Lazy Man and Money

COVID Hits the Kosmo Household

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This is an article contributed by frequent writer Kosmo. Though it has less to do with money than a typical article, it’s worth making an exception.

Monday morning (December 13), my 14-year-old daughter had a temperature of 101.6. We had her tested for COVID and influenza A and B, just to be safe.

Monday evening, we got the COVID result back – it was positive.

Oh, crap.

Pandemic precautions

We’ve been very cautious throughout the pandemic. My wife and I worked from home starting in March 2020 and didn’t return to the office until the summer of 2021. We had the kids do online school for the 2020-2021 academic year. They’re back in school this year, but the school has a mask policy, and it is followed without much pushback from parents or students.

We wear masks whenever we’re around strangers (or unvaccinated people), especially when it’s a situation where social distancing isn’t possible.

We limit our trips into retail stores by taking advantage of delivery services and curbside delivery.

We’re all vaccinated. My wife and I have both been boosted, my daughter had her shots earlier this year, and my 11-year-old son has his shots. My daughter’s last shot was six months ago since she’s not yet eligible for a booster. We wonder if her immunity has waned significantly during this time.

The previous weekend

Although we haven’t done a lot of social activities during the pandemic, we’ve done some things lately. This weekend actually had quite a lot of activity.

On Friday night through Saturday morning, my daughter had a sleepover for a friend’s birthday. The four girls wore masks, except when they slept. We were concerned that my daughter was contagious (but asymptomatic) at the time and may have spread it to her friends. At this point, none of the friends have tested positive, to our great relief. We would have felt terrible if they had, even though there was no way we could have known that she was contagious.

On Saturday, we attended a “north pole” event an hour away from our home, as well as a Christmas light display that evening. This included riding a train a short distance. We were totally masked the entire time, except when we were in the car together. That was probably three hours of breathing each other’s air in a confined space.

The next day, I took my daughter for a driving lesson. She’s still quite tentative, but I was able to get her out on the open road (in the middle of nowhere) and she got her speed up to almost 55 mph. We also worked on some hills and town driving. Overall, a pretty productive lesson. Afterward, I drove to Target to grab a pickup order. I spent 90 minutes in the car right next to her, at a time where she was definitely contagious.

Isolation

We’ve had my daughter in isolation since we got the test. She stays in her bedroom and one of the three bedrooms is now exclusively hers.

My daughter has been fairly content during her isolation. She has a TV to watch, her Chromebook to use, and lots of books to read. We have a box that we keep stocked with fluids and non-perishable foods. We deliver food to her room and mealtime and we’re using disposable plates and silverware. She simply throws the detritus into her trash can.

The first several “meals” were hot dogs, but she had a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza (beef) yesterday. She didn’t have much of an appetite for about the first thirty-six hours, but it has returned to normal.

There have also been noticeably fewer arguments between the kids since they aren’t in the same room. [Editor’s Note: During the last month, I’ve been using, “Different rooms, now!” several times a week for my kids. It works.]

Next steps

Monday night, I was relaxing in my recliner when I realized that we might have a Christmas problem. I’m the person who does all the gift wrapping, and, more importantly, I know where everything is hidden. Christmas was twelve days away. If I got COVID and lost strength, we might not have presents wrapped in time for Christmas. After everyone else was in bed, I started wrapping. I had finished wrapping 85% of the gifts by 1:30 AM.

Tuesday morning, we got a call from the doctor’s office. Even though this call went very smoothly, it took about twenty-five minutes. It was the first in a long line of these calls for the nurse who contact us.

The rest of us had to get tested. My wife and son had been tested a couple of times before, due to exposure. This was my first test. Although the nasal test isn’t exactly painful, it’s quite uncomfortable. I was starting to wonder if the experience was ever going to end, but then it was done. It felt weird for a few more minutes and then was OK.

Technically, my employer’s protocol was to return to work if you’re fully vaccinated, even if you have a close contact exposure. My job mostly involves sitting behind a computer all day, so I touched base with my boss to say that I wanted to stay at home, out of an abundance of caution. The risk to my coworkers didn’t seem to be worth the benefit of me being in the office. He agreed.

