If you are facing no financial impact

[Kannet]

Then what do you plan to do afterwards to help. I have just been discussing this with a few friends, some are in a position where they will get full time pay for the foreseeable and face almost no impact whilst others are on the brink of financial disaster.

My general plan is to make a point of using as many small local businesses as I can. Give extra to food banks. I'm sure there is more I can do. Anyone have any ideas

Im a bit wary of this. I am experiencing no financial impact right now, partly because of DLA, but in the last recession DH and i were made redundant. There will be an enourmous recession lasting a while and we may lose our jobs again - i need to prepare for that. I dont have piles of savings as we are only just recovered from that recession. I dont have cleaners and childminders or clubs to pay or i would. I always shop locally, will carry on with the local charities and will help some self employed relatives out financislly as they are worst hit.
I agree with the above about carers allowance.

Yes, Wnikat, exactly that. To cheerfully pay higher taxes. I wish they would stop referring to it as the 'tax burden'; it's an opportunity to support, build and create!

"It's interesting seeing people suddenly give a shit about how pitiful benefit rates are. All of a sudden "nobody could possibly live on £94 a week" despite the fact unemployed/disabled people and carers have been doing exactly that for years."

Absolutely agree!

Exactly @LorettaIsMyTrueSelf. I’m hoping that one of the things that will come out of this is a much better understanding of a) just how little money people with disabilities or other genuine reasons for being unable to work have to live on, and b) just how close anyone is to being on benefits in the first place.

It would be nice if, as well as all the self congratulatory posts with rich people giving other rich people pats on the back for their charitable works, MNers also developed a greater understanding of and empathy for benefit claimants. Rein in those knee jerk reactions and think how easily it could have been you.

I will carry on paying my cleaner, gym (indepently owned), coach, and carry on using my local food shops.
I will also make a donation to Women's Aid on pay day

After that, it will depend on what will be most needed in my area. There were a lot of people already struggling before any of this started, so I suspect the effect of the virus will be catastrophic here. I am already preparing clothes for donations, and no doubt will be donating more to food banks.

I'm booking all of DC's activities as usual for after easter even though they might well not be able to go. It's quite a lot of activities so can't really afford anything else, which is the usual situation here!

I agree we will all feel the impact of this later on in taxation. We have still been paying our cleaner, she is self employed and until government announce a package for self employed people we will pay her. I hope they will get on with it and act swiftly to compensate, PAYE is taking some time to administer so goodness knows how long the self emp scheme will take. Sadly many people will be forced into further debt.

I'm not financially impacted because I'm on benefits (as a carer), in fact I'll probably be slightly better off because of buying less food, not being able to go swimming or use public transport.
I'll just carry on doing what I always do really.

I am fortunate enough (with reference to the current crisis), to have been retired due to multiple health issues, and on an ill health pension, which will continue to be paid. I don’t have a mortgage, because when I was working I knew my health would fail sooner rather than later, so paid every spare penny into clearing it.

I am paying my cleaner 50% of her rate, and have agreed to keep that up for 6 months if needed. I will also be sending Amazon pet food deliveries to the rescue centre where my cat and dog came from. Their donations are drying up.

I will also sub my niece, nephew and Godson. The first two have lost their jobs due to this and the last is a final year student.

higher taxes are inevitable

Before this we would put in the food bank but just use the drop-in bins in Tesco. However, that bin doesn’t cover our village food bank, so we scrapped that and started dropping bags with the food bank organiser for our village. Unfortunately, yesterday when DH went to the shops there wasn’t anything that could be donated to the food bank as they’re still sold out.

Apart from our weekly Tesco shop, we were quite good at supporting small local businesses anyway. We’ve got some amazing small restaurants around here and hardly ever use a chain restaurant. We also have a dog walker, dog groomer, dog trainer and pet shop that are small local businesses. We supported these as long as we could during this. The pet shop is still open with enhanced social distancing and infection control measures. For the dog walker, I’ve said not to bother about refunding monies and with training we usually pay in advance and then use the lessons after so I think we’ll just start again and write off the small amount that’s in the pot. They are also doing a lot of social media work during this time so we’re trying to engage with that.

I’m trying to like posts from small independent businesses, keep their names out there during this, even if I had t used them before but they are doing some worth noting like closing and offering delivery services. I also do a lot of recommending of small businesses, which I will continue to do after this is over.

