There are many vehicles for saving money, but few are as flexible as a Roth IRA. One can have retirement savings, emergency money, and college savings in one convenient place.

Those with a well-functioning crystal ball sold all their stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies at the beginning of this year. For everyone else, there haven’t been many places to hide. After last year’s tranquility, we are being reminded daily that investments can, in fact, decline in value. These periods can paralyze investors with fear, so it is a valuable exercise to step back and assess the situation objectively.

Death and taxes, as we all know, are the inevitabilities in life. We spend a lot of time and energy avoiding the former and almost as much mental capital trying to prevent the latter. But should we? As unpleasant as they are, taxes are born out of a successful endeavor where we earned or won money in some form. That being said, you should still be “tax-aware” with your finances to minimize the drag that taxes have on your bottom line. After all, we don’t want to line Uncle Sam’s pockets unnecessarily.

Well, that was not the start we were hoping for after a strong 2021. After closing at an all-time high on the first trading day of the year, we saw nearly uninterrupted selling across all sections of the US market. Unpleasant? Yes. Unexpected? No.

Patience is a virtue. It is natural to want to see instant progress while watching nature do its thing. We have all been guilty of squatting down to examine the soil, waiting for the first seedling to sprout. Now imagine someone who checked their garden every ten minutes for progress. It would look ridiculous.

The rogue thunderstorm blowing into this situation is the standoff between Russia and the West by way of Ukraine. I don’t pretend to be an expert in geopolitical matters, so I won’t attempt to forecast the outcome. However, plenty of investors are taking measures to protect their portfolios from any escalation on that front, which shows in the daily price moves. This isn’t the first flare-up of hostilities, and it certainly won’t be the last. Before hitting that sell button, think about all the prior occurrences and the related outcomes.