Storm

That night, there was significant wind even in Iowa – extremely unusual for this time of year. Winds of 70+ mph and quite a few tornados. Anxiety was already high as we awaited the results. Would all three of us have COVID? None of us? If each of us had a mere 20% chance, that meant that there was as a (1-(.8^3)) chance that at least one of us would have it (using the somewhat flawed assumption that the probabilities were independent). That’s a 49% chance.

As we were watching the weather coverage, I got my result – negative.

Around 7:30, we moved to the basement due to a severe thunderstorm warning. Finally, with storms bearing down on us, my wife and son got their results – also negative.

Although my daughter had been in isolation, we had her come down to the basement with us, since the storms posed a threat to her physical safety. We were all masked, and she stayed in a separate area of the large family room.

How did this happen?

The key question we have is how this happened – where she could have caught COVID. The most likely answer is school. She takes a bus to school, is at school for eight hours every day, and then returns home on the bus. Since she’s in junior high, she’s moving to a different classroom for each class. That’s a lot of interaction with a lot of different people. Although there’s a mask policy that is followed very well, masks only reduce the transmission of the droplets that carry the virus, they don’t entirely prevent transmission.

Current state

At this point, my daughter has only had mild symptoms. Her temperature quickly returned to normal, and her primary symptoms have been congestion and tiredness. She has slept in until noon the last few days, but she was awake around ten this morning. She hasn’t had any weird side effects, such as losing the sense of taste or smell.

At this point, we’re hopeful that we’re just “running out the clock” on her isolation. We’ve had other family members who have had COVID. I have a sister who got COVID around Christmas last year and is just returning to normal. Another (fully vaccinated) sister got it recently and now frequently smells smoke.

The rest of us continue to remain symptom-free. We continue to wear masks around her and wipe down surfaces frequently.

Stay safe

In closing, I wish all of you a safe holiday season. There’s yet another variant making its rounds, and it will surely affect some of your families. I hope that anyone affected has only minor symptoms. Here’s a to 2022 that’s far better than 2020 or 2021!

Post-COVID Industry Analysis

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Today’s article comes from long-time contributor, Kosmo. I added some of my own thoughts near the end.

The COVID-19 vaccine is nearly ready for prime time.  By the end of the year, the highest risk patients will be getting vaccinated.  It will probably be at least a couple of months before my wife and I will be eligible for shots, and even longer for the kids.  But at some point, things will begin to get back to normal – or as near to normal as possible.  Some industries are going to see longer-term effects and will be transformed – either positively or negatively – by COVID experience.

The winners

Delivery

Delivery services have seen a huge surge during the pandemic.  Employees of these businesses have performed a valuable service by limiting the number of people who need to be inside stores and restaurants.

My family has made heavy use of delivery services.  We haven’t been inside a restaurant since March – but we’ve had many meals delivered since then.  In fact, we’re getting fried chicken delivered in about fifteen minutes.  For us, it’s basically cost neutral when compared to dining out.  The tip for delivery is roughly the same as an in-restaurant tip.  There’s a delivery charge, but that’s offset by not paying for four drinks.  I’ll drink 50 cents worth of generic cola instead of paying $2.19 in a restaurant.  The guy who runs the dominant local delivery service is an acquaintance from our neighborhood, so it’s nice to be able to help out his business at the same time.  I’m sure we’ll continue to use delivery more – and dine in restaurants less – even after COVID passes.  The food is always hot and tasty, and it’s faster than eating in a restaurant.  Also, a restaurant is no longer blacklisted simply because one of us doesn’t like the food.  My wife and kids can get Mexican food delivered, and I can throw a Totino’s pizza in the microwave.  (Totino’s says not to microwave them, but just nuke them for 4:30, rotating once.  Almost as good as using the oven.)

