There have been a lot of videos over the past few months within the financial blogging and vlogging communities, as well as some great channels on YouTube covering not only finances, but also meal planning and decluttering your home during this quarantine.
Is there anything more that can be done?
Yes.
What happens next depends on your personal circumstances.
How are your emergency preparedness supplies doing? What adjustments, if any, are there needed given that this wasn’t a bug out situation, but rather a bug in situation?
How have your finances changed? Did you lose your job, or are you still working? Are you working from home or from a place of employment? How have your paychecks been affected from this?
These are the two biggest subjects that seem to be out there - food, shelter and finances.
These have also been my biggest fears of major upheavals since Decker passed away almost 20 years ago.
I kept up and added to my emergency preparedness equipment, using The Urban Prepper’s systems of obtaining and utilizing items.
For instance, Decker and I had a system in place for water storage - 6 - 5 gallon containers of potable water. The Urban Prepper urges people to have more than one way of obtaining and purifying water. Because of this, I also have a Britta Water system and a Platypus water purification system on hand with extra filters.
Because we stored enough food to handle 3 people, I now have quite a bit of food for one person to keep.
I keep a supply of baking ingredients on hand as well.
I keep a supply of medications and vitamins on hand.
Yes, I’m fine with the TP and paper towels, I even have a supply of cloth diapers in case supplies run out and I am unable to find replenishments.
When I saw this pandemic coming during Spring Break, I shored up my water supply, picked up a few of my essential foods I use for cooking. I also signed up and prepaid for a year of SkillShare classes and MasterClass subscriptions as I wanted something educational I can do during any time off. Given that I had started a book years ago, this would be a perfect time to look it over, redo any of the plotting and writing and use the video classes on demand to give me something to focus on, even though my depression and anxiety have been in full force during this. I don’t sleep well most nights.
Financially, I found out as soon as possible, what we were looking at. I had already been told by management that I was considered essential and I knew that meant I would basically be on call 24/7 for the teachers, but what I didn’t realize was that I was going to have to put my Laird Leopard hat on to handle the numerous calls from parents. Our phone number was released to the public and we were flooded with calls of all kinds. I’m pretty good in a pinch and have learned over the years how to triage tech issues and know when I need to hand things off to others who specialize in areas where I was getting calls for. I’m very thankful everyone has pitched in and helped out with handling the phone calls.
I also found out, though, if I was getting paid, and if I was working from home. The answer was, thankfully, yes as my job is a government position, I still have a job and a paycheck. I would be working from home, however there have been weeks of working at the office daily to meet with teachers whose computers were not working properly. Thankfully, because of the foresight of the management, provisions for people who were going to need loaner computers (Mac & Windows) were created, sanitized and wrapped and kept in a secure location at work with a system in place for us to receive the necessary information for later repairs.
The changes I made financially were to cut down on my payment to my credit card so I can bulk up my savings. The other financial item I took a look at was to set up my budget in such a way that I can increase my fast offerings to the Church, as those funds usually stay within my Ward and Stake. The needs of those who lost their jobs are going to increase and I wanted to try to do my part as someone still employed to help with funds that would be needed to help with the expenses of others as they sit out the quarantine and then find new jobs after it becomes safe to do so.
This isn’t much but it’s a start of what I can do to help while working and staying home when not working as much as possible. I’ve gone for 3 weeks now since my last visit to the grocery store, but I need to pick up some things this Tuesday for grocery day.
My hugs and prayers are with everyone who is having a difficult time of this. Decker used to call God’s wake up calls a “two by four beam up side the head”. I’ve been hit with so many of these over the years, that it has taken over a year of psychiatric care and therapy to feel like I’m only starting to create a new life for myself. Yesterday I had a Decker dream and it felt so nice to feel his spirit embrace in my dreams. I’ve wondered if he will still want to be married to me by the time we get reunited, he made it perfectly clear yesterday that the answer is yes.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
