Well then. Where to begin?
Obviously there's been some dramatic changes to the financial landscape, and that was all just in March. Who knows how much longer we will suffer this new era of distancing?
Retirement equities were hard hit, but that's the beauty of holding for another 25+ years. There's no reason to sweat it. As proposed in the last update, I've been steadily taking cash from the SEP and buying into index funds each time the market sizably dropped, and now I'm sitting at 45/5/50 (equity/bonds/cash). I will continue to adjust as necessary until we're back on an upward trend.
Oh but wait, there's more! Due to the crazy interest rates, I pulled the trigger on a home refinance at the beginning of March, and locked in a 20-year @ 3.125% (at ZERO cost!), quite a stark improvement from the current 30-year @ 4.0%. Since I'm already 10 years into the current loan, the endgame remains the same, but my mortgage payment drops around $120/month, and I'll be saving almost $2,000 in interest for the first year. It hasn't closed yet, but should be happening soon, and won't have a mortgage payment for May. That will help in the padding department.
What else? Virus or no virus, this was the most profitable month I've had in a long time, income-wise. Although my church has shut down for now, I was still able to do some paid musical work for them, plus a ton of other side jobs in addition to the normal salary, all with a sizable tax refund to top it off. These jumps don't come around too often, and with the headwinds the economy in general is facing, it might be a while before I see this again.
Lastly, a maturing CD will be thrown into the Fidelity brokerage. If stocks reach a (low) point where they start looking attractive, I want to make sure I'm on hand to take the ride back up. I've never dealt in stocks before, but this seems like a decent opportunity to jump in and get my feet wet.
It is definitely going to be a rough April globally, and maybe even longer, but I have confidence we'll come out the other side of this thing and back into prosperity.
Eventually. |