How are so many people still spending as normal?

[nc1962]

I'm so confused by what I'm hearing compared to how people seem to be living their lives.

On the one hand, it's everywhere about job losses, redundancies, people not being able to pay mortgages. But on the other - a lot of people I know/vague acquaintances are going on holiday at every opportunity, buying a lot of stuff and spending a lot of money on house renovations.

Our household has been hit badly by all of this, with a massive drop in income.

Of course it's different for everyone and up to people how they spend, but I'm so uncertain what to think. Are there really so many households (normal as opposed to very rich) who have been able to carry on as normal? I thought we were very typical in terms of having taken a big hit, but now I don't know what to think and whether this is a short term or long term thing.

I wanted to ask what others are finding to be the case - are a lot of people you know carrying on as normal, or has there been a big financial impact?

We're not spending madly but we are very lucky financially. But no manic spending or holidays.
DH works in education and I'm part time in NHS (bank staff) and I have another unrelated part time job. DH has worked constantly from home throughout the pandemic.
My non NHS job furloughed me, I had no NHS work for a few months but I'm back now and very busy.
I do realise we are very fortunate.

@Porcupineinwaiting I think you have hit the nail on the head of the nature of the divide. Those whose incomes have not been affected have probably if anything had their outgoings reduced- no holiday, perhaps lower spend on fuel, for example.

Our income has not reduced - in fact, I’ve had a pay rise.

We’re not going out as much and haven’t been on holiday so are doing ok.

The company I work for is busier than we’ve ever been. We make big ticket, luxury items so thought we’d be hit quite badly and have to make redundancies. In fact, we’ve had the busiest 4 months ever and taken on more staff. God knows what’s going on, we certainly weren’t expecting it and had planned for the worst

DH runs his own business, and again, despite all of the local events he usually caters for being cancelled, he’s had the best 4 months ever.

I’m sure the bubble will burst, and we’re planning for it to burst, but it slows no sign of slowing down - we’re selling stuff before it even arrives in the country at the moment

Savings have gone up massively as some people have the same income but fewer opportunities to spend - no commute, no holidays, etc

OP, I have gone from earning a decent amount to earning absolutely nothing since early March. However, I had my teenagers locked down with me, so at the same time, my outgoings went up enormously.

It has been completely shit.

I work in NHS so continue to work and salary unchanged. DH 25% paycut and reduced hours so only working 4 days a week. He has used his day off to get lots of DIY done and saved us lots of money that way so still quids in I think. We are saving on 3 X school meals/ school trips/ holidays etc

Nothing has changed in our household, except I'm saving £500 a month on travel and car park costs and probably c £200 on lunch, I'm not buying as many work clothes and shoes and haven't had my hair coloured or cut since lockdown or any beauty treatments, we usually go on quite a few holidays every year and of course they have been canned so we have saved a fortune there. But we have spent in other areas, ie we have just had a kitchen refurb and the Amazon man seems to come every day...

I was furloughed, went back to work at the end of May.

I work for a fantastic company who topped our wages up to maintain them at 100% and still honoured our bonus structure.
DH worked throughout, either from home or on site.

I saved money on lunch - as I don't have a fixed work place I always bought my lunch out.

We're pumping as much money back into the economy as we can, bought a house, lots of furnishings, meals out, clothes etc.

Our income hasnt changed. DH is in IT and can easily work from home. Im a SAHM, so we didnt need to organise child care or anything when schools were closed.
We do spend less on activities, but i even that out with the crazy amount of home improvements ive been doing during this time.
Sitting at home all day makes me feel bored of walls etc and i constantly feel like i need to repaint, buy new furniture etc.

At @OneInEight what do you sell? I've definitely spent more online.

Interest rates are incredibly low. Money saved on going out, commuting and holidays.

Other than kids clothes and two £4 supermarket t-shirt for me we haven't had the need to buy clothes. Nobody sees the state of my clothes.

We have spent money on hobbies and it was interesting to see Hornby model train company have made a fortune.

I think people are currently worried about a second lockdown affecting Santas ability and possibly buying more to make it special.

@middleager

Oh and we never bought lunch or coffees in the 1st place. Too bloody expensive!

