Was COVID one of the best things to ever happen to you financially? (Canada, social security)
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More people with $1 million saved for retirement than ever before.
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While terrific news, it shouldn’t come as a surprise: The stock market has been soaring. We reported just last week that the S&P 500 SPX, 1.62% —the widely-watched investment benchmark—has nearly doubled since the March 2020 pandemic low. Think about that: If you had put money into an index fund that mirrors the S&P, you’d have doubled your money in a year and a half without breaking a sweat.
Curious as to why you didn't ask this in the Finances section, since you are in your 30s. Wouldn't that give you responses from a wider segment other than just retired folk?
Maybe inquiring minds want to know.
The question is a valid one for those who are retired and not working. My guess is that for some workers the pandemic has been a financial disaster. If your company closed down or you have been out of a job for months you are in trouble. If you are a landlord and not getting rent payments you are in trouble. The situation might be pretty bleak if you own a small business or depend on tourism. Retirees with a steady income or investments might have a different experience.
...I was directly answering the question as to whether or not Covid has been a good thing for me financially and the point I was making is - no, it has not been a good thing. If I have to quit my job over an unconstitutional mandate then I guess that's what I'll have to do. But quitting my job would negatively impact me personally. ...
Retiring a little earlier than planned might be the way to go. ....
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Originally Posted by Avalon08
Curious as to why you didn't ask this in the Finances section, since you are in your 30s. Wouldn't that give you responses from a wider segment other than just retired folk?
It’s hard to disentangle questions of finances, work vs. retirement, politics, personal well-being, social life and so on. All are related. If our finances are more solid because we’re socializing less, traveling less, dining-out less and consuming less, then have we really benefited? The closure of gyms probably put another $50/month in gym patrons’ pockets, but is the switch from weightlifting at the gym, to push-ups at home, such a boon? I want to save money because productivity-growth has lowered the costs of my usual habits, rather than cost-reduction via asceticism and self-abnegation.
As to finances vs. retirement, one gathers that this WFH fetish is a dress-rehearsal for retirement. Modern white collar professionals are mostly laptop jockeys. Take away the office, but retain the laptop, and I struggle to see how typing a Word document “for work” differs that much from typing out a novel or a posting on this Forum (as it happens, currently I am doing both). If WFH is indeed rehearsal for retirement, then I’d rather die on the job.
In sum, it’s been a fractious and confusing time. Even if we’re better off financially, the long-term reckoning – financial or otherwise – is unclear.
It’s hard to disentangle questions of finances, work vs. retirement, politics, personal well-being, social life and so on. All are related. If our finances are more solid because we’re socializing less, traveling less, dining-out less and consuming less, then have we really benefited? The closure of gyms probably put another $50/month in gym patrons’ pockets, but is the switch from weightlifting at the gym, to push-ups at home, such a boon? I want to save money because productivity-growth has lowered the costs of my usual habits, rather than cost-reduction via asceticism and self-abnegation.
As to finances vs. retirement, one gathers that this WFH fetish is a dress-rehearsal for retirement. Modern white collar professionals are mostly laptop jockeys. Take away the office, but retain the laptop, and I struggle to see how typing a Word document “for work” differs that much from typing out a novel or a posting on this Forum (as it happens, currently I am doing both). If WFH is indeed rehearsal for retirement, then I’d rather die on the job.
In sum, it’s been a fractious and confusing time. Even if we’re better off financially, the long-term reckoning – financial or otherwise – is unclear.
This has sort of been my line of thinking all along.
When COVID hit last year and the shutdowns occurred, my spending was forcibly lowered. Restaurants were closed. Gyms were closed. Travel, to the extent I could it, was a nightmare. I drove the entirety of the Blue Ridge Parkway last year - the worst part of the ordeal was that most restaurants were closed, or drive-thru service only.
Telecommuting was at first just "working from home." Now, I'm in this weird spot mentally between employed, unemployed, and retired. I might work from a brewery or the lake on a slow Friday. I can often eat breakfast with the laptop before I really start the day.
Sure, I have to keep an 8-5 schedule, but today, I took an extra fifteen minutes at lunch to go to Best Buy. I'll have periods where I am very busy, then a slow afternoon. 3-5 today has been very slow.
A paycheck is deposited into my account every two weeks. Fundamentally, that's all I care about.
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Originally Posted by jrkliny
Josie and others have already said it. Covid has had a huge negative impact on our lives and it is not over yet!!!!!
There is no indication that we are close to the end of Covid. In fact it is likely that there will be new variants that are even more deadly and current vaccines may not keep them in check.
Even the financial picture does not look that rosy. The government has already spent huge sums trying to offset some of the economic impact. We, our kids and grandkids will be paying for this for decades and decades to come. The idea that Gates, Bezos and Zuckerberg will pay for all the government spending is just political nonsense. All of us will pay and we don't even have the bill yet as the spending continues.
Next time you are feeling smug about your financial situation, try to buy a 2x4, a steak, or a tank of gas. We can already see those costs. Others are lurking and yet to emerge.
A lot of people who didn't previously work from home now are. A tank of gas can do me at least two weeks with just local travel. I spend less money on dining out for lunches because I don't do it as much. I'm not having to buy a separate set of clothes for work. There are savings.