Pickup

The cousin of delivery is pickup.  Not every restaurant in the area has delivery services, but many of them have pickup.  Order online and have them bring the food our to you.  Personal interaction – 15 seconds.  Even less exposure if you have them just put the back seat.

I’ve only been inside a grocery store a half dozen times since March.  Twice were because the drive-through prescription window wasn’t functioning.  If we spend $35, we can get free pickup.  Submit the order online and have a store employee figure out where everything is and get it ready for you.  Although there have been some occasions where this has ended up taking way too long (hours, in a couple of cases), it’s been a very positive experience overall.  I’m going to avoid the inside of grocery stores even after this is over – I’ll happily let someone else do the work.  This means that we’ll be doing the bulk of our grocery shopping at that store.  Prior to the pandemic, we’d mostly shopped at their competitor.  The competitor – a somewhat smaller chain – simply doesn’t have the space to allow for pickup.

We’ve also used pickup from other stores, ranging from Target to Hallmark.  Instead of dragging all four of us for a marathon Target trip, we just enter the order over the course of several days, then I run down and pick it up with it’s ready.

Digital distribution

My daughter takes private art classes.  The art studio was shuttered by the pandemic, but the business didn’t die.  The owner pivoted to Zoom classes, and also recorded a series of lessons that could be purchased individually.  The great things about the recorded lessons are that the bulk of the effort is upfront.  Her cost – in terms of labor and dollars – is nearly the same whether she sells a particular lesson to one customer or a thousand.  It also expands her audience.  You might not be free every Thursday from 7-8 PM, but you can consume a canned lesson at your leisure.  Obviously, it’s not exactly the same as a live class, and her pricing does reflect this.

It’s important for these “winning” companies to realize that although their business will remain strong in the future, it will likely slide from the current peak.  Those companies should position themselves to shrink their footprints a bit in the future so that they’re not trying to support their current overhead with fewer orders.

Neutral

Corporate-owned chain restaurants can come out of this in okay condition.  On the one hand, business is suffering.  On the other hand, many of their Mom & Pop competitors have been wiped out by the pandemic.  Even smaller chains have shuttered some of their locations.  The larger chains may have suffered losses in the short term, but when they return to full capacity, the landscape will have changed.  Not only will there be fewer Mom & Pop’s and fewer locations for smaller chains, but there will also be a reluctance for entrepreneurs to launch restaurants for a few years.  After all, there’s no guarantee that we won’t see another pandemic like this next year – or even five years into the future.  This will allow the larger chains to grow their market share.

The losers

Mom and Pop Restaurants

A lot of Mom & Pop’s have been completely wiped out by the pandemic.  Even chains with multiple locations have been affected.  A local sandwich place that served premium hot sandwiches closed.  The quasi-Italian place near my office also closed.  My office complex has a few thousand people.  It’s on the outer edge of the metro areas, without much of a residential population.  The Italian place was probably drawing about 90% of its business from my office.  My office has been shut down since March.  We’ll be working from home through at least the end of June.  Even after we do return, we’ll probably only be in the office a fraction of the time.  The restaurant’s clientele vanished overnight.

Commercial real estate

I’ve been reading the tea leaves to see what my employer will do in the future.  My best guess is that the company will strongly pivot to work from home.  Perhaps 10-20% of the time in the office.  They’ll probably use a “hotel” cube format, reduce the overall footprint, and sell off excess real estate.  I think a lot of companies will do this, particularly in areas with high real estate costs.  Why pay for a Manhattan cubicle for an employee if they can be just as productive in their hometown of Manhattan, Kansas?  In my option, demand for commercial real estate is going to plummet.

Corporate cafeteria, cleaning, custodial

My office complex has two cafeterias.  My employer contracted with a third party to provide cafeteria services.  Those people haven’t been working since March.  My guess is that we’ll only have one cafeteria in the future.

Likewise, my employer contracts with third parties for cleaning, custodial, security, and a variety of other services.  As commercial real estate goes from occupied to vacant, these industries will also take a hit.

