A thread for direct financial impact of Coronavirus...

[wheresmymojo]

I thought all self-employed, freelancers, people made redundant and similar who are impacted by Coronavirus could gather here to share stories, tips on managing, etc.

I expect the thread to be quiet to begin with but get busier over the coming weeks.

Anyone else already impacted (like me) or seriously worried?

Surely if we can not pay our mortgages, the banks are not all going to come in and take our homes!
Surely the banks will have to allow payment holidays to be able to deal with this!

Does anyone know if you can actually apply for the Small Business Grant as yet or do we need to wait to see if we go into lockdown?

I'm self employed and work directly with schools so if they shut and I can't see children I won't have work. I have tried to front load work (my work is 50:50 direct and indirect) so after next week I have enough work to do at home until 20th april thankfully. After that not sure what will happen.

I'm a childminder and worry what will happen if the government forces us to close? Fingers crossed they only close large settings. Do you think that's reasonable?
I really couldn't survive of it was for more than a couple of weeks.

Private land lords won't allow payment holiday for renters, what can they do?

I’m not directly impacted financially but feel for everyone struggling at the moment.

Before this started I was looking at selling my house but have decided to put that off for now. I do have some work that needs to be done on my house so will still get that done when I have the money.

I won’t be surprised if my public service job has payrise freezes in the next couple of years (although at least I’ll still have a job .... hopefully).

Myself and my DP both work in the travel industry... it’s not looking good at the moment!

The economic impact of this is going to be massive. I really feel for everyone posting so far.

@FramptonRose don’t worry about mortgage companies too much (easier said then done). Even the ones saying they won’t allow payment holidays have to follow the mortgage protocol before they even apply for eviction. It will be months before they even get to that and then you can still argue Norgan calculation if it goes to court (if you can show you’ll pay arrears off over remaining term then court will generally suspend possession order (so say you have 10K of arrears but 20 years left on mortgage you’ll maybe have to pay an additional £50 on your mortgage a month.). Keep in touch, if you think you’ll miss a payment let them know.

We import from China (oh, the irony). Containers delayed by weeks. Our UK customers are fed up of waiting. We still have to pay for our warehouse. It's just me & DH thank goodness.

Work for a business that teaches kids to play a sport, this week is usually when people book in for next term, bookings are down about 70%. It’s not a business that makes a big profit so a 70% cut is a killer for us. If this drags on I will lose my job may I would think.
DP runs a pub so could be equally badly hit ( although they are busier than ever at the moment)

Dh works as a recruitment consultant with his own business, just him and another guy. About half of his work has been cancelled so far. He is planning on taking it easy the next few months. Luckily as he has few overheads and money in the bank it won’t affect us much. I feel bad for small /medium sized recruitment companies that have salaries to cover and higher bills to pay.

DH is a tradesman and has had hardly any calls the past 2 weeks, We have had a rough time financially recently anyway and this will probably lead to bankruptcy. Luckily we have the cupboards well stocked so will be ok for a bit and he will apply for universal credit on Monday.
I am hoping the business interruption grant is something we can apply for, I wonder when it will be available?
Sending to everyone else struggling

My DP was made redundant just before Christmas so things were already tight - he’s applied for loads of jobs, but I suspect no recruitment will progress, and here will be impacted by the fact the oil price has tanked.

I teach. If schools shut, I am not sure if we will be paid?

I am scared!

After working for 20 and 22 years respectively both myself and DH have found ourselves out of work. Now this has happened. I am meant to be starting a part time job on Tuesday and I’m desperate to get the contract signed. It’s working for a supermarket and given how overrun they are at the moment in praying nothing goes tits up. DH wants to go fully self employed but given the nature of his work it’s going to stall. Luckily we are already in the universal credit system now so I guess it will be a case of adjusting the claim. I’m hopeful that I might be able to put up some overtime given what work I’m going to be doing at the moment!

I’m worried. We have a small business in food manufacturing supplying to shops and restaurants, so obviously if customers stay away and their business goes down . . .

DH and I work for his family's construction business. We have a meeting this week to discuss plans for a potential lock down.
We will likely have to lay people off and have gone in to overdrive this week invoicing jobs and chasing payments.

If we shut down we still have to pay our workers, but will have no money coming in so need to build our bank balance up this week. We use subcontractors for things like scaffolds and skips, thankfully long running relationships and need to discuss with them whether we take the scaffolds down and skips away because we would still be paying for them but not getting paid for the work or if they'll just let us leave them be.

It's a small business with shite IT infrastructure, with an inept IT contractor who has kept all computers hardwired to internal servers. Weekly payroll for manual workers so no idea how we will do that if we can't go in to the office. Working remotely could cost us a small fortune in licensing for the products we need such as Sage and Construct.

It's going to be a rough few months. My PIL's are burying their heads in the sand so DH and I taking the lead on getting shit moving.

We are also private landlords, if the banks agree to mortgage breaks DH and I have 100% agreed to pass this on to our tenants so they aren't struggling.

Self employed IT contractor, I have a few clients some will move to home based working but only for a few weeks but still a lot better than some. It’s going be a hard year with IR35 and any financial loss from the lock downs.

Work in hospitality for a small business.
I can't see us lasting a month.
Then I can't see how I will get another job while everything is going on.

Not me but I spoke to a parent today that is self employed working in schools. He's terrified that schools will shut early and stay shut. His 2nd job is linked to events; so his second source of income will go too. He didn't have a plan C

DH and I have our own business which is our only source of income. Our company has only just started to make a (tiny) profit in the last 2 years, since the financial crash in 2008. We started to feel a bit positive at the beginning of the year that we were getting on to a more even keel and might be able to reduce our overdraft.
Now absolutely panicking that we will close , and have to make our work colleague redundant, potentially without having the funds to do that. .Weve put any savings into keeping it solvent already.
I'm barely sleeping worrying about it.

Not helped by a large contingent of MN shouting we should close schools and lockdown asap.....and that they'd be quite happy having to stay in, doing crafts, decorating , gardening, having a good sort out at home etc, reading a good book, watching box sets on Netflix, seemingly without a care in the world. Not sure who's funding it all....?

Also a childminder. Sole trader not a business so not entitled to this business grant, rent not mortgage so can’t ask for a break. And could be forcibly closed with no end in sight. I’ve been reading threads from parents who say no way would they pay, it’s not their problem. Scary times.

Supply teacher here. Mostly do longer term placements of a term at a time. ended up on supply not permanent after mh problems. Am pretty worried what with schools likely to close before easter and various experts sayingnot open again for 12 to 16 weeks. Will look into temp work if that happens but how much work will there be if we are in lockdown?

Pippitypong this is what's really grating on me. I saw a post on social media saying "I don't know why anyone would send their kids to school at the moment" as if we all have the luxury of choice. I'm a single parent, if I'm not at work then I've got no money for bills. Simple as that. Really concerned right now.

DH and I both run our own businesses and work has really started to dry up in the last week or so due to this virus. We have a large mortgage and bills to pay, very little in the way of savings (we could survive a couple of months at most) and a big tax bill coming up. We also have a baby on the way.

I’m extremely concerned that if things continue the way they are, we won’t have the money to cover our mortgage and bills and will lose our businesses and our home.

What can I do?

We run holiday accommodation business in France. Guests due this weekend cancelled and the government announced last night that we had to close. We are always at the bottom of the cash flow curve at the time of year so this is catastrophic for us. We had a sale agreed for half the business but I can't believe that will go ahead now.

We ride at a local stables. (Or did!) The owner told us yesterday if he is shut down then he has enough food for the horses for 1 month then he will have to put them down. He was shut down at midnight last night. 😢