I hit $3 million and was ready to retire – then the market dropped and now I’m rethinking everything

A Reddit poster started a thread recently in response to the stock market chaos.

The poster commented that he had $3 million invested, which would have been enough for him to retire and cover his spending needs. His only remaining step before leaving work was to pay off his mortgage in full. However, after President Trump announced widespread tariffs and the stock market dropped, the poster found that his portfolio was down to $2.7 million and he was afraid the market would fall further.

Of course, the tariffs were paused and stocks started to bounce back, but there’s still a lingering threat of tariffs coming back in the future. There’s also a great deal of economic chaos going on right now, including many experts warning of a recession. 

In light of what’s been happening, the Redditor said he is rethinking everything. Here’s why.

How market volatility caused a Redditor to reconsider early retirement

The Redditor explained exactly why he was reconsidering his position.

For one thing, he is part of the FIRE Movement, which stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early.

He said that while many people set target retirement ages, people in the FIRE movement set target portfolio numbers. Unfortunately, he believes this is “inherently riskier” because you’re biased towards being exposed to risk as long as possible to help your wealth grow quickly — unlike people who usually rebalance their portfolios and shift to safer assets as their retirement age nears. 

He also said that when his portfolio was doing well, he found his job harder to cope with, but once the market started to crash, he began to see new purpose in his work. Plus, he was upset by seeing his portfolio decline in value so much, even though he knows that there are normal fluctuations in the market.

Lastly, because of his uncertainty about what’s happening, he said he is redirecting all of his available funds towards early mortgage payoff instead of buying more stocks. 

Is the Redditor right to be concerned about what’s going on?

The Reddit poster here seems to be falling into a trap that many people do: He’s looking at short-term losses that happened only on paper, and he is panicking. 

The fact is that the market goes down, and then it goes up. This is inevitable. If you are invested in reliable assets, then you just have to wait out the downturns. This is why you should have some money in assets outside of equities — so you have funds to rely on during bad times and don’t have to sell your stocks and lock in losses.

As another commentator on Reddit said, the original poster is also making a short-sighted choice by using his spare dollars to pay down his mortgage right now instead of buying more stocks. It’s ideal to buy when the market goes down if you have the money to do so, because you are effectively getting good stocks on sale when that happens.

The bottom line is, the Redditor doesn’t seem like he’s ready for early retirement, not because his portfolio balance declined, but because he needs to learn a little bit more about how to effectively manage his asset allocation and investment strategy.

Talking with a financial advisor is probably his best move as he can get professional advice on what amount he needs to retire, how his assets should be allocated, and when he should be moving money into the market. With this advice, he can make the most of the nest egg he’s already saved and ensure that when he retires, he’s in the right financial place to have a lifetime of security.

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