Worried about the economic slump? Here are a few common sense things to do, from Newsweek.

 

 Leave your retirement account alone. Continue your monthly or weekly contributions if at all possible. You might even ramp them up a bit,

especially if you're a decade or more away from spending that money.

 

 Juggle 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.

 

 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. 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.

 

 Hunt for bargains. If you thought you were a couple of years away from buying a house, you might start looking now, 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.

Leave that up to the Bernankes and Paulsons. It's what you pay them for.