I’m sure this post comes at a very weird time for many of us – COVID-19 is still very much a concern and part of our lives. Mrs. Money and I have been sheltering in place for nearly 45 days now and although we really enjoy parts of it (family time and no commute) I think us along with everyone else is looking forward to the day we can get back to a little bit more of a ‘normal’. One thing I’ve found to be helpful during this quarantine period is to find a routine and one thing that I do on this blog is a quarterly financial update! Let’s dive in and see how my personal finances have fared over the past 3 months. 

Income

I’ll start off by saying I’m so thankful that both Mrs. Money and I are still employed, and we have not experienced a decrease in our hours or pay. I know that’s not the case for everyone out there, and I’ve had several friends get laid off. I work in technology sales, and Mrs. Money works at a school. It’s definitely been a transition to working from home, which we’ve both been doing, and we’ve been keeping BabyMoneyFinance at home too. I’m also super thankful that both our work has been very understanding that we may not be 100% as productive as we were in the office and that we have a toddler at home that consumes some of our attention. We’ve both been trying to balance work and life, and whether it’s getting up early or working a bit past 5, proactively blocking my calendar when Mrs. Money has calls with students, or even having BMF on my lap during calls (only internal type calls) – we’re finding a way to make it work! 

No other major updates with my income – holding steady and I’m very thankful for it! 

Expenses

With the overall economy not doing so hot right now, Mrs. Money and I have been really trying to keep a watchful eye on expenses, just because I think it’s prudent when so many people are getting laid off, just in case something happened with our income. We also had our house on the market and anticipating a move, we tried to limit expenses to save up. I will say that a huge praise but we actually sold our old house and bought a new one this past weekend, and are all moved in! We didn’t have the greatest situation in our old house, and were anxious and thankful to move!

Aside from the impending move (that happened last weekend), we have done a pretty good job controlling expenses. Staying home all the time means less spending on gas, not as many trips (if any) to look forward to and plan, and definitely not in need of buying new clothes. We’re not going out to social events and spending money there. So, aside from groceries and takeout, we’ve done a good job limiting our spending. I will say that we still try to support local businesses however we can, and have tried to do takeout, walk to our local coffee shop and pickup some beverages from our favorite local breweries. I wrote about this in a post a few weeks ago (wow has it been that long already) talking about obviously first securing your own mask before helping others, but if you’re in a position to help others, you still should. For me this means still trying to eat out about the same as we were before – just with delivery or takeout. 

Saving/Investing

It’s been a pretty tough month to watch my investments, as I’m sure you’ve felt the same way. We’ve seen about a 20% drop at it’s worst, and then a ton of volatility (i.e. one day up, one day down) after that. It’s pretty tough to stomach, even as a personal finance blogger. No one likes seeing his or her investments lose money, especially given the fact that we’ve worked so hard to earn that money. I will say that I’m not pulling money OUT of my investments; instead I’m just not putting new money IN right now (aside from retirement). I believe in the market long-term and trust that it’ll come back in the next year or two, and as I don’t need my investment money in the next year or two – I’m ok letting it sit there. However, I’m nervous things may not get better for a bit, so outside of our 15% retirement contributions (still doing that), we’re not putting new investment money in. Prior to all of this I’d strive to save and invest (mostly index funds) part of our paychecks each month. Nowadays I’m just saving that money. 

I did dip into some of my savings to purchase this new house and move, but it was savings that I’d set aside for a new house, not just general savings. We ended up increasing our down payment on this house, using cash from a savings account designated for house stuff. 

I hope to get back to more saving and investing in the next month or two – once things settle down in the new house! 

Giving

I’ve been consistent with my charitable contributions, and still try to give back as I’m able to. I give to my local church (online since we’re all in quarantine), we took several boxes of donations to Goodwill (coincidentally the day our local Goodwill’s stopped accepting donations because their warehouses were too full), and I also in a way look at shopping small business as a form of giving in this current environment. We’ve been buying bags of coffee from our local coffee shop instead of the grocery store, and although we’re paying quite a premium for it, I like the fact that we’re supporting local businesses.  

Overall

I’m very pleased with where we are financially right now. I know that buying a house is never cheap, and there are lots of little expenses (mostly spent at Home Depot) that pop up and we did takeout a lot this past weekend, but it was the right move for me and my family and we’re thankful for it! I’ve also been reminding myself that the money I took out of my house savings account will just show up as ‘equity’ in the new house – so it’s not like I’m ‘spending’ the money. I’m also so thankful that both Mrs. Money and I are still employed and are able to work from home. Spending quality family time is pretty sweet, and having cut out 10 hours each week on commuting allows me to enjoy that time with family. 

Blog

One of the perks I’ve learned about more time at home is more time for blogging! It’s been really fun spending more time with the blog, including writing a pretty popular post on COVID-19 and our finances. Prior to all of this quarantine, I’d normally workout at either 5:30am or 6:30am at my Crossfit gym and with that not in the picture right now, I’ve replaced that time with blogging time! 

I hope your Spring 2020 is going as well as it can be right now too! Thanks for reading and all the support!