I'm comfortably retired now, mainly because l kept buying shares after the crash, in the same way as before the 2008 crash. We lived on my wife's wages and I threw everything I earned into the market. I think you have to look at it as buying a share of a company for the dividends and the capital growth is the cream. It was very tough doing this as you are going against the crowd. I'd often buy $10000 worth of shares and they would immediately slump. I relied on years of experience and reading about the long term trajectory of shares to keep myself on track. It was a frightening time to buy. And buy. And buy, and lose money, and lose yet more money on paper. I was in my sixties so I didn't relish the prospect of going broke and having to work until I dropped. The market started to turn around 2012 and in a very short time We were made very wealthy on paper by people who were now prepared to pay a lot more than what I paid for the shares we owned. I still wonder at this! I retired in 2013 after being made redundant. The cash settlement from the redundancy was invested in shares. I have sold houses and invested them in shares. We now live very well off the dividends we received. Investment is now my full time occupation. The companies I was invested with paid healthy dividends throughout the panic yet many people were selling at less than half price for the same share.I still buy shares for the long term. Generally I buy stocks that have demonstrated at least five years of steady income and are cheap P/E compared to the index. I concentrate on the dividends I receive. I generally try to return 6% before franking credits. I've, moved away from direct share ownership to a more index/lic fund bias for diversification and easier management. My top holding is with IHD- my other holdings are ARG, CDM, NSC,TOT,VAS,DUI, WBC. 80 odd percent of our wealth is in shares and 20% is in cash. I recently took a profit selling down DUI and a large holding in VEU as they had increased in value and I wanted to take a profit. As I have an SMSF in retirement I don't pay CGT. if I was holding them outside the SMSF I would not have sold them. I would prefer to keep them for the dividends. My advice is to stop trying to pick the bottom or the top. Those I know who have tried have failed or have been lucky. The WBC shares I bought recently, just before they went ex dividend. They pay around 6% plus franking credits. I looked at the graphs and they have been hammered because of the royal commission. Everyone has sold them down. I figured they would drop after they went ex dividend and they would go up and I would sell them to someone else for a profit. I have too much long term exposure to banks. Looks like I'll be holding on longer than expected as they are still sinking. Hopefully I will be compensated by a nice income stream in the meantime. Who knows? Not me. This is a tough mental game but if you keep buying regularly over time and don't do what everyone else does in the panic of a crash you will prosper. Unfortunately you will only know if you can do this when the crash is on. Good luck to you.