Weekend Reading: Facing Financial Fears in 2022

This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.
Weekend reading facing financial fears Weekend reading facing financial fears
Weekend Reading

Do you have a plethora of financial fears on your plate at the moment? Amongst uncertainty of today’s economic climate plus geopolitical conflict, it’s easy to find yourself battling a new financial frustration daily.

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However, here is some context (and even good news) on the top three concerns many pre-retirees and retirees are experiencing:

📌 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: The events unfolding in Ukraine have sparked global unrest, and as we see gas prices soar here in the U.S., it appears Ukrainians have begun the process of halting Russia’s progress. Additionally, global conflict such as this tends to have only a short-term impact on the markets (reference the graph in this article to put some of your volatility woes at bay).

📌 Rising interest rates: After a long stretch of low interest rates, conservative fixed income investments are now seeing little growth, and fixed mortgage interest rates have nearly doubled. On the upside, the likelihood of conservative investors seeing growth return is still high.

📌 Inflation: It feels as if you’re paying more for everything because in many instances, that’s exactly the case. On the other hand, wages are up, Social Security benefits received a boost (and expecting another 8.6 percent increase) and lastly, overall net worth for individuals is on the rise.

Not all doom and gloom: Above all, it’s important to remember that for every negative, there is a positive. Even when the market gets pummeled, there will be opportunities for you to uncover if you look hard enough.