How to Prepare for a Recession: 5 Money Rules Experts Recommend

Households are battling high prices, facing layoffs and watching their investments decline, which causes them to spend less. Businesses, unsure of where the markets are going, are cutting costs and delaying hiring. 

Financial uncertainty can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, said Shang Saavedra, founder and CEO of Save My Cents, a personal finance education platform. 

As painful as they are, economic downturns aren’t anomalies. Modern capitalism has a historic boom and bust cycle. Since the mid-20th century, the US has experienced a recession roughly once every 5 to 7 years, with an average length of 11 months. 

The last recession began with the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. By April, more than 16 million jobs were lost. Federal policymakers implemented relief and recovery measures to ease hardship and help spur an economic recovery. The pandemic recession was the deepest but also the shortest in the post-World War II era.

Since ...