Editor’s Thoughts

Kosmo has an interesting perspective that I never thought about with delivery services and dining. One of the main reasons I go to restaurants is to get out of the house and be part of the community. I’ve been working from home for 13 years now, and I think most people can now relate that you sometimes have to get out. My tastebuds are more of the Tortino’s and generic soda variety that Kosmo mentions in the article, so I don’t mind a difference in the food itself much of the time.

I completely understand the draw of not having to do grocery shopping. For many people, it must be great to reclaim that time. Personally, I enjoy grocery shopping. I love looking for bargains. I love doing mental calculations and comparisons. I love having “me” time away from the kids outside of the house.

I don’t know how I feel about digital delivery. It seems saturated. I’ve got an endless number of FinCon (personal finance group) talks from 10 years that I know I will never watch. I got a deal on Masterclass and I’ve only watched a little of it. My wife is very much against paying for Zoom karate classes for the kids.

My kids’ school recorded a lot of videos last year for distance learning that they can reuse again, but I don’t think they do. Khan Academy and numerous other places have online lessons. If there was a universal search engine and these got combined under one umbrella for a low price (or free like Khan Academy) it could be really useful. I believe that digital delivery is the key to providing free college in a way that doesn’t get caught up for decades of politics.

Your thoughts

What are your thoughts?  Which segments of the economy have been decimated by COVID-19, and which segments will emerge is a reasonably good position?

How COVID-19 Has Changed My Shopping Experience

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We’re more than a half year into the coronavirus pandemic.  At this point, even if COVD-19 hasn’t transformed your life in a drastic way, it has likely caused a permanent shift in some of your daily practices.  For my family, the entire retail shopping experience has been changed.

Online shopping

We were already doing a lot of online shopping.  A considerable amount at Amazon, but also retailers such as Target and Kohls.  This has accelerated in recent months, as we’ve made every attempt to shrink our bubble and limit outside exposure.  We’re lucky enough to be able to work from home, and the kids are able to attend school remotely.  The next step was to push more of our shopping online.  It’s rare to have a couple days pass without having a delivery of some sort.

Stockpiling

I wouldn’t say that we’re hoarding, but we’re certainly making an effort to keep more inventory on hand.  Even though we’re not facing rampant shortages, we do have stretches of a few weeks where it can be difficult to find items.  In the past, we’d keep one spare Tide on hand.  Now we have a couple extras.  We buy Clorox wipes whenever we see them, of course.  Spottings are as rare as Bigfoot sightings.

Grocery pickup

I have always hated grocery shopping.  There are always items I struggle to find, and I end up backtracking.  Canned fruit and fruit cups are in two completely different sections of the store.  Why?  Nobody knows.

The local grocery store offers free pickup for orders of more than $35.  When we first started using this in March, it was a bit of a mess.  Even if you showed up in your correct time window, you could end up waiting an hour or more, and items were often missing from the order.  The process has gotten much more efficient.  In the best situations, it takes less than five minutes.  Even if things go a bit awry, it’s faster than a trip to the actual grocery store.  Overall, it’s a great experience.

Although our first foray into pickups was for groceries, many other retailers off the same service.  The aforementioned Target has a pretty slick process.  They’ve actually improved it in the past couple of weeks.  Previously, you entered your car information, and they’d confirm your identity verbally.  With the recent changes, a numeric code pops up on your phone’s screen, and you simply hold your phone up to your window.

A number of smaller retailers at the local mall are currently offering drive-up service.  For some small retailers, it’s a lifeline to keep afloat, and likely won’t remain in place after the pandemic passes.  For other retailers, it will remain an important channel in the future.

Movie Theaters

At the age of 45, I may have attended my last movie.  I had soured on the experience in recent years anyway.  The local theater moving to a reservation system made things much worse.  Previously, if you got stuck behind tall people, or loud people, or whatever, you could simply move.  Now you need to go out and change your reserved seats.  Additionally, the seats have a tendency to hurt my back.  In general, attending a movie in person had become a much worse experience than streaming something online – and much more expensive as well.  I’m content to just wait for the latest blockbuster to roll onto Netflix.

