To ask about your financial situation after covid?

[MrDarcysMa]

Hi all, I don't have any friends in the same situation so just wondering what other people's situation is....now and after CV? I realise many people will be worse off than me, as well as better off so this isn't meant to be inflammatory - just curious really and trying to get some perspective on my situation. Both DP and I work FT (usually) no kids and recently purchased first home after 10 years of renting and saving.

I work in a company where I do a worthwhile job but it does not bring money in directly for the company so I may not have a job after the furlough scheme ends.

-Very lucky atm to have 80% income via furlough (although it's only of my basic salary no overtime or commission)

-Joint mortgage and bills with DP who earns more than me but is wfh on 20% pay cut

• We're ok on current income - about £800 in the bank less per month but we're not spending much/ going out

• After furlough I will likely have only PT hours if so - we should be able to pay mortgage and essential bills and food if DP still has a job but no unnecessaries or fun stuff (if pubs etc re open!)

• If I lose my job we will have to do mortgage hol for a few months, give back the car we have on pcp which ends soon, and hope I can get another job after 3 month mortgage holiday or my company is in a position to have me back!

• Overall we are managing ok now financially but if we both lose jobs after CV which is a very real possibility, we're screwed.

Fucked

New mortgage, dp looking at redundancy, Im low earner, so ye fucked.

Poorer in time and money.

Better off- kind off. although it doesn't appear so on paper. Credit card being paid down significantly, and have been able to afford a big ticket item I didn't except to- a deck and access door to it which has made a huge difference to us not being able to go anywhere!! Have spent less on small things, which has led to the big things being possible.

Receiving normal pay, but working from home, instead of the office

Miss the office banter

Had some holidays & other events cancelled
Have received some refunds, but attempting to get more back

DH wfh, works locally and cycles so no savings there, I work 2 days a week in a lab so still going in, I also receive a pension so no change there. So really no change for us financially

Can you furlough yourselves, then each pick up some self employed contracting work doing the work for each other's business, and invoice the businesses accordingly?

I thought about doing this, but I just decided it would appear unprofessional, and actually pretty difficult to not have any contact with clients at all, or pursue other different business opportunities to try to survive.

I feel the same INeedaBiggerBoat, I'm currently working seven days a week for around 20-30% of my normal (already not huge) income, whilst also providing more support to my recently bereaved DM and my teen, who doesn't need a massive amount of support but more than usual.

Martin Lewis did a poll to suggest that 60% of people were better off / the same compared to 40% who were a bit or a lot worse off.

Thankfully we are better off at the moment. Both still wfh and earning full salaries. No childcare costs (though we offered to pay and did pay 50% for April) no eating out or fuel costs etc and our tenants are still paying their rent.
We’ve always lived well within our means though, have income protection etc so I’m not too worried. I realise we are very fortunate.
Who knows how our jobs may be affected if the economy tanks though.

I do worry about the amount of individuals and firms using furlough as a viable option though - as if it should be a free choice. I personally think it should only be used if there is no other way - I.e. if it didn’t exist, that person may have lost their job. I really worry about the amount of maybe unnecessary furloughed staff across the country that just plunges is further in to debt!

We own a "service" company, as in we provide a service. And we own a company with a couple of properties. Weve always been comfortable but with the stress of being entirely dependant on our selves. Atm we're taking the minimum we need for food and fuel.
I think we'll survive. We've got to be very careful with money and invest correctly. We're losing customers or customers are just cancelling their direct debits without talking to us. We could go either way, theres no knowing yet.
There are people worse off than us and we have enough skills, qualifications and connections to make it by.
We recently almost upgraded our house to something we could afford at the time, we'd be in the shit now.

I'm on enhanced mat pay at the moment and so infinitely better than colleagues however I'm a chartered surveyor so not sure whether I'll have a job to return to - it will depend on the effect on the property market.

My husband is a farmer, we are owner occupier so no mortgage or rent luckily. At the moment this pandemic has pushed global grain prices but I don't know what will happen longer term - we also have brexit to factor in. But in theory the country needs feeding and both our careers are agriculture focussed so we should be ok.

