Financial Crash Perspectives
Hello all,
I'm curious to hear from physicians / CRNAs / other high earners who were already established during the 2008 crash and recovery.
For context: I’m a CRNA in my mid-late 30s. with just shy of $1 million invested at this point in the typical mixture of pre/post tax vehicles. All low cost indexes. Nothing cute. My base-case income is around $350k/yr with a mix of W2/1099, but I have the ability to flex that above $400k if/when it actually makes sense to work more. Debts include our modest home at 3%, an investment piece of land (read - no income) at 3% and a new car loan at 1%. No revolving credit.
That said, I feel like I am secure enough in my job and have the stomach to weather a downturn, but I've never had this much skin in the game. I’ve never actually lived through something like 2008 as an adult with substantial money invested, a mortgage, kids, and a career producing this kind of income.
I’m not really asking “what should I do if the market crashes?” I know the standard answer. Keep liquidity, don’t panic, keep buying, etc.
I want to hear what it was actually like for those of you who were in a similar position to mine during our last major downturn. I'm excluding 2020 and 2022 simply because of their brevity.
I'm hoping to hear from those of you who were in a similar position in 2008-2012. That would be those who had high income, were still working and building wealth, but were not yet financially independent or ready to punch out of work entirely
Did your income stay stable? Did you lose hours, bonuses, cases, reimbursement, or even your job?
Did you actually keep investing aggressively while the market was getting crushed, or was that much harder psychologically when financial institutions were failing and nobody knew where the bottom was?
Did you increase your workload because suddenly the extra cash was more valuable?
Were you able to take advantage of cheap stocks, real estate, land, businesses, etc.?
And looking back now, did you ultimately come out of 2008 better off because you had a high income and could keep buying assets at depressed prices? Did the losses, career uncertainty, housing market, or something else set you back more than people like me probably appreciate looking backward? I was just graduating high school and knew everything was scary, but I had nothing really to lose and my family wasn't in a position to lose or gain much either.
I’d especially like to hear from people who had young families, mortgages, and maybe somewhere around the equivalent of a high six-figure / low seven-figure portfolio today. Doing very well, but still very dependent on earned income.
If you’re comfortable sharing rough numbers, I’d love to hear how things went for you.
Lastly: Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?
Long post, I know. Thank you for coming to my TED [question].