Ramit Sethi says don't sell during market turmoil, build a 12-month emergency fund instead of 3 months, and get angry about tariffs driving unnecessary disruption. Stay invested for the long term while you prepare for chaos.
12 months (speaker contrasts this with a three‑month fund as insufficient).
Wow, this stock market. Let me tell you what I'm doing about it. First off, in times like this, this is where people make very bad decisions that have life altering ramifications. If you get nervous and you see 3, 4, 5 days, 10 days of bad news, it is very tempting for people who even think they are disciplined investors to get too scared and sell. My suggestion is be very cautious about taking any rash move. I would not sell. I am not selling. I invest for the long term. I recommend you do the same. The second thing is I'm building up a big war chest and I recommend you do the same. If you don't have an emergency fund, you better get your ass in gear and get one. That means cutting discretionary spending now before the world forces you to. If you have a three month one, that's not enough, in my opinion, I would recommend a 12 month emergency fund. That's the same recommendation I made during COVID Why am I making as extreme of a recommendation as I did during they got a 12 month emergency fund? That brings me to the third point, which is you should be fucking pissed at what's going on. There is no reason that the market had to drop in such a dramatic, scary way as it did, except for Trump wanting to institute these stupid tariffs that make no sense whatsoever. And that means that your parents are freaking out right now. That means that companies are looking around and countries and saying there's too much risk. I'm going to charge more to America, I'm going to button down, I'm going to lay people off. And that is scary. That is why you should be pissed. There's no reason. It's not Covid. This is not a housing crisis. It's simply someone saying, I want to make my mark and take control and probably get bribes as I make exceptions for tariffs. Those are the three things I'm thinking about.