I am a new Childminder and not entitled to the self employment grant. As I work from home I'm also not entitled to any of the other government support. I don't have any keyworker children so if I wanted to carry on working I'd have to take on new families. I have 3 of my own children, 2 of whom I need to home school and 1 who is just 1yo and full on. All of my children have additional needs so I don't feel able to keep working. One of my children also seems to have a low immune system and is in hospital a lot. My husband works in a nursery but as they went from over 100 children to 4, they could not afford to stay open, so he has been furloughed. We currently get a very small amount of tax credits and the online calculators suggest that we may only get slightly more in universal credit. We've decided not to risk it after hearing of too many people who apply, get nothing and then loose their tax credits.

At the moment we are ok. We are saving £200/month on petrol and our mortgage is suspended. I am very concerned about what will happen if my husbands nursery cannot get through this. Nurseries have been very underfunded in this. I am also concerned about what will happen if there is a second wave or if my husband can't get back to work before our mortgage holiday ends. If our mortgage resumes and at least he is not working we are both stuffed.

If the govt cannot return the childcare industry to full capacity soon then a lot of it will collapse and when things return to normal and go back to work, a lot of people won't be able to find childcare.

We're ok at the minute as are both able to WFH on full pay. I think DH's job is safe though they are deferring bonuses and pay rises this year (which would normally be around now). I'm slightly more worried re mine as I am a not insignificant overhead but our place is quite good at adapting and I've been told that March and April have been record months income wise so am hoping it will be ok. I will be on mat leave from end October anyway and 6 months of it will be unpaid with me returning Sept 2021 so hoping things are ok by then.

It has, however, scuppered our plans to move house. I'm currently pregnant with our second and we wanted to move this year but are putting it on hold in case either of us loses our jobs (we could live on one wage). Mine and DC's investments have also taken a hit (as has my pension) though not tooooooo worried as DC won't need cash for a long time and I'm still 20+ years off retirement so trying not to worry. DH has managed to make a for whack on the market as he trades his investments (whereas we leave ours) so he has made up what we have lost I think.

I know we are very fortunate and for that I am incredibly grateful and hope it lasts. We are trying to give back in giving to appeals etc and going to get some food for local food banks.

We aren't spending that much less than before as food bill has gone up massively and utilities also and we didn't go out huge amounts anyway due to DC. Plus we've also done things like spent a lot on a new router to help with working from home as ours was rubbish and kept cutting out. I think if we could cut food bill down it would be good as we are trying to save for my being off unpaid for 6 months of next year and poss putting DC1 in nursery for a bit

We're better off so far, but DH started a new job just before lockdown, which came with better pay and shorter commute. He has been working as normal throughout. I'm a sahm and am saving a fair bit with all the classes and groups I'd usually be taking the DCs to. I had started job hunting but that's on hold now. I wonder how difficult it's going to be to find work once this is all over.

Thanks to blanket policies rolled out by the Australian government we're currently about £125 a week better off. Also saving on transport and activities and we've had lots of refunds for things we had planned (theatre, holiday etc)

I am very worried about my job security going forward though. The economic downturn will cause mass redundancies in my industry no doubt.

DH is furloughed on 80% - his employers have made it up to 80% of his salary rather than the gov limit. This reduced his take home pay by about £600 but I got a new role at work which didn’t start until 1 April and that gave an increase of £400 take home pay so has evened things out a lot.

We’ve also saved on childcare costs, travel, gym, and some activities

We are spending a lot more on food though but obviously not on socialising etc

My job is public sector and we’ve been told it’s secure. DH is in construction and things seem to be ticking over so hopefully he will be ok, but who knows

We inherited some money about 12 months and hadn’t decided what to do with it so it (pay chunk off mortgage etc) so we have decent savings, in case DH job does go. He is 53 though so is worried about how easily he would get another job

We will be worse off, in a minor but significant-to-us way, in the long term I think. It's ok, there was always fat to trim in our budget. I'm still a bit angry and upset when I think about it, as it's delayed some of our plans, so I can only imagine how hard it is for those who won't just be tinkering around the edges with some lifestyle changes and will experience real hardship.

Of course if DH loses his job (which is not entirely unlikely at the moment, his company has leaked news about thousands of redundancies this week) it's bad.

