Remember when we were living through a pandemic?

 

Back in 2020, we all learned that we would have to live differently, after all the potential for death from breathing Covid-19 contaminated air was real, and many people did die. During that time we stopped going out to eat or find entertainment and started saving our earnings.

Now in 2024, we find ourselves saving less, eating out again, and joining friends and family for fun and social pleasure. Take a moment and consider how much better or worse off you are from March 2020.

When I first learned of the pandemic I was anxious. I have a lot of people who count on me and getting ill while managing several autoimmune diseases was scary. I take medication to suppress my immune system, and that made Covid-19 worrying. I lost my job for a short while and that was concerning. I worked with a woman who was furloughed at the same time I was and she asked how to apply for unemployment, and I was happy she asked because I didn’t know how to apply either.

When considering the challenges we lived through I wonder what lessons we learned. Clearly, as a society, we are capable of saving money, we are capable of making sourdough bread, and we know that in an emergency we must horde toilet paper.

I thought when the pandemic was first announced that we would have issues with oil, after all oil is shipped to the USA, and ships were impacted by all manner of rules because crews were arriving from all over the world. Naturally, I thought the ships with oil would be prohibited from docking until they were given the all-clear. It did happen that shipping and docking were impacted, but ultimately it was the shopping public that had the largest impact on supplies.

The first time I went to the grocery store after the pandemic was announced the shelves at the store were nearly empty. I bought a few acorn squashes, no toilet paper, and little of anything else. The stores caught on and limited items so no one person during one trip to the store could buy all the beans, the hand sanitizer, or the fast-acting yeast.

We learned we could hunker down, we can entertain ourselves, and that we are self-sufficient. Then our mental health took a hit. Because being isolated is hard.

We still live with the pandemic, but it’s not as bad as it once was so we are back to socializing, and spending. American credit card debt set a record, topping one trillion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2023. Americans had record savings in 2020. But in 2024 we are saving less than we did in 2019, in fact, we are saving at about half the rate.

More than half of the adults asked stated they don’t ever want to give up their daily coffee purchase at a whopping $7.00 a cup.

It seems like a small thing, but I’m convinced that the same people who want to spend $7.00 on coffee daily will also pay $15.00 daily for lunch and have takeout delivered more often than not for dinner. I think they pay large amounts for subscription streaming services. I suspect they find entertainment in the form of shopping either at the mall, in the cute downtown area in the town they live in, or online.

These activities are great in moderation, just like a donut, a bowl of ice cream, or a greasy bucket of delicious fried chicken. The problem is that we have a society that focuses on immediate gratification versus a society that values delayed gratification.

The reality is that delayed gratification correlates with academic achievement, better physical and mental health outcomes, and better social skills. Why is it important to have these outcomes? Happiness is more about the nuance of control than it is about the abundance of material wealth.

If you can have control over your health, mental and physical you’ll be happier. There are a myriad of quotes that reflect this. I like this quote, “He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.” – Arabian Proverb.

If you are facing a limited income, and you lament your loss of savings because you felt the joy of post-pandemic freedom and overindulged for a while, don’t worry there is hope. Here are a few steps to get back on the road of hope-

·       Forgive yourself. If you saved money during the pandemic you can do it again, and the fact that you recognize an issue with your spending is great news. You can change course.

·       Evaluate your goals; make sure they are aligned with how you can live now. Goals must always be realigned with your current reality, if you want to live like you used to, you have to investigate what your circumstances used to be. If your circumstances have changed you must change too.

·       Create a new realistic schedule to achieve your newly aligned goals.

·       Review your goals and accomplishments regularly to boost your confidence and motivation.

·       Visualize your success as though you are living it today.

·       Remember that setbacks are not failures and you don’t have to start over again at square one. You just have to get back on the horse and get back on track.

You can find more helpful ideas in my book, “Never Worry About Money Again: Gain Financial Freedom By Becoming Better At Managing The Money You Have”