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If you watch any economic news, youve probably seen economists biting their nails while raising the alarm about the dreaded R-word: recession. These financial experts are so terrified of a potential recession that they refer to it obliquely, in the same superstitious way your Great-Aunt Esther used to whisper the word cancer. But refusing to call a recession by its name does not reduce financial panic, improve the stock market, or even make julienne fries: It just makes a recession seem like an unstoppable force coming to ruin our lives, which is simply not true. While there isnt much that an individual can do to avert a recession, theres plenty you can do to shore up your personal finances to prepare for one. Heres how you can protect yourself and your finances in case a recession materializes this year. What is a recession anyway? Since economists talk about recessions in the same frightened tones that teens in 80s slasher movies discuss Freddy Krueger, its easy to assume a recession is the economic equivalent of sudden death. But a recession is a specific and definable economic condition, not a terrifying supernatural monster. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) describes a recession as a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months. Although other economic experts may define a recession using slightly different terms or metrics, there are economic indicators that all recessions typically share. These indicators include a falling stock market, a reduction in consumer spending, and widespread cost-cutting within businesses, which often includes layoffs. All in all, its not greatbut it is survivable. How to recession-proof your money There are several important steps you can take to prepare yourself and your finances for a potential recession. Whats even better is that these strategies will benefit you even if the recession never comes. Determine your baseline expenses Job loss is one of the biggest economic risks an individual might face during a recession. Layoffs are common during recessions and its tough to find a new position when so many businesses are tightening their belts and youre competing with a lot more potential job candidates. Even if youre certain your job is safe, now is a good time to figure out your bare minimum budget needs. How much money do you need each month to keep the lights on and the dog in kibble? Going through this exercise will help you determine your baseline monthly expenditureswhich is a number you need to calculate your emergency fund goal. Emergency fund math Remember how financial experts are constantly harping on the need for an emergency fund equal to three to six months worth of expenses? Most people ignore this advice since it sounds completely unhinged. After all, the average person cant afford to save the equivalent of what they spend in six months. But the common advice about the ideal size of an emergency fund is based on your monthly baseline expenses, not how much you spend per month. In other words, a recession-resistant emergency fund will have enough cash to cover three to six months worth of your bare minimum, keep-the-wolf-from-the-door-and-yes-that-means-cancelling-Netflix expenses. You dont have to have enough set aside to cover your normal spending habits. Once you have calculated your baseline monthly budget, multiply it by three to get your initial emergency fund goal. Having at least three months worth of expenses set aside in an emergency fund can give you the cushion you need in case of a job loss or a pay cut. Pump up your emergency fund If your current emergency fund is looking a little anemic (or non-existent), dont panic! Remember that any amount of money you can set aside now will be helpful if you get a pink slip. Start with an automatic transfer to your savings account with every paycheck. Even as little as $20 per transfer will add up over time. If you get a tax refund this year, use a portion of it to bulk up your savings. And since you have just determined your baseline budget, challenge yourself to cut some of the non-essential costs you identified and put the savings into your emergency fund. Tackle credit card debt The average cardholder is carrying $6,580 in credit card debt, and paying 22.89% interest on that balance. That equates to a minimum monthly payment of over $190 that would take nearly five years to pay off. And it would be an albatross around the neck of anyone struggling financially during a recession. If you are carrying a credit card balance, do what you can to pay it off or pay it down while youre still in relatively good financial shape. If making larger-than-minimum payments to your credit card is out of reach, consider a balance transfer to a 0% interest rate card or taking out a low-interest rate personal loan. Its much easier to quickly pay off a debt when youre not also paying nearly 23% in interest. Identify other sources of ready cash Recessions and layoffs dont arrive at anyones convenience. Thats why its important to put a plan B in place for additional cash now, just in case youre not prepared with a robust emergency fund and paid-off credit card if and when the ax falls. Someone looking to generate cash in a hurry generally can either plan onborrowing money or selling something. But thinking through your options ahead of time can make it possible for you to immediately pull the trigger on your plan if you need it. Some specific ways to prepare might include: Open a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) now that you dont touch unless you need to access cash. Get ready to potentially sell a car by researching its value, gathering the title and other paperwork, and excavating the petrified french fries from under the drivers seat. Identify and prepare items in your home to sell on Facebook Marketplace or the like. Find out if your brokerage allows you to borrow money against your investments. Recession doesnt mean ruin While no one will ever give three hearty cheers for a recession, it doesnt need to be a source of fear. You can prepare your financial house for a recession by calculating your baseline expenses, beefing up your emergency savings, paying down debt, and identifying backup money sources you can tap if your savings arent enough. A recession may not be pleasant, but it is possible to get to the other sideeven if you call it by its full name.
