FYI: I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. There is a full affiliate disclosure that you can find here.
Pandemic. The word alone is enough to make you stress. I swear, worrying about this virus is probably worse than the virus itself! As the owner of a child care center, I can tell you that this situation is incredibly stressful.
But beyond all the chaos and pandemonium, this pandemic serves a purpose. No, not a political one . It serves to show us how unprepared we are. Most people do not sit around preparing for catastrophic events such as this. But we can learn valuable lessons from how this one is playing out.
Pandemic Effects on Finances
At this point, people are scrambling to either find child care or stressing about if they will be paid due to being quarantined. Many families do live paycheck to paycheck. There hopefully will be options of unemployment and a bill that is poised to be passed that should help. However, what about all the pandemic purchases? People are out spending ridiculous amounts of money on supplies (TOILET PAPER) that will last most families a year or longer.
WHY? What happens when this calms down in a month and you are short on your rent or gas money? Perhaps while you are sitting at home, waiting on this virus to pass, you should delve into your finances. If you lessened the times you eat out and put that money aside each month, would you be worried about missing some time at work?
It’s certainly something to consider.
Pandemic Food
This one is pretty surprising to me. Many people have said they don’t have 2 weeks worth of groceries at home. I can’t imagine that. We have always kept about 2-3 months on hand at all times. Why?
We live in the mountains of North Carolina. There have been times with fuel and food were not stocked due to trucks not being able to get up the mountains in the winter. It doesn’t happen often, but once made me realize, we needed to keep a fully stocked pantry.
What if someone in the household loses a job? Groceries would be one thing you wouldn’t have to buy with a decent stockpile of food. You might be saying you don’t have money for it, but that’s not true. You don’t have to buy it all today. It just takes picking up a few extra things each week and only buying what your family actually uses.
This Coronavirus should teach us that we should keep a few extras on hand for this very event. While they are few and far between, wouldn’t you rather be prepared than to feel like this again?
Family
How many of you are now realizing how much you rely on the older generation to help with your children or other things? It is important to have more than one back up for child care. As a child care owner, I can tell you that when families do not have back up care, it is a problem. Right now, we are trying to keep all sickness out of our building. This means that some children will not be able to come to school. Parents need to have a person or people that are able to assist for just a day or two with care.
Don’t have family near? Make some friends. Perhaps co-workers or neighbors. Or join a mom group online to get some good recommendations. Having a good plan in place will reduce anxiety and allow you to continue to do what you need to do.
Pandemic Perspective
This situation is all about how WE chose to act. There are people buying ridiculous amounts of cleaning supplies, and hand sanitizer and those that are ridiculing them. Then you have people that want to ignore it and it all go away. None of these are going to work.
In order to not repeat this, we need to learn from this pandemic. Be proactive, be aware, be prepared.
We need to be calm and know that there HAVE been worse things and we got through just fine.
Toilet paper is not going to fix anything except be one less thing on your grocery list for months to come.
What will help is staying away from other people, don’t touch ANYTHING and for goodness sakes, WASH YOUR HANDS!
Leave a Reply