ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — You don’t have to be a financial expert to feel the hit on your wallet. And after Monday’s drastic drop in the stock market, many are worried about a possible recession.

But financial experts say it is too early to say if it will or won’t happen. But what will all this uncertainty do to your budget?

Following last week’s tariffs, grocery store prices were expected to climb. On top of that, Monday, the Dow fell almost 900 points and NASDAQ also took a dive. And later this week, the Fed is expected to make an announcement. So what does this mean?

“Uncertainty creates risk. Risk is something the market doesn’t like, and in response to that, it goes down in value,” said UNM associate finance professor Reilly White.

The clocks moved ahead and the stock market fell behind, big time. With the Dow dropping 890 points Monday and the NASDAQ dropping 4 percent.

But how will these drops impact you? And why are they happening?

“What’s happened is there’s a lot of risks in the system, and investors are recalibrating that interpretation and trying to figure out what the next few months will hold,” White said.

UNM finance professor Reilly White explained the recent changes in our economy like the tariffs on Canada and Mexico, are some of the factors in this stocks hit.

“One of the important drivers of the market is sentiment,” White continued. “But then sentiment kind of did this kind of shift in the last month, and a lot of that’s due to tariffs, it’s geopolitical risk, it’s things that are going on.”

Then over the weekend President Donald Trump didn’t rule out a possible recession, telling Fox News the economy was going through “a period of transition,” putting market stability on shakier ground.

White said that instability will impact your budget, 401k, and stocks. New Mexicans said they are already feeling the hit.

“Prices on groceries are going up. A lot. Gas is going up, and seems like utilities are going up as well,” Albuquerque resident Naomi Argaez said. “I feel like we are going to be going into a recession.”

Young adults are also noticing a difference.

“I’m about to graduate, and I have to think about, kind of being a real grown-up and having to pay for everything like that. And it’s like, how am I supposed to do that on another like, a nonexistent wage, right now?” UNM student Renata Gonzalez said.

“It’s kind of scary having my first lick of independence be in an economy like this, where everything is extraordinarily expensive,” UNM student Maia Hizny said.

Professor White said it is not necessarily time to panic. His advice is focus on long-term horizons, not short-term changes to the market. As for what will this do to interest rates, which have been a burden for a while, he said it is unlikely the Fed will lower them later this week.