The most common question I hear right now is "should I keep putting money into my 401k or 403b? It has lost 40% or more and I will just lose the money I put in. Why should I keep adding money to it?"
Yes, you should keep your contributions going into your tax deferred accounts. You can change your allocation within the account and have your new contributions go into a safe choice. You might have a money market option or a guaranteed cash option - something that does not have market risk. Choose that and continue to save for your retirement. Now, more than ever, we need to continue to save for our own retirement.
Our government is burdened with tremendous debt, taken on to bail us out of this financial mess. That debt load may impact Social Security for those under 60. I don't think they have a chance of taking away benefits from those people that are already near or over age 60 but the rest of us are subject to changes in our full retirement age and/or benefits we may have been depending on.
Remember that your taxable income is reduced, thus reducing the income taxes you pay, when you defer income into your 401k or 403b, 457 or SEP IRA account. Keep putting away the most you can save. We need to become a nation of savers once again.
Sandy