The consumer price index (CPI) for October slowed to 7.7%, lower than economists had predicted. However, with inflation in the U.S. still running high and incessant warnings of a recession, many investors are worried about their savings.

In fact, 63% of middle-income and 43% of high-income workers are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey of 4,000 people by LendingTree.

Here are five questions from Marketwatch to ask your financial adviser, if you have one, or yourself — if you would like to take stock of your portfolio, retirement savings, earnings and budget.

1.) What are my long-term and short-term financial plans?

The first thing you should do to get your financial house in order is to take stock of your financial plans. How much longer are you planning to work? Are you hoping to purchase a house or to move? Do you have family obligations, such as putting a child through college? Do you have a target retirement date?

Once you have gotten a handle on your big financial questions, it’s important to tackle day-to-day money challenges, says Jennifer Kang, financial planner and founder of JWK Financial.

That means, pay off your debt, figure out your monthly budge, fine-tune your spending and think twice (or three times) about impulse purchases.

Kang even says it doesn’t hurt to have a heart-to-heart with your landlord about your rent.

Build an emergency savings, if you don’t already have one. Financial advisers commonly say it’s important to have six months’ salary saved, should you find yourself out of, or unable to work.

Also, in light of inflation and a looming recession, be wary of for-profit debt settlement companies or other types of scams.

2.) How does inflation affect my savings?

By taking stock of your debt, including your mortgage and student loans, you can figure out how much of a bite inflation is taking out of your budget. This is your “personal inflation rate,” as financial adviser Alex Borgardts of News Bloom Wealth of Kansas City, Mo., puts it.

Becase inflation is eating into the buying power of everyone, the only thing you honestly can do is to cut back on spending, and spend more wisely, says Alonso Rodriguez Segarra of Advise Financial in Coral Gables, Florida.

Inflation is also chipping away at the value of your retirement savings, of course, but with the stock and bond markets being as volatile as they are, some retirees and near-retirees are too risk averse to increase their market exposure.

Traditionally, the rule of thumb has been to have a 60/40 portfolio, with 60% of your assets in equities and 40% in bonds. This is an important conversation to have with your financial planner, especially now.

3.) How diversified is my portfolio?

Related directly to the question of how inflation is affecting your budget and your savings is the critical question of how diversified your portfolio really is.

That means investing in more than just traditional stocks and bonds—looking into a wide variety of sectors and markets, and being exposed to not just domestic but international stocks.

Marketwatch columnist Philip van Doorn recently recommended 27 stocks, including consumer staples and blue-chips, that can give you a more diversified portfolio than the S&P 500.

4.) Do I have emergency savings?

Back to the question, first raised under question #1: Do you have emergency savings?

Financial advisers widely quote the startling figure from the Federal Reserve that only 40% of Americans could cover a sudden $400 emergency.

While Americans stockpiled cash during COVID since they were shut inside their homes and got stimulus checks, that $1.7 trillion in excess savings in mid-2022 is slowly being depleted by people putting everyday items—including groceries—on their credit cards.

With the personal savings rate just 3.3% in the U.S., it’s never been more important for people to be aware of and stockpile their savings, including emergency savings.

5.) Should I change course?

If you have debt of any kind with variable interest rates, you should pay off that debt. That’s because interest rates will continue to increase, at the hands of the Federal Reserve, in its bid to tame inflation.

If you don’t qualify for President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, or should it fall through, for instance, you would be wise to pay off that debt, along with other personal loans and credit card debt.

For investors who are not approaching retirement and who can invest their 401(k) and other retirement plans for the long term, it is best to wait out the inflation, market volatility and recession storm, say Kang and William Thompson, a financial planner at Valor Wealth Partners in Boston.

“Doing nothing is not a bad thing,” Kang says. “Just because something is going on, doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to make changes.”