COVID-19 came out of nowhere and just disrupted our way of life. In some way or another it has impacted everyone’s lives. For most of us, the financial impact is what we can feel the most. I am blessed to say that I still have employment at my full-time job but I was furloughed from my part-time job. Millions and millions of Americans have lost their job due to this pandemic.
The coronavirus has had a substantial impact on our economy so because of this I am restructuring my finances to weather the storm of COVID-19. These are the steps I am taking:
1. Stop extra payments towards paying off car
Instead of continuing to make 3x my monthly car payment, I have decided to just make my regular min. car payment and stockpile the extra amount that I normally pay. Back in January, I decided to pay extra towards my car payment to get it paid off faster. My hope is that the money that I stockpile will eventually go to pay my car down, but with these unfamiliar time I would like to save it just in case the conditions get worse.
2. Lower my cell phone plan
Since we are confined to our house I decided now is a better time to lower my cell phone plan. I have been thinking about lowering my plan for a while but now is a perfect time to test it out. I typically have unlimited calls, text, and data. However, with the lower plan, I will only have 3GB of data. This will allow me the time to test out this plan to see if I can stick it out.
3. No discretionary spending
At this time there is a shelter in place order and I am not sure when this will end. With this order, I have removed discretionary spending from my budget as I really have no place or reason to spend money.
4. Increase my OT hours
Based on my previous budget, I determined that I needed to work 5 hours of OT to reach my financial goes. However, due to the times I am going to seek every opportunity to do OT because I do not know what is going to happen in the future. This OT will be great because it will force me to be more productive with my free time.
I definitely was not anticipating having to restructure my budget. However, I am blessed that this has not caused a substantial strain on my pocket and I am able to easily redirect my funds. Hopefully, we can stand together as a community to flatten the curve so things can return to normal.