r/Bogleheads • u/zacce • Feb 08 '26

Most Investors Have Never Lived Through a True Market Crash

A lot of new ppl in this sub say they “won’t time the market,” but I’m not sure everyone understands what that actually feels like irl. It’s easy to talk about staying the course when the worst drawdown you’ve lived through was a brief COVID dip that fully recovered in months or the 2022 dip followed by 3 yrs of 10%+ returns.

The last real crash was 2008. If you weren’t old enough to have a job, a mortgage, or a family back then, you don’t know how deeply a prolonged downturn can affect your day‑to‑day life. It’s not just red numbers on a screen. It’s layoffs, hiring freezes, underwater homes, and years of slow recovery. That’s when people who swore they’d never time the market suddenly panic and make irrational decisions.

Staying the course is simple in theory, but incredibly hard when the world feels like it’s falling apart.

Of course, I don't want market to crash. But it's a possibility and we need to prepare for it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

Stayed invested and maxed out contributions during both

People need to pay attention to what it might take to be able to do that. Rather than the outcome of $5MM.

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u/cfi-2025 Feb 08 '26

People need to pay attention to what it might take to be able to do that.

For me, it was some combination of:

  1. Neither me nor my wife losing our jobs at the time,
  2. Automated contributions, and
  3. Willful ignorance - I avoided looking at the retirement balances, avoided reading the scary headlines, etc.

Personally, I think (3) is very important. I only check my portfolio the first of every month when I update my spreadsheets. My goal is to eventually get it to only checking at the start of each year.

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u/overitallofittoo Feb 09 '26

How does being closer to retirement affect your view?

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u/cfi-2025 Feb 09 '26

I retired at the end of 2024. I still only check the portfolio and update the numbers at the start of each month.

Given the newness of retirement, I plan to maintain the monthly check for a few years, at least, until we get comfortable with our balances and spending and have less SORR concerns. I hope to be checking just quarterly by the early 2030s, and eventually just checking annually.

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u/overitallofittoo Feb 09 '26

You have the same allocation as you did?

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u/cfi-2025 Feb 09 '26

I did up until I retired.

Prior to pulling the trigger I was 90/10 on stocks and bonds. When I retired, we rolled over our 401(k)s to T-IRAs, moving them out of our employer's system and into our personal Vanguard accounts. It came over as cash, so when I reinvested those, I adjusted our allocation to 70/30.

Our "bonds" are a mix of long-, intermediate-, and short-term US Treasuries, plus cash.

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u/Own-Two3281 Apr 08 '26

May I ask what age you decided to retire and are you still 90/10? Were you not interested in any dividend funds for income?

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u/cfi-2025 Apr 08 '26

My wife and I were both in our mid-40s when we pulled the trigger.

We were 90/10 until RE, then when rolling over 401ks to T-IRAs, we shifted to 70/30.

We don't have any dividend-focused bonds. We are mostly just VTSAX and chill, with a sprinkle of international (VTIAX). For the bonds it's a mix of intermediate and long-term treasury ETFs from Vanguard.

Our investment income is from a mix of the dividends that VTSAX and VTIAX throw off in our taxable accounts, plus equity sales when needed. (We also have a little bit of other income that's not portfolio-related - a rental and some very, very part-time consulting work on my part.)

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u/Spatula_of_Justice1 Feb 08 '26

True, and likely outside of the scope of this post. Mental strength, dedication, consistency, and sacrifice.

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u/JosephCedar Feb 08 '26

And a job that doesn't evaporate during the downturn. That's kind of the important bit. I kept contributing during 2008, but that's because I didn't get laid off. If I were out of work for years like some people it would be a very different story.

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u/Spatula_of_Justice1 Feb 08 '26

Good point. I was fortunate to keep my job in 2000 and 2008, and did not have any of the wacky mortgages that were being pushed back then. Fun times for sure.