[oldalum]

1. Is there anything ultra-urgent that I should know or be doing with our money in light of the situation in which we find ourselves?
   
   
2. Is there anything important, but perhaps not as urgent, that I should know or do in light of the current situation?
   
   
3. Are there any good and basic resources to help me learn about the market, finance, etc. I think I am coming to see that these are good things for me to know more about, and perhaps on the other side of this, I can be more intentional about our investments.
   

I strongly commend your desire to learn more about personal investing, especially retirement investing. No one cares as much about your money as you. But be careful who you get that advice from. 

Addressing just what to do now with your retirement savings in your IRA: you should have previously decided on an asset allocation between stocks, bonds, and cash, that reflects your anticipated years until retirement and your tolerance for risk/volatility (which to me depends on your understanding of the relationship of time vs. volatility--if your time horizon is long, many years, then volatility is actually your friend). Tolerance for risk/volatility is important because the absolute worst thing you can do is decide on an asset allocation and then when the market goes down, get scared and sell stocks. This is why you have to learn about retirement investing, so you can resist the temptation to do that. So if you have had an intentional asset allocation, your stock allocation is now well below where it should be. At some point now or soon you should rebalance to restore it (which means buy more stock, which is advantageous in the long run because it is currently on sale). You would naturally want to wait until stocks hit absolute bottom to buy, but that is impossible to know. So the safest thing is to do it in portions over time. No best method that I know of: you could do a third of the way now, a third in a month, and a final third in another month. Or substitute week for month in that sentence. And don't worry if the market goes down another 20-30% after you buy some: if your time horizon is >20 years, it won't matter in the long run. But if you don't think you would be able to resist the temptation to sell if that happens, then don't buy any now--just spend some time learning more about all this.

For me, when the market dip hit 30%, I started buying stock to rebalance. I'm not doing much yet because I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, but if it doesn't I would be upset that I didn't take any advantage of the 30% sale. When I say " stock" or "stocks" I mean either an S&P 500 or total market index fund (mutual fund or ETF--exchange traded fund) with an expense ratio less than 0.05%. If one is not available to you in your IRA, at some point you should move your IRA to a company such as Vanguard or Schwab that has them.

For an investing resource, I'd suggest starting with Jonathan Clements' "How to Think About Money." Cheap paperback. Not much investing guidance per se, but a good overview; summarizes things that have taken me decades to learn on my own. Then look for books on longterm investing in broad-market index funds. A good first choice is John Bogle's "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns." Another option for the time being is using one of the relatively low cost online "robot" investing services such as at Schwab or Vanguard: you answer some questions about your situation, risk tolerance, etc., and the computer derives an investment allocation in index funds and over time it rebalances automatically for you. It is important in longterm investing to keep the cost of investing to a minimum. That includes the expense ratios of the funds you invest in and the cost of investment advice and management.

[oldalum]

1. Is there anything ultra-urgent that I should know or be doing with our money in light of the situation in which we find ourselves?
   
   
2. Is there anything important, but perhaps not as urgent, that I should know or do in light of the current situation?
   
   
3. Are there any good and basic resources to help me learn about the market, finance, etc. I think I am coming to see that these are good things for me to know more about, and perhaps on the other side of this, I can be more intentional about our investments.
   

I strongly commend your desire to learn more about personal investing, especially retirement investing. No one cares as much about your money as you. But be careful who you get that advice from. 

Addressing just what to do now with your retirement savings in your IRA: you should have previously decided on an asset allocation between stocks, bonds, and cash, that reflects your anticipated years until retirement and your tolerance for risk/volatility (which to me depends on your understanding of the relationship of time vs. volatility--if your time horizon is long, many years, then volatility is actually your friend). Tolerance for risk/volatility is important because the absolute worst thing you can do is decide on an asset allocation and then when the market goes down, get scared and sell stocks. This is why you have to learn about retirement investing, so you can resist the temptation to do that. So if you have had an intentional asset allocation, your stock allocation is now well below where it should be. At some point now or soon you should rebalance to restore it (which means buy more stock, which is advantageous in the long run because it is currently on sale). You would naturally want to wait until stocks hit absolute bottom to buy, but that is impossible to know. So the safest thing is to do it in portions over time. No best method that I know of: you could do a third of the way now, a third in a month, and a final third in another month. Or substitute week for month in that sentence. And don't worry if the market goes down another 20-30% after you buy some: if your time horizon is >20 years, it won't matter in the long run. But if you don't think you would be able to resist the temptation to sell if that happens, then don't buy any now--just spend some time learning more about all this.

For me, when the market dip hit 30%, I started buying stock to rebalance. I'm not doing much yet because I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, but if it doesn't I would be upset that I didn't take any advantage of the 30% sale. When I say " stock" or "stocks" I mean either an S&P 500 or total market index fund (mutual fund or ETF--exchange traded fund) with an expense ratio less than 0.05%. If one is not available to you in your IRA, at some point you should move your IRA to a company such as Vanguard or Schwab that has them.

For an investing resource, I'd suggest starting with Jonathan Clements' "How to Think About Money." Cheap paperback. Not much investing guidance per se, but a good overview; summarizes things that have taken me decades to learn on my own. Then look for books on longterm investing in broad-market index funds. A good first choice is John Bogle's "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns." Another option for the time being is using one of the relatively low cost online "robot" investing services such as at Schwab or Vanguard: you answer some questions about your situation, risk tolerance, etc., and the computer derives an investment allocation in index funds and over time it rebalances automatically for you. It is important in longterm investing to keep the cost of investing to a minimum. That includes the expense ratios of the funds you invest in and the cost of investment advice and management.