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Earlier this month, Apple officially announced that it would be postponing the launch of some planned Apple Intelligence features to a later, unspecified date in the future. These features mainly revolved around an AI-supercharged Siri. The news of the delay sent the tech press into a frenzy, with many writers criticizing the company for failing to deliver on its promises. Additionally, people speculated that the delay of these features could impact iPhone sales this year. While the criticism is justified, I think the prediction that the delay will impact iPhone sales places too much faith in the appeal of AI. Apple delays new Siri AI features As noted by 9to5Mac, the delayed features include Siri’s ability to understand queries based on personal context (What time does dads train get in?), consider what you are doing on your screen when you ask it to carry out a certain task (Make a reservation at this restaurant), and perform in-app actions (Crop this photo using a square aspect ratio). When the news officially droppedApple made the announcement in a statement to well-known tech blogger John Gruberthere was a big reaction from the tech media, including my colleague Harry McCracken, who wrote a smart response in his newsletter, Plugged In. Reporters and Apple fans alike werent merely disappointed that Apple delayed the features; they were upset that Apple purportedly showcased the features working last yearbut in reality, that demonstration was nothing more than an animated mockup. Theres a name for products like that: vaporware, McCracken said. The tech industry is rife with examples. Apple, in its modern history, has been atypically disciplined about avoiding themwhich makes this incident only more striking. When evaluating Apples actions from this perspective, I agree. You dont expect a company of Apples caliber and market cap of over $3.2 trillion to show off what are essentially just concepts. Other companies, yes, but not Apple. What I dont necessarily agree with is the belief by some Wall Street analysts that Apples delay of some of its AI features will negatively affect iPhone sales in the near termor even into next year, when some of these features are now expected. That argument doesnt make a lot of sense to mefor two big reasons. The average consumer doesnt seem to care about AI smartphone features too much While I know that tech enthusiasts like me seem to care a lot about Apples AI offerings, I dont believe that the same holds true for average consumers (e.g. those who don’t follow tech news or consider tech gadgets to be a very important aspect of their lives). Why do I think that average consumers care so little about Apple Intelligence? Because ever since Apple announced Apple Intelligence last June and rolled it out in October, Ive never met a single person who said Apples new AI platform is why they are planning on buying a new iPhone. Ive had people tell me they bought a new iPhone 16 Pro because of the camera upgrades or because they wanted a bigger screen or a faster device. But not once has anyone ever cited Apple Intelligence as the reason for their purchase. Ive also had people tell me that they can’t wait to buy the iPhone 17 Air, rumored to be released this fall, but only because of its ultra-slim design, not because of Apple Intelligence. It’s not just my anecdotal observations that support my belief. As CNET reported in December 2024, a survey from trade journal SellCell found that 73% of iPhone owners and 87% of Samsung owners said that AI features “add little to no value to their smartphone experiences. This was on top of an earlier CNET survey that found that among the 10 things that motivate consumers to upgrade their smartphone, AI integrations took 7th place, with only 18% of respondents saying it matters (beating out phone color). The most motivating factor spurring upgrades was longer battery life (61%), followed by more storage (46%), camera features (38%), phone display/screen size (32%), keeping the ecosystem (i.e., iOS to iOS, Android to Android) (24%), and a new product release (23%). Meanwhile, in January, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuoone of the most reputable and respected Apple analystspublished a blog post stating that there was no evidence that Apple Intelligence was actually driving hardware upgrade cycles. If Kuo, SellCell, CNET, and my observations are correctand I think they arethen Apples delay of Apple Intelligence features wont have much of an impact on iPhone sales in the near term. The iPhone is already one of the most versatile AI smartphones on the market But lets say I’m wrong. Lets say the average consumer really does care that their smartphone is packed with AI. I still dont think Apples delay of some Apple Intelligence features matters that muchat least when it comes to the delays impact on iPhone sales. Why? Because the iPhone is already a powerful AI smartphoneand it has been for years. Not only are the majority of previously announced Apple Intelligence features already integrated into supported iPhones, but the App Store is filled with hundreds of AI apps, all of which allow you to expand the iPhone’s AI capabilities. These apps include chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity, plus myriad AI image-generation apps, like DaVinci and WOMBO, and AI note-taking apps like Otter. Like other tech enthusiasts, Im looking forward to the complete rollout of Apple Intelligence. But the iPhone doesnt depend on it for its AI capabilities. The iPhone is already a platform on which hundreds of AI apps and services can runand Apples delay in releasing its own AI offerings doesnt change that.
