Money in the time of Covid19

I’m sure that you are all sick of hearing about it, sick of talking about it, it is impossible to avoid and incredibly stressful.

That being said I would feel as though I had not been there for you and your families if I didn’t comment or if I didn’t give small pieces of advice about how to handle your money at this time. 

Some of you might be out of work, some (I hope no one) might be sick and can’t work, some don’t qualify for unemployment even though this has also caused you to have to stop working. There are a lot of questions and people don’t always make the best choices when we’re scared and stressed, and being worried about money just amplifies that 100%

Here are my tips for how to handle your money during the Coronavirus Crisis.

First– Your highest priority should be to make sure you have enough money to pay the mortgage or rent and feed your family. If you are having a hard time and making any payments towards debt, cut those back to minimum payments. Call up your utility companies and see if they are offering any relief packages, and talk to your lenders about suspending payments- most banks are offering this now.

Second– Your investments. The market looks pretty bad, super bad, but it DOES come back around. The worst thing you could do for your future self right now- is to cash out any investments you have while they are down. Working in the finance industry I’ve seen more people than you’d think cashing out portfolios, portfolios that were worth 120k 4 months ago and are now only worth 80k. Now 80k is still a lot of money don’t get me wrong, but if they had left it alone, it would have gone back up to 120k. And NOW if they try to reinvest that 80k when this all clears, it will take them so much time to recoup their losses if they even do.

Bottom line, leave them alone for now, let them go down and you can be sure they will go right back up.

Third– Make sure you know what is going on with your employment. If you are still working make sure you know what the contingency policy is for payroll, if you are furloughed or can’t work reach out to your employer to see what their plans are. They might not know right now either, but they should be willing to share whatever they do know with you.

Fourth– Stretch the budget. Cut where you can, if that means you cut gym memberships right now (you can’t go anyway…) or other items, so be it! I saw one guy get a 60% discount on his Amazon prime membership because he asked for it! He said, hey I’m not getting my usual perks as there isn’t prime shipping and I don’t really use it for anything else, what can you do? If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. Same as I said before about payments, talk to your lender as they may have different options to at least give you a LITTLE more wiggle room. You might not even have to call to find out, I know we’ve all been getting way too many emails from every single company we’ve ever interacted with- search your inbox, you might have the policies or resources right there.

If you need ideas for how to stretch that budget further I have several posts to help- a couple of cheap food ideas and recipes in the “The Loneliest Cookbook” category and ways to save on groceries here.

Fifth– confession time. Beware the stress spending! I am a self aware Retail Therapy girl, I work to curb my retail therapy spending especially when I am feeling stressed or anxious. I even wrote a whole blog about it! But did I buy myself some pajamas with German Shepherds on them so that Fern and I could match? You’re absolutely damn right I did. And some makeup from ELF. And a shirt. And a dryer vent vacuum attachment. See what I mean? Little purchases add up and they might make you feel a tiny bit better momentarily, but keep yourself in check! 

To be honest though the pajamas were totally worth it because Fern was really excited that we matched. We did a photoshoot.

So my final thing about overspending or stress spending, is that if you need to do something for yourself, if you are feeling awful and you need to bring yourself the tiniest bit of joy- you do that. You buy those pajamas. But try to focus on self care that doesn’t cost money, because we need to hold on to that a little tighter right now.

If you have other questions about what to do with your personal finances in this time, or if you just need someone to talk to because you are quarantined, you guys know where to find me.

I hope you guys are all staying healthy and safe, I hope you are wearing masks and staying 6  feet apart, and I hope you are being kind to yourself. You are allowed to be upset, and stressed, and scared, I just hope you make room for gratitude also. Snuggle your pets, because you can’t snuggle anyone else right now, and as always I am wishing you sugar and savings!