Dining

I’m going to sound like a grumpy old man, but I’ve never really cared about the ambience of a dining experience.  My primary goal, especially with two kids, has always been to avoid having the experience swallow up an entire evening.  That goal has been accomplished, at least in the short term.  I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant since March 6.

That doesn’t mean that we haven’t eaten food from a restaurant.  About once or twice a week, we use a local service called Chomp that is a competitor to companies like Grubhub.  Chomp has a cool logo (dinosaur) and the majority of the company is owned by local restaurant owners.  The guy who started Chomp lives in an adjacent neighborhood, and has been an active volunteer in the community’s youth sports program.  Being able to help this guy’s small (but growing) business while also getting access to restaurant food is killing two birds with one stone.  Not every restaurant participates, of course, but we’ve gotten a wide variety of food delivered – everything from shrimp to pancakes.  We’ve also had a few pizzas delivered, of course.  There are occasional glitches – like the time Popeye’s only gave us three meals instead of four – but in general the order are accurate and are delivered hot.

At some point, I’m sure we’ll resume in-restaurant dining, but my guess is that this will be less frequent, and that we’ll continue to use the delivery service.

We’re probably going to steer clear of buffets for quite a while, though.  The pandemic has heightened awareness of some unsanitary practices of some of the guests.

One restaurant that has completely dropped off the radar is McDonalds.  I’m not sure if the kids (13 and 10) have just completely outgrown it at this point, or whether it simply loses out to delivery options, but the kids haven’t even asked for McD lately.  I have used the Hardees drive through a few times.  I love their monster biscuit and bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.

Subway is another restaurant that has gotten completely neglected.  My guess is that we’ll eventually return to Subway when we need to grab something quick before rushing off to a school event.  But with the social calendar bare at the moment, there just hasn’t been the need to eat quickly.

In non-shopping news

My company hasn’t announced a plan to return to the office.  They’re planning to work on the plan over the course of the next month.  My guess is that we’ll return to the office sometime in late spring, that some areas will remain primarily work from home, and that the company will use “hotel” cubes in an attempt to reduce the real-estate footprint.  If given the option, I would probably only come into the office about once per week.  Occasionally, if we’re working on something like screen design, it can be helpful to be gathered in front of a big whiteboard.  A lot of my recent work has involved abstract concepts where the need is more cut and dried.  In those cases, remote working is a great solution.  I’m in the process of moving to a new area.  That area supports our tax area, and I’m guessing that even more of my work will deal with the abstract and less of it will deal with user interfaces.

When I worked in the office, I’d buy things from vending machines pretty frequently.  I’m guessing this is another habit that I’ve shed.  Considering the markup on items in the machines, this should save a fair amount of money over the course of the year.

In case you’re worried that I’ll eventually become a complete hermit, that probably won’t happen.  We do look forward to making occasional forays in the outside world at some point.  We have a trip to Door County (Wisconsin) that had to be delayed and is now scheduled for June of 2021.  We enjoyed a previous trip a few years ago and are looking forward to the encore trip.

I’m Being “Furloughed!”

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This is from regular writer Kosmo. I put furloughed in quotes because when he first told me about it he said he was getting a mandatory week off of work without pay.

We got news that we will be furloughed for a week – either in July or September. This was a bit of a kick in the wallet, as it’s basically a 2% reduction in pay for the year. On the flip side, we won’t be working that week, so it’ll be time to recharge the batteries a bit. In normal circumstances, that wouldn’t be bad. Right now, honestly, my batteries are pretty well charged. I’m no longer spending 60-90 minutes per day commuting, not taking the kids to their activities, and not going out to restaurants and stores. We’re even getting to kids to (reluctantly) do some household tasks. That has free up a lot of time.

Many companies have been hit hard by COVID-19. If a one week furlough ends up being the only impact I feel, I’ll be pretty happy. More realistically, my bonus will take a hit, because it’s tied to company performance. I assume we’ll still get raises next year, but that’s not certain. Hopefully, this is the only furlough week we’ll have, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we have another.

