Neweek has an article from earlier this year on how to survivie the economic downturn. The article has some good points to follow in difficult financial times. Surviving the Crunch

Leave your retirement account alone. Chances are you're already in diversified mutual funds that will moderate your losses. "Don't sell into this market," says Jane King of Fairfield Financial Advisors in Wellesley, Mass. Rather, keep buying into the market by continuing your regular weekly and monthly contributions. You might even ramp them up a bit, especially if you're a decade or more away from spending that money.

Jigger your other investments. If you own stocks and bonds outside of your tax-deferred retirement accounts, it's a good time to sell some shares on bad days and lock in losses. If you don't want to be out of the market, reinvest the money in other stocks, bonds and funds. Don't buy the same shares back for at least 31 days, to avoid running afoul of tax rules. What about the bank stocks? It's too late to sell early, and some might recover very quickly once all of Washington's confidence-building measures take hold.

Pay down costly debts. Get very aggressive about paying down high-cost debt. That includes credit cards, variable home-equity lines of credit and most car loans. "That's one of the best investments you can make," says Atlanta-based financial adviser David Hultstrom. Look at it this way: paying off a 7 percent loan is a sure-fire, tax-free 7 percent return. That's impossible to beat in this market.

Stretch out cheap debts. Don't make extra payments on your mortgage if it's a fixed-rate loan under 6 percent. That's a handy loan to have; instead, use your extra cash to build up that emergency fund.

Stash your cash safely. In tough times like this, that emergency cash should go into an FDIC-backed bank money market account. For yield, you can look to the online banks like zionsbank.com and ingdirect.com.

Avoid the urge to get more adventuresome with your investments as a way to make back losses. Foreign stocks have boomed, but they're still moving down with the U.S. markets. And now that the dollar is at an all-time low against the euro and sinking in Asia, too, you're paying a lot for those foreign shares.

Hunt for bargains. If you thought you were a couple of years away from buying a house, you might start looking now, says Hultstrom, because loans are cheap and it's a buyers market. Study stocks to see whether there are some good companies getting beaten down along with the troubled ones.

Put that 401(k) statement away. Just because you can watch your retirement fund in real time doesn't mean you should. Individual investors usually do themselves more harm than good by reacting to each hour's economic news. Just do what you're supposed to in a recession: tighten the belt, pay down the bills, salt away cash and keep investing for the next upturn of the economic cycle. And don't waste time worrying.