A Sign the Economy is Not Turning Around

Holy Crap, the town of Wake Forest is being sold!

401K equal Zero

With Wall Street in turmoil and the Stock Market doing it's best Kamakazi impersonation I had no desire to look at my 401K plan. This is the first job where I actually make enough to put money in and not have to eat Ramaen Noodles for a month. I heard the horror stories from the others in the newsroom and knew that at times it was at a 26% loss and I had to be around that number.

Then today I get an email from Fidelity with this message in giant letters:

Thoughts on investing in a volatile marketplace.

Holy crap, this can't be good? They are telling me not to panic, but I am panicking! Oh crap oh crap oh crap! I asked around if this was bad, and The Serg said I should not look at my portfolio. Of course what do I do, I log on and find out I've lost 36.5% of my portfolio.

To put this in to prospective; I've lost everything I have put into my 401K in the past year plus $300. I'm not as bad off as some of the people in the station, but how am I going to make this back? I did a little bit of changing, like drop all of my company stock (hasn't made money since I've been here) and took some of the riskier investments and put into simple bonds that will make money. I know I am young and can be and need to be a little risky, but I can't ever have this happen again. To loss a years worth of work when I could have used that money to... I don't know pay off credit cards or make a house payment.