DH and I are VERY lucky. I'm part time keyworker so job secure. DH is an engineer and is still working (but no overtime) in theory we are about £300 short a month due to no overtime but as we aren't going down the pub every weekend we are saving. Plus just prior to lockdown PIL's did equity release so they gave us £50k for house deposit and a further £10k to pay off debt so we are officially debt free now meaning we are atleast £450 a month better off 😊. Very very lucky...although food bill has gone through the roof!! 😲

My husbands business has ground to a halt but business will still be there once everything opens up again. However it took 7 years to build up to a point where I gave up work in dec and had a break before looking for something else. I was working in our business a bit but not earning independently.

I'm so lucky though that I managed to find work teaching just before lockdown and I'm now working a full time temporary contract (albeit a lower pay scale) it's tough though, I haven't worked full time in 13 years and the 2 reasons I left were 1. Chronic fatigue and pain and 2. I was having a really crappy time. And actually wanted to never teach again. I've also picked up some online tutoring work. I am so busy it's ridiculous! And for only 1/3 of our usual income.

We moved house 9 months ago and Our mortgage is huge. (My salary will cover mortgage plus council tax and utilities only) and because of the timing we haven't re-accrued any savings yet. We have 2 small loans to pay but no current credit card debts. It may sound like we were financially irresponsible but we could easily afford it just 2 months ago!

We have taken a mortgage holiday until July, hopefully dh will have enough income by then to cover it and then we'll take a loan holiday. Our parents are well off enough to help a bit with food etc but could never cover our mortgage.

We have to also think of our staff so we have furloughed our workers which obviously we paid in advance so the government £10,000 grant carried that first payment. We did get repayments very quickly though. Thankfully we were also owed money from a large client and they're still honouring that in instalments and also have some tax breaks from other European countries.

We're hopeful this will keep us afloat until we can resume! Only one of our staff will be actually redundant but we agreed to furlough until the earliest point she can start maternity leave so she will get her mat pay.

So overall scary time with the house but we're managing financially so far and are hopeful for a recovery.

I however am not personally coping at all. But you do what you have to do for your family (3 kids) and we have always known the risks in our business...although we thought brexit would be bad lol

Husband is furloughed on full pay. Saving nearly £300pm on fuel as not driving to and from work. He's not spending on food in work either. I'm still working pt (food retail) but there's next to no overtime. I've saved a fortune only working 4 days a week, no school runs, no afterschool club, no popping into town for odds and ends and spending £££ on stuff I don't need.

This all means that by the time all this over (IF!) I'll be almost debt free as I've used the money I've saved to pay off 2 credit cards (1 will be closed soon, other only got £500 left) and I'll have cleared a store card. It's certainly made me re-evaluate my spending habits! And we're wasting far less food too.

Income same, minus any overtime though. Increased food costs with adult dcs home, but travel and fuel costs reduced. Probably better off but I'd rather be working.

My business has had to stop since the day of lockdown. I will be able to pick it up in time but I’m not sure it will be able to be as profitable due to some restrictions but I can’t predict at the moment. Fortunately DH is still working otherwise it would be tricky. We do have some savings though so I feel fortunate we have a safety net. I’m home with the kids but have been toying with trying to pick up some evening work but I’m not sure if that might impact my self employment claim. If it gets to sept and I’m not working I’ll have to find something but I expect jobs will be scarce.

We run our own business so currently have no money coming in at all. We have furloughed our employees so that’s a relief for us.

Hopefully it will all pick up once lockdown ends but it will take ages for us to get back on our feet and back to where we were...

We run a business - we will earn enough this year to cover our employees basic salaries but I think bonus's will be light on the ground and we will probably not be able to take a salary. Working along side and building a close relationship with our clients has always been really important - the job we're currently doing we secured the relationship before lockdown - the next job won't be as easily won. With some staff being very reluctant to return to travelling, insisting they WFH and the economy taking a nose dive - the reality is we may have to dissolve the business - it's a worry for them because recruitment will have ground to a halt in our sector.

Currently both WFH. I’m part time (25 hrs a week) and still on full pay. My husband has accepted a 10% pay cut along with suspension of his bonus scheme so more like a 40% pay cut. Pretty devastating for us as our mortgage is large. This is to be reviewed at the end of June. Hoping it’s reinstated, if not, I will look at going full time, although the job market will be pretty shit after this and we will have to seriously tighten our belts.