My wife’s employer is the major hospital in the area. Since basically all non-emergency care was banned for a couple of months, they had a huge drop in revenue. They’re going to be doing something to cut expenses, but it’s not clear what. Hopefully, it’s just a furlough of a week or two.

Overall, my employer has been handling the situation very well and has been very transparent about the whole process.

What is the financial impact?

My wife and I are pretty secure in our jobs. Nobody is ever perfectly safe, but we’re both positioned pretty well. The impact on us will be mostly short term. We’re going to lose thousands of dollars in income. Hopefully, this is in the low single digits. Bonuses and future raises could also be impacted.

Unlike many people, we’re not living paycheck to paycheck. We’re both mid-career, and we don’t have particularly expensive tastes. While we don’t save quite as much as we’d like (largely because we have kids) we put a pretty healthy chunk into retirement savings every month, have a great start on 529 plans for the kids, 50%+ equity in our house, and have enough in liquid assets to weather a short-term storm.

We also qualified for a partial stimulus payment, which we put into savings. Our expenses have also dropped quite a bit in the past few months. Our driving has dropped to almost nothing, which should delay the purchase of a commuter car to replace my 2007 Elantra. Additionally, I’m pretty sure I’ll qualify for unemployment during the furlough(s). Put this all together, and it’s likely that our financial picture won’t be impacted too much – with the lower expenses offsetting the decreased pay.

How will I spend my time?

I’m going to have several days where I don’t have to think about work at all. How will I spend my time?

First of all, I’m going to take some naps. Why not? [Editor’s Note: I highly recommend naps.]

The garage could use a cleaning. Mostly, I just need to get rid of random crap that I no longer need and organized all the containers of screws, bolts, and nails I have. I have no idea what the school situation will be like, but if the kids are home, they can pitch in.

We have a ton of stuff to drop off at Goodwill. There’s a decent-sized mountain in our storage room, and it would be nice if we could reclaim that space. Again, the kids will be able to help with this – sorting things into piles so that we can get everything properly categorized and logged for tax purposes.

I’ll probably spend a bit of time writing. I’ll probably write a couple of articles for this site, and maybe dust off my novel.

Time for stamps?

Will I have time for stamps? Of course.

One activity that has taken up quite a bit of time lately is my jump into philately. I’ve been scouring auction sites for good deals and spending quite a bit of time and money getting my collection off the ground. What do I have to show for it? A lot of half-empty album pages. Many of the early pages have only a few stamps.

There are 665 New Zealand stamps issued between 1855 and 1970 if you ignore specialist variations (which I do). At this point, I have specimens of 298 of those stamps in my album (in some cases, multiples of the same stamp) and another 30 are currently in transit. COVID-19 has been brutal on international mail – I’ve been waiting 40 days for some of the albums, and 25+ for several. So I have purchased about 330 of the stamps I’ll need.

When I get those stamps in my album, I’ll be halfway done – in just two months. That means I should have the whole collection wrapped up by about Labor Day, right? Not quite. Although I’ve picked up a few higher-end stamps, most of the stamps in my album are the cheaper ones. I’ll probably be able to fill another 200 spots in my album without spending too much on any particular stamp. But as I get close to the finish line, it’ll start to get a lot more expensive.

Also, I’ve picked up an interest in covers (envelopes). Each cover is somewhat unique. A different addressee, postmark, or even physical placement of the stamps. I actually have my eye on several that I’ll be purchasing soon. Now I just need to figure out how to store them.

An interesting note: I’ve become irrationally drawn to postage due stamps.

Working from home until next year

Other big news from my employer is that we’ll be working from home until next spring. Some employees might start coming back to the office in September, but it’ll be a slow trickle for a long time. I’m in IT, and since we should know how to be productive with remote tools, we’ll probably be last.

I’ve been getting by with a single 22″ monitor for the last few months. When I was last in the office (March 12), we weren’t allowed to take equipment with us. They relaxed the restriction a few days later, but at that point, I had no desire to go back into the office.

