Hey readers,

The market rollercoaster ride continues. 🎢 

In good news, I’m excited about our EPIC line-up of upcoming Community Spotlights. Ex-bank COO, national record holder in powerlifting, AI consultancy founder, product managers, content writers, and more.

We’re booked 2 months out. If you’d like to share your story, reply soon!

Today, in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 💰 5 moves I'm making with my money right now

• 📊 Asset allocation I'm maintaining through the volatility

• 🎢 The expensive mistake I made in 2020 (and won't repeat)

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💎 Last Week’s Gems

• 🏖️ If you’re close to retirement, then last week was tough. But the data reveals surprising insights. Here’s what happened if you withdrew 4% on the eve of the crash of 1929.

• 🛍️ Shopify CEO published an internal memo saying they’ve made it a requirement that ANY new hire must be justified by proving AI can’t do the job better. Aka brace yourselves.

• 💼 Elena Verna, ex-VP Growth at Dropbox and Surveymonkey published a viral piece on why she thinks the future of full-time employment is changing:

⚔️ Surviving today's volatile markets

The S&P 500 dropped 10.5% in just 2 days.

That was the fifth worst 2-day period for the stock market since 1950.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel painful looking at the red in my accounts.

What am I doing in response?

In this edition, I’m going to walk through exactly what I’m doing right now financially as a Coast FIRE solopreneur and why.

Let’s get into it:

What I’m doing right now

My wife is employed full-time and I’m a solopreneur. No kids.

For the most part, we’re sticking to our financial plan:

• Increasing from 9-month to 12-month emergency fund

• Keeping investments in the market

• Maintaining asset allocation according to our plan

• Investing monthly towards retirement

• Contributing to a 529 (college), K-12, and family fund

• Rebalancing where it makes sense

Not predicting the future. Not making rash decisions.

Whether markets rise or fall, our household is still progressing towards our life goals.

This doesn’t mean I don’t think the world is changing. Or that our plan shouldn’t adapt to a potentially more uncertain future.

Our financial plan should be pressure-tested against reality, tailored to our lives, and updated periodically.

Just not as a knee-jerk reaction to the market drop.

I learned this the hard way in March 2020.

My expensive mistake during COVD

I sold a portion of my US stocks while COVID battered the market.

Then once the market recovered, I got back into the market too late, missing out on thousands of dollars of gains.

I know, I know. Classic market timing mistake. I reacted emotionally.

Since then, I’ve put more time and energy into making a good plan.

It’s been worth it.

Here are the building blocks I laid out earlier:

1/ Increase to a 12-month emergency fund

Last year, we had a 6-month emergency fund, but I no longer think it’s enough given potentially more uncertainty.

Our income is healthy right now, but I want to be prepared in case shit hits the fan.

Furthermore, I expect continued challenges in the tech hiring market.

Product Manager job openings are still down ~90% since March 2023. I foresee companies following Shopify CEO’s lead in asking for new hiring to be justified to be better than AI.

In a worst-case scenario, I have no issue with going back to a full-time role (as part of my portfolio career). But I also don’t want to take a role I’d regret due to limited runway.

A 12-month reserve helps us build have more flexibility.

2/ Maintain a globally diversified asset allocation

Our portfolio has been a mix of US and non-US investments for years.

But the recent events confirmed why we prefer international diversification.

While US equities have outperformed over the last decade, I can’t predict what will happen in the next decade (or the 30 years prior to “retirement age”).

Here is our rough household portfolio mix: