Thanks for the clarification marcusverus. > Don't forget the other adage--Don't time the market. I did mean to to imply trying to time the market. The comment

Thanks for the clarification marcusverus. > Don't forget the other adage--Don't time the market. I did mean to to imply trying to time the market. The commenter wrote "Your advice might be okay for good times (investing, buying land, houses)." To me this says that it's OK to invest in good times but not bad. This in fact boils down t a form of attempted market timing—and the worst kind at that! Of course you should buy when times are good, but should also not stop buying when times are bad. If anything, bad times should be viewed as an opportunity. Hopefully you've prepared well to be in a position to take advantage! > Having a year of expenses is good practice in general. I'm not sure that qualifies one as ready for actual hard times at a societal level--not just a stint of unemployment, but global depression, accelerating price inflation, or even general European war and the rationing that could follow. I also did not intend to imply that having a years worth of expenses qualifies as preparation for "actual hard times." I was responding to the above comment, not the OP. That said, a year of expenses could be stretched for an awfully long time if needed. > There are ways to save that protect you (somewhat) from inflation. Like short term bonds (ex: from treasurydirect.gov). Naturally. This is an investment, which you should not avoid. We are saying the same thing. The only difference is that the commenter does not recognize debt as being good in some cases, but I would argue that not all debt is dangerous. If that were the case our economy would cease to function! > Unless there is some full-proof investment scheme that you're aware of, this would essentially be gambling. If you take on debt and your profit-generating scheme fails (which is certainly possible in the "hard times" scenario that OP has envisioned), then you're worse off--you've got debt to service, on top of everything else. No fool-proof scheme, and not gambling. If you have made solid investments, including those based on debt, and have given yourself enough runway to ride out hard-times (and of course this includes your debt repayments), then you should have no reason to panic or feel burdened.