I just wanted to share this with anyone else who is decades out from retirement and feeling really disappointed about how things are looking. I'm confident that the value of my collective retirement savings is down by some obscene number, but I'm not worried about it at all because I'm invested in things that I truly believe are smart long-term funds (mostly target-date funds, a smattering of the S&P, and a small handful of long-established financial companies).
I used to get really disappointed at seeing something go down 4-5% over the course of a few weeks or months. Unreasonably disappointed. Like, kicking myself for “not timing it better”. Stupid, I know.
Let me tell you newer investors: if you're picking responsible funds and have automatic payments set up (via a 401k, recurring payments to an IRA, etc), there is a great peace to be found in just letting things continue without obsessively tracking it. If you're close to retirement age, this is obviously not advice I would impart on you. But if you've got a long way to go, just keep that brokerage app closed, head outside for a walk on a nice spring day, and enjoy the knowledge that you're currently buying retirement funds on sale instead of paying way over MSRP.
Leave a Reply