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CHICAGO (CBS) — If you’ve stopped looking at your 401k statements lately, you’re not alone.
The rocky year on Wall Street continues. And as one expert told CBS 2’s Chris Tye Tuesday night, it may be here for a while.
But for both those with disposable income and those without, there are ways to navigate this smartly.
Tech stocks make up the Nasdaq, and on Tuesday, they hit a two-year low.
“We have gotten used to the Fed bailing us out,” said Terry Savage, a nationally syndicated personal finance columnist. “They did that at the start of the pandemic – PPI checks; there were stimulus checks – the whole government organized itself so we wouldn’t have a painful slowdown.”
This time, it’s the fed and their interest rate causing the headaches, not solving them. And this new slowdown might be here a while.
“Right now, you want to be thinking about paying down that credit card debt. You want think about get a second job – even if it’s not your main profession,” Savage said. “Go be a waiter for the weekends so you that have some cash for liquidity.”
Savage, a longtime CBS 2 Financial Analyst and former morning show co-host, offered three ways for all of us to tackle the uncertain six months ahead.
The first is to get a job now.
“I think this is the time for everybody who has been thinking, ‘I’ll get a job sometime,’ please get a job now,” Savage said. “because the Fed’s goal is to slow the economy by driving up unemployment, so that’s going to make things tough.”
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Second, once you get that job, use the current cheap price of stocks to your advantage.
“If you’re still contributing to 401k plan, you’re working – great,” Savage said. “These lower prices in the stock market – and they could go significantly lower – are just your opportunity to buy more shares for that $200 0r $300 a month you put in.”
Third, if you’ve maxed your contributions and your portfolio has plummeted, consider a safer and attractive option of what is called an I bond.
“I hope you have some chicken money on the side, because here’s my number three tip – if you’re a saver, and you’ve penalized by very low interest rates, now is the time to take advantage of series I bonds — paying 9.62 percent,” she said.
If that I bond idea caught your attention, you’re not alone.
Here’s how it would work – you need to invest for one year to see it mature. So if you have $1,000, in 12 months at 9.62 percent, it would be worth $1,096 and you’d make a profit of just under $100.
If you can get your hands on $10,000, it would mean in a year it would be worth $10,962. But $10,000 is the max per family member.
If you want to explore more, go to TreasuryDirect.Gov.
