Community Chat

[Lipstickdiva]

I saw a crawler this morning that because of the low price of oil, gas prices COULD drop to below $2.00/gallon by late fall.  Our's hasn't come down even a cent so far.  LOL

I also saw that the average 401K lost about $3,000.00 in all of this.   

[June222]

The last big crash, we lost  $75,000.  $3,000 sounds like peanuts.

[occasionalrain]

The loses are only on paper unless you're foolish and sell when it's down.

[151949]

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@occasionalrain wrote:

The loses are only on paper unless you're foolish and sell when it's down.

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The losses are very real and not just on paper - esp. when you are depending on your savings to live.

[151949]

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@Lipstickdiva wrote:

I saw a crawler this morning that because of the low price of oil, gas prices COULD drop to below $2.00/gallon by late fall.  Our's hasn't come down even a cent so far.  LOL

I also saw that the average 401K lost about $3,000.00 in all of this.   

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A ridiculous thing to say since everyone has a different amount in their 401k. One person has a half million and another has 10,000 or maybe 1000. Who figures out what the average 401k is ? 

[Puzzle Piece]

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@onewhiteSparrow wrote:

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@Puzzle Piece wrote:

So true.  We still have $4.50 + a gallon gasoline here.  Wouldn't it be something is grocery costs came down. 

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Love Roses,  Our gas is also around $4.50.   I drove for 6 hours today, and millions of cars was on the roads. ugg.    Maybe the gas should go to $10.00 a gallon to get some of the people off the roads.  (kidding)   

I'm glad I got out of oil and gas last year.  This is going to get worse.  A lot of companies are hitting the dust....the dust fall started around one year ago.  It has not been this bad for over 30 years.  

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The drilling is down so jobs will be lost. Costing more to drill where the co. are drilling so it's not profitable.   If you live in CA you know that people here HAVE to drive from place to place.  The cities/towns were laid out that way.  Also, many are not actual citizens (if you know what I mean).  They use the roads to run from one task, job, to another.  Also they come from large extened families so they taverse back and forth to visit.  Our traffic reflects this. 

Most of what we pay in gasoline/tires, goes to taxes added to each gallon/tire for unneccesary programs that the politicians use to keep themselves in office.  We have the inmates running the assylum.  

[151949]

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@june22 wrote:

The last big crash, we lost  $75,000.  $3,000 sounds like peanuts.

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 As soon as the last one started in 2008 we cashed all our funds out and put them into a CD - the interest was low so we didn't make much but , in the end of it all, we only lost $7000 so we considered ourselves very fortunate. I would say, right now, today, if I had money I could not afford to lose , invested in the markets I would get it out and put it somewhere totally safe like a CD so I could sleep at night. We have 85% of our savings in municipal bonds just so we don't have to be afraid when the market does all this wonky krap. if we lost the other 15% we would be upset but not financially devistated.

IMO - people who are working for a living and can't afford to lose their savings would do well to take the money they have in their 401K out every so often and place it somewhere safer than the stock market. You may not gain as much but you also don't lose , and you sleep better knowing your savings is safe. 

[Burnsite]

The Dow is up about 340 points and has recovered some of the lost ground, but it's still down about 9% for the year: 7.8% of that happened in the last five days, though.

I have always kept about half my savings in safer places, but with all the ups and downs, the equities have done about twice as well. 2001 and 2007-8 were extended times of anxiety, but the value did rebuild. 

I have more holdings in equities than most people my age, but (if my health stays OK) I don't intend to retire for a while yet. 

I think the market always seems to get a little unhinged in the last months of each year.

ETA:  I agree that once grocery prices go up, they are slow to go down--but I think the recent surge had less to do with gas and transportation costs than with the drought, which reduced the quantity and quality of produce and grain-fed animals.

[Laura14]

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@151949 wrote:

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@Lipstickdiva wrote:

I saw a crawler this morning that because of the low price of oil, gas prices COULD drop to below $2.00/gallon by late fall.  Our's hasn't come down even a cent so far.  LOL

I also saw that the average 401K lost about $3,000.00 in all of this.   

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A ridiculous thing to say since everyone has a different amount in their 401k. One person has a half million and another has 10,000 or maybe 1000. Who figures out what the average 401k is ? 

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Average 401K amounts are calculated and released by the different portfolio banks and firms like Vanguard etc...

And if you really do have all of your savings in the stock market and are depending on it for living expenses, please redistribute and take money that's necessary for your lifestyle and put it into safer investments like money markets etc.  A good rule of thumb is that only money that you do not plan to touch for at least 10 years should be in the market so you can ride out corrections like these.

I'm personally glad stocks went on sale Friday and Monday.  Now when the market comes back and the US market always does, we're all going to make back our losses and then some.  With the interest rates non-existent, it's the best savings plan around.    

[Puzzle Piece]

I have a belief of sort.  Seems like almost every election (like wht's coming up) the market is at some crisis to make one side look better than the other.  Very predictable and this time it involved the world.