By: PanzerGrenadier I was laid up with the flu-bug over the last few days and spent one whole day resting in bed to allow my body to recuperate. When you are sick, you need to rest so that your body can recover. When you are tired, you need to take a break, so that you can regain your energy to do your work. When the market goes to pieces, like it has now, you need to take a break from the market and pause and reflect on what you need to do to fight another day. I am heartened to see my poll (on the left) showed that most of you, my dear readers, are able to survive as 60% are coping. But 18% were frank enough to admit that “die already” or that the situation is indeed that bad. Only 5% managed to make money off this market by shorting it and it represented only 2 out of 40 respondents. How do you live to fight another day? In order to survive this turmoil, you should first examine your own state of finances. Not knowing your own assets and liabilities in terms of your finances makes you more scared than you should be. Listing them down helps you establish if you in a net asset or net liability position. After you have done that, if you are in a net asset position, congratulations! But remember, times like these when asset values drop and the global economy uncertain, jobs and businesses could be affected. Do consider how your net assets should be sufficiently liquid, i.e. in cash and money you can withdraw at short notice in case of emergencies. Most personal finance books advocate 3-6 months of expenses as your emergency fund or liquid funds for situations like this. If you are in a net liability position, it’s not all bad if your main liabilities are your housing loan and car loan as these tend to be longer term loans at interest rates that are still affordable. However, if your net liability position is made up of unsecured credit, i.e. rollover credit card and personal credit card balances unpaid, then you should strive to pay them off as soon as possible. Read more...