’t invest a ton In the stock market at right this moment - markets hate uncertainty
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Are you doing that through Wise? We were discussing whether or not to do this over dinner tonight so this is timely.
We also started looking at rent prices and the costs of international schools in some of our target EU cities ($$$$ for the schools, omg)
Fuck I hate this.
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Yea I already have a wise account because I have some euros since I have EU citizenship.
Not totally sold on moving more out of usd though- I just don’t feel like many other currencies are great either
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How do you feel about this in terms of a long term savings plan? We were kinda planning to do some dirty market timing this week by funding our 2024 ROTH IRAs (I know I know, we just forgot about it last year). Assuming everything isn’t destroyed forever and the USA and world wide markets still exist in 10 years, wouldn’t you expect that money to have made a return in that amount of time?
I mean there is the possibility that everything goes COMPLETELY to hell and so on, but I feel like in those cases we’re all fucked anyway?
(Should I be buying gems? Like wtf world are we living in where I’m debating making some of my wealth extremely portable and easy to trade?)
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Long term I am still invested in broad range balanced funds
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At least they are prettier to look at than a brokerage account
But they’re volatile assets too, gems
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I’ve been thinking about this. Should I pull out ahead of a crash? That’s the kind of thinking that contributes to a crash, but my tinly little pile of loot isn’t enough to matter to anything, either way.
Last time trump measured his success by looking at the markets. He doesn’t care about human suffering, employment, access to services. He cares about the numbers on the spreadsheets going up. As far as I can tell it’s all he cares about. He might burn the world down but he will try to protect the markets while doing so.
I’m going to leave my money where it is. This is a huge gamble but pulling it out is a gamble too.
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I am not pulling my money out of the markets so this is not panic talk but:
The man is not acting like someone who wants to protect the markets. He also doesn’t base most of his policy on logic
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Markets are already going down. The best time to beat the crash may be behind us?
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I noticed Australian markets were down early this morning as well. Trump’s moves may result in a worldwide problem.
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Also observed this. I am sticking to my current investments because there’s not much point for me to put in effort there except to consider diversifying worldwide a bit more. Better to stick my effort into local politicians and reviewing manufacturers for my small biz.
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I’m holding the course for investing and keeping our emergency fund/ stuff happens/act quick cash fund on the larger end of our target. Idk man, timing just always feels like a fools errand, no way to win. I’ll just let it ride and re download the Calm app 
(do they still offer free meditations or is it all paid now?)
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i submitted my sell order this morning. i don’t think i’ll regret plowing more into my house — that’s a 7% guaranteed return right there. plus i think with all the other stuff going on, it will also make sense to invest in solar and our gardens.
i’ve been a buy and hold girlie for decades so this is a big move but it makes sense for us right now, and we still have significant assets invested in the market as well. hang on, friends!
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It theoretically should take an act of congress to remove the solar tax incentives, and I think they’ll be focused elsewhere for a bit so hopefully it will still be around in 2025/26. I am thrilled with our solar purchase; although I wish I had gone for a battery system as well during these uncertain times…but it just didn’t make financial sense.
I’m holding tight to our investment strategy even though I want to sell with all my soul. But pulling money in to cash has no chance of beating inflation not to mention the concerns of losing the FDIC, moving to bonds is laughable with Musk controlling the treasury right now, so yeah, I guess I’m left with sparkly gems like Marcela! Or hoping that as in the past the markets will go down but will go up in the long term.
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I did something slightly drastic yesterday.
I have a brokerage account that I’ve been putting money into every month (different than my 401k which I also contribute to). I’ve been thinking about the acount as my “gambling with the market” fund. Yesterday I put in a sell order for a huge chunk of it, and I’m going to use the cash to pay down a chunk of the mortgage.
My thought was as long as I’m not touching my 401K it’s fine. Taking out this chunk from the market and paying down part of the mortgage feels like a reasonable reallocation from something uncertain to something concrete. Lily asked me whether I would be more annoyed at losing 20% of the account in a market crash, or more annoyed at missing out on 20% gains if the market takes off. I’m definitely on the “more annoyed at losing 20%”, so this is a way to reduce my exposure to the market while also having that money go to something that will save me more interest than the cash I took out over the lifetime of the mortgage.
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Same, my “laying in bed awake at night” concern though is that my large cash emergency fund (around 65K total range, representing about 2.5 years of expenses) is mostly USD (which is at risk due to possibly not paying the US’s bills like treasury bonds/undermining USD as a world reserve currency) and FDIC insurance is one of the things they are trying to unpick.
I agree on market timing so I have decided to be calm af with my equities.
Budget tip: your health insurance may have a free premium subscription to calm or headspace - kaiser does
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Update from yesterday @latitude
hey hey if you want to buy low in the stock market, today is the day (market timing is a fool’s errand to be clear but today is good one for it if you like being a fool)
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idk, everything is coming back up to the baseline again now!
i am not advocating for market timing at all … i feel like the moves @aaronpk and i are making are not really market timing? or, if they are, they are market timing lite. i’m less concerned about what’s happening this exact day than i am about what’s happening over the next few years, both on the macro level and on the my family level.
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FWIW I think that’s actually the definition of marketil timing. People who pulled out of the market for a couple years during covid, or many years during the great depression saw less overall gains than those who stayed in and rode the big dips and long (or sometimes fast) recovery.
I’m not saying you are wrong, I have lots of concerns as well. But since I don’t have a way to get my money diversified out of USD I’m not selling anything personally. (I already keep a bigger than advised cash cushion so I hopefully have plenty to ride out the next year 
)
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that makes sense. i guess i think of market timing more as a short-term thing, whereas this feels more like a longer-term decision, but so be it! 
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