We bought a spare monitor and dock for my wife so that she has two LCD monitors in her workspace upstairs. I really didn’t want to repeat that expense downstairs. Most of my recent work has been analysis and planning. Lately, it’s been shifting into testing work. Testing is a lot easier with two monitors, and if we’re going to be working from home for nine more months, I needed another monitor.

So I got my manager’s approval to go back into the office to grab stuff. I grabbed a monitor (24″), a dock, and my Lazarus Android tablet, which had died for several weeks, been replaced, and then suddenly came back to life. I had Lazarus stashed at work since I had a better tablet at home. I also grabbed my stash of cables, and my Cyclones hoodie and jacket. Then I went to work cleaning. I always have a lot of food stashed in desk drawers. Everything was sealed and had not yet attracted rodents. Pretty much everything was expired. The whole lot went into the trash.

How are you being impacted

How are you being impacted by COVID-19? What changes have you had to make in your daily routines?

Pandemic Finances

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The following article is from regular contributor Kosmo. It was submitted earlier last week, before most of the conversation in the United States has rightfully focused on race and police brutality. I’m busy homeschooling a 6 and 7 year old through finals week (who knew there were kindergarten “finals”?). There’s great unrest in the personal finance blogger community as well. Everything around me seems to be an onion of fighting – just layers upon layers of fighting – home with kids, professional, politically, human rights, science (COVID-19) – did I miss anything?

We’re now about 2.5 months into the COVID-19 pandemic.  Some businesses are starting to open, while others will still be closed for a while.

My wife and I have both been working from home since mid-March.  It’s likely that she’ll be returning to the office in the next month.  My employer has announced that we will be working from home at least through Labor Day.  Even then, offices will only be at 25% capacity for a while.

It’s been a roller coaster ride of good and bad financial news:

Bad news: Investments

The pandemic has cost most people money, and we’re no exception.  The biggest hit was investment accounts.  We’re tracking slightly ahead of the Dow, but are still down for the year.  We’re mid-career, and although we haven’t saved quite as much as we’d have like (thanks, kids), we still have more in investment accounts than most people our age.  That means that we’ve taken a decent hit.

Some of our retirement assets are in pensions from my previous and current employer.  The pension from my previous employer is defined benefit, so there has been no impact.  The pension from my current employer is defined contribution, but can’t lose money.  It basically pays a dividend within a fairly tight range, based on bond rates.

Bad news: Compensation

Unfortunately, my bonus for next year will likely take a hit.  Last year, my bonus was around 10%.  The company will likely struggle to meet some of the ROI-related goals for the year, which will impact bonuses.

My wife’s employer is a hospital, and they have seen significantly decreased revenue.  They are looking at more drastic action, which will likely include some sort of temporary pay cut.  We’re just hoping it’s a small cut.

Bad new: home office costs

We didn’t go crazy setting up home offices, but my wife did need a few things.  She’s a CPA, so a second monitor (and the dock to make it possible) was a must, and she quickly got tired of the chair, so an office chair was a must.  Overall, the costs were about $350.

I didn’t have any costs for my own setup.  Currently, most of my job is involving analysis.  If I was doing a lot of heads-down testing, a second monitor might be a necessity.  For now, I’m happy hunkered down in the corner of the dungeon basement.  (It’s actually a finished basement, so it’s not a bad setup at all.)

Not all bad

I don’t want to dwell too much on the negative.  We’re better off than most people.  My wife’s pay cut will only be temporary, and I’m confident that the market will eventually rebound.  We did qualify for most of the stimulus check, which should offset some of negatives.

Good news: no day care

My kids are 12 and 10.  We’ve been paying people to watch them since they were born.  Day care, BASP (B and After School Program), and summer care.  For the last 2.5 months, they’ve been at home.  We’re still paying a holding fee (because if you lose your spot, you’re screwed), but the cost is much lower.

