This is part of our Financial Literacy Month Question and Answer series

Question: I’m in my 40s and have for the past 15 years saved a sizeable amount, however, in one bad investment lost nearly all of it. I even lost my job, now I’m in a low paying job (secretarial), please advise how I can start again. Just thinking of all the meticulous saving and budeting I did all these years leaves me depressed! Carmen

Answer: Hi Carmen, my condolences on the loss of both your investments and your job. That’s a really tough spot to be in.

From your question, you already know the answer here. Start saving again! The longer you stay in the depression about it the less time you will have to actually do it and the more disempowered you will feel.

The lesson here may be in how you handle your portfolio in the future. There are a number of strategies which can protect you from near total loss: these include diversification, determining what percentage of your portfolio you want in different instruments and staying with those percentages (this is especially hard to do when things are going up, up, up), having stop/loss orders on stocks, etc.

Warmly, Cindy