There are very few things I can definitively tell my friends “you should do that thing” when it comes to money, and vice versa them to me. I was recently asked by a two different friends: “Should I buy iBonds? 7-10% interest is really good!”. I started laying out all of the different questions I asked myself to determine if those iBonds are appropriate for my situation. I shared the thought process with my friends. When a friend says you should do something specific with your money, you don't directly know their circumstances that led to that decision being the right one for them. In many cases “7-10% interest is really good" was the only reason (and it's not a good enough reason for me). I will use this blog to walk through specific money decisions I might need to make, the questions I ask, how the answers map to a decision, and the opportunity costs of one option over another. If you've ever asked yourself “Should I....?” about a money decision, I hope this exercise gives you some more direction for your own situation.

I am not an economist. I cannot predict if we have entered or will enter a recession. But it's hard to ignore the news talking about it (I call it "noise"). Recently I have been approached by a friend who is considered selling their house in order to "take the money and run". So the question became: with the tides turning, mortgage interest rates rising, demand dropping, supply rising, and price cuts increasing, should they hold off on selling the house until the economy turns around? Read on to learn my case study response from the 2008 recession.