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Ever get a feeling that something isnt right? An internal voice that is trying to tell you something? It could be your intuition bubbling up. Or maybe its anxiety. Or both. Learning to tell the difference between anxiety and intuition can help you determine if that feeling is something you should listen to or address in another way, but its easy to confuse the two. People have become disconnected from their emotions, beliefs, and self-confidence, says intuitive life coach Tammy Adams. They have so much doubt within themselves that they don’t listen to their own intuition. People veer off with fear and live more in anxiety than they do in confidence. Your gut feeling is your intuition, says Adams. It has many different names, she says. I call it our sixth sense. The more you connect to your senses, the more information you get. Anxiety is an alert system, a feeling of apprehension, says Laura Day, a practicing intuitive and author of Practical Intuition: How to Harness the Power of Your Instinct and Make It Work for You. It can be useful momentarily because it makes you pay attention to the data that intuition is providing, she says. That data gives you a blueprint that leads you immediately to the right action or perception. Anxiety has put the spotlight on your intuition, but it is the intuition that is useful, not the anxiety. When anxiety persists after that, it is no longer useful. A test for anxiety Telling the difference between intuition and anxiety is simple, says Adams. If acting on the information makes you feel free, its intuition. If that feeling doesn’t go away, its anxiety. We often create our own anxiety by putting ourselves in negative situations because we’re creatures of habit, she says. True anxiety is not something someone just catches or has. Its been built up. The only time that anxiety would persist in an intuitive paradigm is if a boundary has been crossed, says Day. For example, you see a good friend do something unethical and dangerous, such as stealing or lying. Your intuition tells you that the person needs to be stopped, but you will often be anxious because someone close to you has broken rules you hold dear. How to Get Better at Listening to Your Intuition Your intuition is something that needs to be trained, and its different from belief, says Day. Trust is belief without proof, she says. Intuition provides proof; it does not require belief to be present and useful. I am wary when I hear people say, I believe in intuition. That is like saying, I believe in gravity. Intuition simply is. If you refine and document its action, you quickly discover that you can rely on it. But when you magicalize it with belief, you remove its burden of proof, thus rendering it less useful. Day recommends recording your feelings of intuition. You can use a journal, for example, but she recommends removing any attached emotional content. Also, dont try to make sense of what you feel. We get lots of information all the time, but we don’t have a very good filing system, especially for our intuitive information, says Day. Intuition functions best on automatic pilot. When you document it, you begin to see that it’s accurate, it’s precognitive. Your subconscious will make it more available. It’s noticing what you notice, not looking for anything. The importance of goal-setting To use intuition, its important to know what youre working on and know what your goals are. You dont see what you’re not looking for, says Day. You will know how to address your intuition when you know what your goals are. Adams also recommends practicing meditation for at least 20 minutes a day as a way to make room for intuition. Allow yourself to step away from situations that could become negative habits, such as wasting your night on things that are not important, she says. Reclaim quality time by doing meditation, being silent, or walking in nature. . . . Pay attention to your breath. When youre quiet, your soul, spirit, and bodythe true trinity that’s inside of uswill have an epiphany and the knowledge and knowing inside you starts kicking in. Every human being has intuition, says Adams. We can all feel energy, because we are all energy, she says. Feel the energy coming off other people. The energy may tell you that person’s not so happy, or that person is really happy. You can’t lose your intuition. You can disconnect from it, you can ignore it, but you can’t lose it.
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