It's figurative speech. Basically the thought is that Covid is not a pleasant virus but it is not worth destroying our economy, giving up our individual freedoms and submitting to health mandates over. In fact, states that have had the heaviest restrictions are not faring better than states with practically no restrictions. Risk factors vary A LOT among the various age groups and that's why there shouldn't be a blanket vaccine mandate, it's not a one size fits all scenario and it's a decision that should be made between individuals and their healthcare providers - the government and employers should not have the power to force a person to choose between getting vaccinated or losing their job. I'm not against the vaccine, I'm against government imposed health mandates. 90% of the high risk groups have been vaccinated which really should be good enough. Of course, the goal posts keep changing and nothing we do is ever good enough.
I agree with you that inflated house values are mostly on paper because if you sold at an inflated value, you would also be buying another house at an inflated value or paying inflated rent. It would be a wash.
I agree that we shouldn't blow the economy up over COVID. For the most part, the people the virus has killed were either older, unhealthy, immunocompromised, or some combination thereof.
When all this got started last year, I did the whole "sanitize everything" bit for awhile. I have a picture of myself at a gas station in a rural along the Blue Ridge Parkway with gloves on pumping gas. Stupid, but at the time, the media hyped it up like it was the apocalypse.
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Originally Posted by trusso11783
The most shocking thing about this post is that you bought your house in 2019 for $96k. Here on Long Island, you would not have been able to a house for that price in 1979. Not eve an 1/8 acre of empty land. How are there any areas in this country that have houses that low? As of now, you couldn’t buy a gutted out fixer upper anywhere around here for under $350k. I’m living in the wrong part of the country.
I live in a small city in northeast Tennessee with a historically depressed economy and very low wages. I have a 2BR/2BA townhome with a drive under garage. ~1200 sq. ft. and the garage is ~550 sq. ft. It's nothing fancy.
I think that's what a lot of the 800,000 people killed so far by Covid in the US said as well. (We lost less than 420,000 in WW2.)
I haven't a clue what your last sentences mean "burning down the world"... who suggests that? There are currently about a half million citizens who are "living their lives" with long haul symptoms, some of which are pretty bad and especially for the over-65yo demographic.
As far as the financial aspects, it's hard to measure as a retiree. My housing has greatly appreciated in value, but so has the cost of any home I would move to. The joker in the deck is this current inflation due to covid issues & if it will be short-lived or the beginning of a trend that may also effect the markets.
Let's look at my $96k condo.
If I have $30k in equity, I can use that for a fairly significant downpayment somewhere else. That would be 10% down on a $300k property. It would take me a long time to save $30k cash. It helps in moving up the property ladder.
Telecommuting was at first just "working from home." Now, I'm in this weird spot mentally between employed, unemployed, and retired. I might work from a brewery or the lake on a slow Friday. I can often eat breakfast with the laptop before I really start the day.
Sure, I have to keep an 8-5 schedule, but today, I took an extra fifteen minutes at lunch to go to Best Buy. I'll have periods where I am very busy, then a slow afternoon. 3-5 today has been very slow.
An extra 15-minutes is soothing for the soul, and nowise ruins productivity (likely even enhances it). But the limbo of being comprehensively detached from the essence and aegis of the workplace, while still getting paid, bodes ill for long-term growth and productivity. It is this part that's unsustainable.
As others have noted, all measures and all actions have tradeoffs. If we tomorrow we banned motorcycles, we'd greatly reduce motorcycle deaths. We already tried Prohibition, in attempt to save lives and to banish the scourge of alcoholism. That effort wasn't entirely successful, to say the least.
It is cruel and heartless, of course, to dismiss the lives-lost from Covid, or the lives diminished from long-Covid. But what is the alternative? So long as many of us have plausible case, that financially we're doing well, and socially we're at least doing tolerably OK, then we countenance the prolonging of the various measures. It's easy to be charitable to the immunocompromised and the frail and the vulnerable, so long as we ourselves keep benefiting in some way, so long as our stocks and our property-values are rising nicely. Charity on the cheap, is no burden. But what if suddenly we no longer benefit? What if our casual and detached employment-situation morphs into layoffs?
No effect financially, since I was retired with a defined-benefit pension by then. However, I feel for those who were laid off or lost their jobs during the great lockdown.
I was living alone in Scottsdale in a house that was only sparsely furnished because we'd spent little time there since we bought it. The kitchen and the bathrooms lacked many basic tools and other items. Then the pandemic hit. A few months later my spouse returned. I still have mixed feelings about the wisdom of that.
Some days I had a half dozen packages arrive from Amazon and other companies containing things I needed to have in order to cook or clean or bathe. I bought a Miele HEPA vacuum. I am allergic to dust and the whole house vacuum wasn't cutting it. All in all I spent about $10,000 last year on grocery deliveries, mail order food and things that made life easier. Most of that came out of my savings. The spouse wasn't helping with expenses at all.
Fortunately last Christmas was a bonanza year for my business. I made back all the money I'd spent on necessities and then some. That was dumb luck, though. It could have gone the other way. This year isn't going to be good.
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