Same here. We're not big earners so don't splash out & so don't have a lot to cut back on. Teachers so relatively safe jobs although my subject is being phased out so my job isn't safe really.

Nothing really changed for us. DH is a keyworker so has been out at work as normal for the whole time and no drop in pay either. We probably had more spending money when DC weren't in school as we didn't have to pay for school dinners and we didn't have monthly fees for all the clubs which probably saved us almost £100 a month over lockdown, not all of them have reopened yet either. We did tend to eat out or go to the pub a lot before so we've saved money from that but probably spent about the same on various things around the house tbh. We've still put away a good bit into our savings at the same time though.

I'm WFH and DH is a key worker so our pay hasn't changed. We didn't go out a lot but are saving on kids activities and petrol money for me.
I am actually better off than I would have been. My local branch office was due to close and I couldn't commute to the main office so I was planning to take redundancy and find a new job. Now I can work remotely and keep my job.

Our income has taken quite a hit but it's been partly offset by the fact we're not going out anywhere, kids clubs cut back and no need to buy work clothes, lunches, travel expenses etc.

@unmarkedbythat

There's a very clear divide that I have seen. People in decently paid jobs who have been able to wft and have saved money in commuting and childcare costs, vs the rest of us. The former group have financially gained from the crisis and currently are cushioned from the fall out.

This is what I'm worried about. I'm in the first category but it is total shit for the 2nd. Govt furlough schemes, industry bail-outs etc cannot last (not just in the UK, but all around the world) as we can't print money. The divide will just get bigger. Hopefully ppl like me keep on spending on local businesses (not buying from bloody Amazon etc). I do have to have my bathroom reno-ed but it is because the whole thing is falling apart, not a decorating issue.

We got lucky and the household income is the same. We saved lots on flights and holidays though but spending it trying to help local businesses that were hit by the lockdown.

Me and dp were not furloughed and have worked throughout, I changed jobs which meant a better salary, we went on our holiday as it was booked last year and was lucky with the dates and no quarantine. Dp is down on his sales target due + commission due to lockdown but I'm up on salary so we are carrying on as normal

Amazingly, this is making me feel slightly sorry for the train and petrol companies!

Our income hasn't changed. NHS workers here so we aren't spending any differently to what we did before Covid.

@Insertfunnyname

We have an online gift website. Sales are MENTAL. Through the roof. Never had such a good year it’s genuinely exploded and we’ve been in the business for 15 years.

We can’t work out why but maybe because people can’t spend money on holidays or are all on furlough so still being paid but have loads of spare time to browse the web. I don’t know but it’s the craziest year we’ve had and the only thing that has changed is the introduction of Covid.

I work in retail and our theory is people are shopping for Christmas much earlier than usual (the big sales weeks have been coming later and later each year normally) while they still can/before another lock down so that might explain it.

Dp was off work from April to June but we managed fine for those two months, I actually saved a lot of money in those two months.

My work has been REALLY busy and have had to do paid overtime since April, probably an average of 10 hours a week which is paid at time and a half. I had to have the kids here for those few months so saved on childcare costs.

Dp has also been busy since being back at work, doing overtime every week.

Dp got his annual pay rise in September and I've just been promoted with a pay rise.

@Insertfunnyname

We have an online gift website. Sales are MENTAL. Through the roof. Never had such a good year it’s genuinely exploded and we’ve been in the business for 15 years.

We can’t work out why but maybe because people can’t spend money on holidays or are all on furlough so still being paid but have loads of spare time to browse the web. I don’t know but it’s the craziest year we’ve had and the only thing that has changed is the introduction of Covid.

Same here, husband runs a small online business and has never been as busy.

I think it will depend enormously on how the industry you work in has been affected. There's been a huge difference in the effect on those that work face-to-face with people and those that can work from home, for starters, although their individual jobs may be in an industry that have been more or less affected than others.

Our incomes have been unaffected as we've both worked from home. & as a result we've saved about £2k a month more than usual, due to not paying for commuting, childcare, meals out, etc.

We're spending it on a house extension so DH can have a proper office to continue working from home moving forward.