My financial planner's advice during the last recession helped my retirement savings grow by 30%, and I'm following that advice again now

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• Despite the fact that the stock market is on a steep downward trajectory, I'm not worried about my investment accounts.
• During the last recession, my financial planner advised me to hold steady to my investment strategy and I ultimately saw a 30% gain in my retirement savings.
• This time around, my accounts have fared better than the stock market as a whole, thanks to a balanced investment strategy.
• A financial planner can help you nail down your retirement savings strategy. Use SmartAsset's free tool to connect with a qualified professional »

I've read the same headlines as everyone else - Dow plunges more than 2,000 points - in a big, scary font. As if coronavirus fears weren't enough to unnerve global stock markets, there's now an oil price war to create even more pain for investors. As I write this, the New York Stock Exchange just pushed the panic button and briefly halted trading to prevent a complete meltdown.

I'm not freaking out, though. I've been through this before. I took good advice and held steady to my retirement savings strategy during the aftermath of the 2008 crash. I saw the value of my investments bounce back during the recovery and I have faith that they will again.

Why I'm not panicking as the markets go into free-fall

I've learned the hard way that it costs me when I take money out of my retirement savings, so I just don't do it.

It was hard to resist that impulse in 2009. Every paycheck, I put a percentage of my salary into my retirement account. And each time, within a couple of weeks, I had less money than I had just contributed. As the markets slid downhill, investing seemed like a losing proposition. I wondered if I should pause my contributions and perhaps even take money out of my account.

My financial planner told me to keep contributing to my retirement account as the markets tumbled, and I did it. And something amazing happened. In just two years, between 2013 and 2015, my retirement investment account increased in value by about 30%.

The rise in value happened during a career transition when I wasn't making any new contributions. The increase was 100% market gains. I had bought low by continuing to purchase shares during the recession. As the stock market bounced back, my shares grew in value.

As distressing as it was to watch my contributions seemingly melt away during the recession, it was very satisfying to watch the value of my account rise during the recovery. Investing rather than selling during the panic was a smart move in the long run.

The genius of a balanced investment strategy

If it was up to me, I would evaluate the funds in my investment accounts by their recent performance and trade the poor-performing ones for the funds with faster growth. In fact, a couple of years ago, I started to do this. When I mentioned this to my financial planner, she told me to cut it out in no uncertain terms. Now I see why.

My investment accounts are held in a mix of stock funds and bond funds. My financial planner chose the funds and amounts to invest in each to balance my risk. This balanced investment strategy has given me more protection from market volatility than I expected. I had looked at my accounts right before the crash but was too scared to look again until today. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw, thanks to those balanced investments.

While the markets have seen massive losses since the beginning of the year - the Dow Jones, for example, lost about 8% in one day this week - my balanced investment accounts have gone down by about 2%. Some bond fund holdings have actually increased in value.

My retirement savings are held in more aggressive investment funds, since retirement is quite a few years away for me. When I started writing this article, that account had lost less than 4% of its value. Since then, the account page updated to include today's trading (March 9, 2020), which involved the markets falling off the edge of a cliff. My year-to-date losses more than doubled in a day, to 8.58%. Still, that additional 4.5% is better than the markets, which dropped 7.6%, a day now dubbed "Black Monday."

Even after Black Monday, though, I refuse to worry. In fact, I think it's time to buy.

Keep calm and invest on

I have one non-retirement investment account that is mostly invested in a federal money market fund. My financial adviser suggested moving more of that money into targeted investment funds, to get more return on the investment. I had forgotten to do this (okay, I was busy and a bit lazy). As a result, this account has lost very little of its value amidst the market chaos. This is largely due to the money market fund, which is up 0.25% since the beginning of 2020.

I could panic and trade my stock fund shares for money market funds to avoid further losses. But, if I did that, I'd be making the losses I have incurred to date permanent. If I wait it out, I am confident those investments will regain their value in time.

Instead, I'm going to go the other direction and trade some of the money market funds for stock funds. I will space out the purchases rather than buying all at once, as my financial planner recommends, to even out some of the volatility.

The funds I've invested in for this account are currently down between 8-10% from their value at the beginning of the year. That means they are a good deal to buy right now, even though I know they will probably sink even further. I'm buying low. I'll be smiling when the market bounces back.

I might not be able to stop touching my face, but I'm definitely not touching my investment portfolio. That's easy.

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