Hi friends! I hope you guys are doing alright and surviving this mess of a year. I have wanted to write this post for a while now because it's one significant stressor during these unpredictable times. Today, I will cover how I have been dealing with my finances since March and the kinds of problems I faced during this time. Stay tuned!
I am not going to remind you how this year started and then March happened. I am just going to describe my situation after March 16th, 2020.
I remember it was Wednesday before the spring break when I was last on campus. I skipped my lab on Friday that week because Covid was a new thing at that time, and I didn't want to sit in traffic.
The following week we heard that lockdowns are happening and schools are shutting down and that our spring break was extended for another week. While we were excited to listen to that, my manager also informed us that we are immediately reducing hours from 40 to 20 hrs a week. We could only work three days a week, so my fight or flight mode kicked in. I knew I couldn't pay my bills with a part-time income. I immediately signed up for Uber and started doing deliveries. I cut down all my spending and was only doing grocery shopping to cook food at home. I canceled any extra subscriptions that were just for my entertainment.
Honestly, a break from the fast-moving world was appreciated, but it felt different. Roads felt apocalyptic. I was scared to come near people for the first time. The ambiguity of this pandemic was the worst part of it. It was a modern-day nightmare come true. Those of us who went out of our homes to avoid depression became part of that wave. Life stopped for a moment, and while there were no guns involved, it still felt like a war.
Let's go back to my financial condition. By this time, I had to apply for partial unemployment. That and stimulus check helped keep a roof on my head. I worked hard on controlling my spending and didn't buy anything that was not needed. Months moved on, and my job hours started getting back to normal. Now all of a sudden, I was working 50 hours again, but I was scared. I was afraid because every other day, I would receive a call from my manager saying, "there has been another covid positive person in the office." I didn't want to go to work because I felt threatened. Even though my job was taking adequate precautions, the virus was still spreading. Out of fear of this, I started applying for "work from home" jobs. I was finally able to secure one, and I felt so relieved. This job paid me enough to pay my bills and still have benefits, but I didn't shop at all this year or do anything for fun to contribute more towards my savings.
This job operated Monday through Friday, 12 pm till 9 pm for me. It was tough to manage school with this job. I would wake up at 7 am every day. Do my school work, take my class at 10 am - 11:45 am, and then log in to work after 15 mins. I would get off at nine and then hop back on my school computer to meet school deadlines.
Moreover, I had internship interviews pretty much every day. I had to make sure I could fit those in my schedule as well. The fall semester isn't entirely done yet, but I hope to keep peace with my professors. My next semester is going to be online. While that may not be my first choice, I do appreciate the flexibility and safety of everyone. And not to be pessimistic here, but all of you who are hoping 2021 will be all normal, don't have your hopes too high. According to doctors/scientists, next year isn't going to be magically covid free. So just throwing it out there so y'all are not too disappointed.
Till then, stay safe, we will talk sometime later!
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