My daughter won’t be going back.  She’ll be in 7th grade next year and will be taking the bus to school.  It would have been nice (and cheaper) to have that as an option in previous years, but we’re 1.9 miles from the elementary school, and kids must be 2.0 miles from the school in order to qualify for a bus.

My son (going into 5th grade) will be going back at some point.  But by the time I go back to work, we will have saved more than $2000.

Note: the IRS is allowing people to change their flex spending for dependent care, but only if their employer allows it.  If you won’t need your entire flex spending amount, check with HR to see if you can decrease your election.

Good news: long hair

I’m the only member of the household who has had a haircut since March.  No, I’m not a jerk who sneaks out to the barbershop in the dead of night.  For the past twenty years, I’ve used a home haircutting kit to cut my own hair.

My son’s hair is getting a bit shaggy, and we’re currently planning a trip to the cuttery next week, with all possible precautions.

Haircuts are expensive.

Good news: lower discretionary spending

We’re spending a lot less money on discretionary things.  We’re not dining out (although we’re doing delivery a couple of times per week), not buying random stuff at the mall, not buying gas, not incurring wear and tear on the cars.  No date nights, no movies, no sports gambling (because there are no sports).

Instead of buying snacks at the vending machine at work, I’ve been getting 2 liter bottles of generic cola (99 cents) and bags of candy bars.  That’s saving a few dollars per day.  I could save even more if I snacked on water and carrots, but who are we kidding?

[Editor’s Note: Our investment in a custom SodaStream kit has kept us with plenty of fizz. Flavorings, such as diet coke, or calorie-free fruit is very cheap.]

We run a lot of household expenses through our Fidelity Visa, since it automatically puts the 2% cashback into 529 accounts for the kids.  The monthly costs has been about half what it is in a normal month.

What are we spending money on?

We’re still spending some money, of course.  The grocery bill has skyrocketed, since those groceries are now providing nearly every meal.  In  a typical week, the kids would eat at school (2 kids X 5 meals per week = 10), and we would eat several meals out.  So the cost of the typical meal is lower, but almost all of that cost is on the grocery bill now.  (Speaking of food, it’s lunch time for me – time to microwave a Banquet Salisbury steak TV dinner.)

[Editor’s Note: I’ve been occasionally splitting Hungry Man dinners for lunch with 7 year old. It’s hard because he doesn’t eat a lot of different foods.]

As mentioned in my last article,  I have begun collecting stamps.  I’ve spend too much and money on stamps in the past month.  It’s a drop in the bucket compare to what we’ve been saving, but it has definitely become a bit of a money pit.  The good news is that I should be done buying supplies for a while.  I have my tongs, magnifying glass, stock pages, and storage boxes.  So I’ll just be buying stamps now.

I also spent a few bucks buying digital codes for the Jurassic Park and Hunger Games movies.  For a total cost of about $30, I was able to get nine movies.  In a normal situation, I don’t have much time to watch movies.  Lately, I’ve had quite a bit of free time.

We also decided to upgrade tech for the kids.  They currently have Fire 6 tablets.  We actually got a great deal  of them at the time.  By taking advantage of a Prime Day deal and signing up for an Amazon credit card, our total cost was $47 – or $23.50 per unit.  The downside is that they kinda suck, and that they’re now five years old.  Battery life has always been an issue, and it’s getting worse.  Surprisingly, the kids haven’t complained yet, because Minecraft still works.

I found a deal on the 8″ Lenovo Tab 3 and bought two of them.  I have a Lenovo Tab 10 for myself, and it has been a very good user experience.  The Tab 3 doesn’t have the same specs, but it should be good for their needs – Minecraft and streaming video.  We ended up paying $59 each.

Non-financial news

We were planning a vacation to Door County, Wisconsin in a few weeks.  Our AirBNB was very nice and was within walking distance from Lake Michigan in 2017.  We planned a return trip last year, but had to cancel due to a family medical situation.  So we made the same plans for this year.  Unfortunately, with all the uncertainly, we decided to push this back to next year.  Finger crossed that everything works out next year.

What about you?

How have your finances changed?