You can't control the stock market. But you can control your spending.

Washington Post

08-04-2025

If you have money in the stock market, you've probably been pretty shaken watching some of your money evaporate in the days since President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs went into effect. And even if you aren't an investor, there are plenty of other anxiety-inducing economic forecasts from Trump's latest trade policy, including the likelihood of higher prices, job losses and even a recession. With so much uncertainty, it's hard to know what to do — and not do — in this precarious moment. Michelle Singletary, The Post's personal finance columnist, offered some counsel on Tuesday's Post Reports podcast about what we should all be doing to protect ourselves financially.
Here's an excerpt from our conversation:
Colby Itkowitz: I've been thinking so much about people who are about to retire or have just retired. You're having to give people advice right now. What are you telling them they should do with their retirement accounts?
Michelle Singletary: Well, I am telling them what I'm doing. I'm still working, but my husband is retired. He's coming on two years of retirement. So we had thought about tapping his retirement account. We hadn't had to at this point, but we were thinking about some major projects around our home. And we think, you know, we've got this nice, you know, retirement account, we can pull out money and do these projects. And then this happened. The tariffs happened and we pulled back. And so I am right there with a lot of folks looking at, in my case, my husband's and my retirement account going down daily over the last week or so. But I have to remind myself that we have set ourselves up in a position that we don't have to tap that money. And we also know, hopefully if we stay healthy, that we have another 20 or 30 years to live off this money. And so even though this is a moment in time where it is so scary, we wouldn't take all that money out at one time anyway. And so I'm saying to you, if you're in retirement, if you must take money, only take what you absolutely need, because you don't want to lock in more losses than you have to. And hopefully you have some savings set aside for a time like this. So you should have money in the market, bonds and stocks, and some cash, and those of us who've saved really well, we don't want to touch that cash because you know that's our emergency money. Well guess what, folks, this is an emergency, and so touch the cash first. See how you can do on that, and hopefully if you're retired you've got Social Security coming in, or maybe a pension or some other fixed income. You've got maybe some CDs and hopefully you have reduced your debts to little or nothing and that you've got manageable expenses so that you can give yourself some time to ride this out. Everyone else who's got 10 years, 15, 20 years, 30 years, you have time on your side, so you can afford to ride out. I was in church on Sunday and my 24-year-old, who my husband and I have been trying to encourage to put money in the market, not related to her retirement so she could save for that car she's going to get in 10 years — cause, you know, we teach our kids to keep their cars forever — and she says to me at church, she says, 'Mom, should I still put money in a market that you were telling me about now?' And I sent, I text her back two words: Yes, ma'am.
Colby Itkowitz: You anticipated my next question, Michelle, which is, if you're younger, if you're in your 20s, 30s, or early 40s, and you're now thinking, 'Oh, I don't want to risk putting my money in the stock market.' What is your advice to them? And it sounds like you told your daughter to keep investing, so why keep investing?
Michelle Singletary: Well, because, as I said, there's time on their hands. And listen, right now, there are going to be paper losses. She'll put money in, and it will lose some of its value. But over time, we know, historically, and I have to keep saying that, because past results is not indicative of future results, however, the market has had a habit of working a certain kind of way all the time. And so what we told our 24-year-old is that you've got decades to see this go up and down and over time. You're going to see if you have a balanced portfolio returns of eight to 10 percent — good solid returns help you keep past inflation — and that's a good place to be. People are panicking. I get it. You don't want to see any more losses, although, when you do sell, now you're going to lock in those losses.
Michelle also had some tough love for younger people who might be reluctant to scale back their lives.
Colby Itkowitz: You know, for young people who, like you said, have just lived through the pandemic, I imagine there's going to be some bitterness at the suggestion that they should kind of put the fun things in their life on hold, right? They basically had to put a lot of those things on hold during the pandemic. They're starting to live again. And now we're saying, 'No, no no. Don't do that vacation. Don't go out to eat at that restaurant.' What do you say to them?
Michelle Singletary: Welcome to the adult world. I mean, you know, it's actually not a time to grow up. It's just — this is the reality. And we, as adults, unlike children, children who can't get what they want, they fall to the floor and kick their little heels because they don't understand. 'Why can't I have that, mommy? Why can't I have that, daddy?' But now that you're a young adult, you've got bills to pay. You have to save for retirement. You have to save for an emergency fund. Maybe you've got young children yourselves. You have put your adult hat on and say, 'You know what? I wish I could eat out, but I can't.' And I understand it, right? I get it, but this is the reality that we're in right now.
Listen to the full episode here: