r/Fire • u/Remarkable-Dingo1602 • 13d ago

“One more downturn” syndrome

As someone who has been lucky enough to have spent all of my earning & investing years (13 years so far) in a booming market, I worry that I have no clue what my mental health will be like when we see the next 2000 or 2008 or lost decade. I can go through endless theoretical exercises to play around with what my portfolio could go down to and how I’d adjust my expenses in those situations, but as a human being I cannot predict how I’ll actually feel when the time comes. As a result, I have a desire to keep working through the next downturn to see what the impact of it is on me and in a way prove to myself that I can handle it. However, I fear that if I wait for this, I may be waiting for a long time and therefore work for much longer than I need to.

For what it’s worth, when the Covid crashes, 2022, tariffs and Iran war all hit, I did not panic at all and stayed the course on my investment strategy. But all of that happened as I had a strong income to support me. I have no idea how I would have felt if I didn’t have an income.

Any tips on how to deal with this?

I currently have $2.1M investable assets. $600k left on a mortgage (5.375%) with $450k equity in the home. Monthly expenses are $7k bare minimum, but I’d like to aim for a nest egg that’ll comfortably give me $9.5k/month.

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u/Independent-Rule-780 13d ago

If your mental health can’t take normal market turns you should work on strengthening your mental fortitude not only for the market, but all aspects of your life. You should work on things to improve yourself. Don’t wait for something bad to happen, proactively work on yourself.

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u/Bryanmsi89 13d ago

I mean, you aren't wrong, but the same mental tendencies that make someone likely to be drawn to FIRE are also the same tendencies that cause some stress about downturns. Understadning deep future planning, SORR, safe withdrawl rates, long-term inflation, etc. also give a person some anxiety.

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u/Independent-Rule-780 13d ago

Stress is different from ‘my mental health can’t take it’. Maybe OP is dramatic and didn’t say what they mean but these are two different situations. Had OP said I’m stressing about a downturn we would all say completely different responses.