Will you be prepared when the economic climate changes?

As seen in The Oakland Press

January 11th, 2026

Will you be prepared when the economic climate changes?

by Ken Morris

Inclement weather has negatively impacted a lot of people during the holidays. From delayed flights to white knuckle driving, weather created much havoc. We need to anticipate the unpredictable and plan accordingly. Hasn’t the weatherman often warned us to give ourselves plenty of extra time?

For years, I’ve volunteered on the northern Michigan ski slopes. Recently, and for the first time I can recall, the wind was so powerful the resorts temporarily shut down the chair lifts. The weatherman had forecasted high winds. But many skiers were totally unprepared and needed to visit the ski shop for face masks and assorted warm gear.

It’s the same with investing. The economic climate impacts the investment world, and as the weatherman warned, you need plenty of time to react. Unfortunately, too many people don’t take the time to plan. Even those that do often set their parameters for economic forecasts too high and are unprepared for anything less than optimal.

Did any of us anticipate a pandemic or the inflation that followed? Maybe some did. And yet, even many that were taken by surprise were prepared and their finances held up just fine. I hope you were among them.

As we move into a new year, I want to remind everyone that doesn’t have an emergency cash reserve to start building one. Don’t just wish you had $2,000 for the unforeseen. Come up with a plan to achieve it. To reach a goal of $2,000, you need to save $166 per month. Roughly $40 a week, or less than $6 per day, an amount feels more attainable.

Once you have a financial reserve, your work isn’t done. Keep adding to it as best you can. You may need it because the world is not like a precise oven where if you bake something at 400 degrees it comes out perfect in 30 minutes. But real life doesn’t follow directions. It’s unpredictable. Unexpected things happen and the economic world is impacted by a multitude of events, domestic and global.

If you retired at the end of 2025 because you thought your nest egg was good enough, I’d be concerned. For many investors, 2025 was a financial high water mark. You shouldn’t measure your next 20-30 years based on that. If you’re cutting it that close, just a slight retreat in values could do irreparable damage to your finances.

Electric Vehicles are a good example of a policy change that impacts finances. Years ago, everyone who bought an EV was eligible for a tax credit. That credit was soon reduced to only those under a certain income threshold. Today there’s no tax credit at all. Consequently, our automakers have shifted their focus away from the EV market. The elimination of the tax credit changed consumer behavior and the analyst outlook for future stock prices. One change can cause a lot of dominoes to fall.

We’re living in a fast-paced world that’s constantly changing. I used to say that if a rock hits the water halfway across the world, we will eventually feel the ripple here. Today, I can say that when there’s a software glitch halfway around the world, we feel the ripple effect in a matter of milliseconds. The world is moving that fast. Don’t let it leave you behind.