We might look at using a local farm shop after this instead of Tesco - depending on our financial situation, we’re currently OK but if this continues long term we will probably start receiving reduced pay. I will still be doing a shop at Tesco though for the food bank and still bringing it back to the village rather than putting it in the Tesco bins. I plan on getting regiftable presents for all our small businesses at Christmas, maybe they’ll have financial issues and can pass that present onto someone they need to find a present for or just celebrate the end of a shit year. We’ll be going to those restaurants that are still open as regularly as we can, making sure we have cash to tip staff appropriately and leaving reviews on Facebook/tripadvisor so they can build their business again. I’m not usually that active on Facebook but I’m using the platform now to help those small businesses in any way I can. I’m going to be patient with the dog groomer and know that they’ll have a backlog of dogs that need doing, I don’t get to be fussy about the length of the coat because they need to get through a lot of dogs before summer starts.

Donating to charities that will help those who need it most right now - refuge, shelter, age UK etc

That’s all very well but those charities will survive anyway. They have enough money in their reserves to keep them going and will launch massive campaigns. You would be better of giving your money to smaller charities, especially those who work locally as they can make the biggest difference and need the money far more

Still paying doggy daycare.
supporting small business - and will definitely be continuing that long term.
Planning to donate to Women's Aid today after reading it here.
Donating to food bank.

At the moment not affected, except for being on SSP for a couple of weeks. This may change, depending on how long crisis lasts.

At the moment, we are paying for all the kids usual activities as normal, as the people who run them are either self employed or small businesses. Some are looking at setting up remote replacements, so may actually have a virtual ballet class happening in the kitchen come Friday.

Obviously we are carrying on paying our various charitable subscriptions. I'd like to increase the one to MSF as they are worth every penny, esp in times like this.

Other then that, dont know. I really, really want the NHS to be properly funded going forward so may start campaigning actively for that but not sure what the best way to make a difference will be.

Working lots of hours and happily paying my taxes. Contributing to my family’s income while they are not earning as much. Will go and get supplies if my neighbours need them. Eating take away to support local business (and buying much wine- is v important). I give a fair amount to charity too anyway and have upped that recently.
Also more convinced I need to do some sort of useful volunteer thing during my next leave when I am allowed to leave the state...

Continuing to pay my childminder and dc's clubs

so far we're not impacted, do however is a banker so we are being really cautious.

we had booked a cottage break prior to this so still paid for the dog kennels and cattery.

if we do come out of it unscathed we will support local businesses and shop local. however we will be a lot more cautious and try to boost our savings

it's worth noting that although many people are not financially affected, this doesn't means they will have money to spare - social care workers, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, NHS porters and housekeepers.

And, working with lots of people caught in the horror that is Universal Credit, I agree with LorettaIsMyTrueSelf that it's galling to see that it has taken the risk of "people like us" to be facing UC for everyone to realise that both the system and the money paid are wholly inadequate.

I know the individual supermarket staff have been excellent but Tesco’s let us down badly (and my mum and neighbours sharing the slot). My husbands freshly released from hospital post chemo and we were depending on their delivery.
So turning to local firms has worked and they’ve been brilliant. We’ll carry on with them I hope and sod the big nationals.

Whilst we both still have incomes we are paying everything as normal. Our nursery is a not for profit and so they are asking for 20% of fees to cover their overheads and then asking for donations for the rest.
The gym we use is closed and so we are using the money that we would have spent on that to make donations to a couple of local charities and the fact that we aren't spending so much going out, buying coffees and lunches out we are using that money to give to our local foodbank (we also can't get actual food to donate).
We are lucky though as we have enough saved for almost a year's expenses - we have been bitten before due to redundancy. I think this has been a wake up call for everyone about how quickly things can change.
Afterwards I think I will get back into the CAB, I was an advisor when I was at Uni and I should have a little more free time as my youngest starts school.
I agree though, we are all going to need to pay more tax in the future.

At the moment we're still employed etc, but I normally commute into London and DH drives to work, so we're actually saving over £100/week on petrol and commuting.
we're continuing to pay the cleaner, and have donated to the food bank, but local charities are a great idea thanks!

Oh having said we are financially unaffected I've just remembered the 6k we've probably lost on our "holiday of a lifetime". We can get some of our money back if we are still recommended no travel in August but I suspect we would be allowed to go and will be too scared to.

Shows what a difference a few days makes, I was really upset about this10 days ago, now I just think "oh well".

who knows if I will be impacted in a few months or so however I've been shopping up a storm. Meat, fruit & veg boxes, bread box, pasta box. I only managed to get a click & collect slot the other day for mid April. Stocked up on arts & crafts too.

Also continuining to pay my cleaner here.

We are still paying our dog walker whilst we are on full pay (wfh) my work is getting quieter as other companies are closing and having a knock on effect. I’m facing redundancy but I’ll carry on supporting small businesses while I still can.