Finances During the Pandemic with the Happy Hour Ladies
Finances During the Pandemic with the Happy Hour Ladies
Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host the happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics.
We are now officially six months into the global pandemic and I thought I would take this time to find out how the situation has impacted our personal finances.
What are we drinking?
Melanie from Dear Debt, Lola Retreat, and MentalHealthandWealth.com — Virgil’s Root Beer (non-alcoholic)
Tonya from Tonya-Stumphauzer.com — Prosecco
Liz, Mrs. Frugalwoods, from Frugalwoods.com — Milk Stout Beer, by The Mast Landing Brewing Company
Shannon — Champagne Split
Podcast Notes
The Happy Hour ladies discussed low star reviews of the podcast. The ladies do not have any intention of hurting anyone and they are open to the feedback.
Liz is not in pain being on the show — thank you for your care and concern!
All of the ladies have jobs that have been impacted by the pandemic.
Tonya was always not making quite enough, prior to the pandemic as a freelancer. When the lockdown started, many projects were put on hold. When summer came, things picked up and she got really busy. Now the work has leveled off.
Tonya has spent the same amount of money throughout, but nothing got cheaper. She spent a lot on things that made her feel better, like gym equipment. She also moved into a new apartment this year, and she is making her space more comfortable, but she hasn’t done much traveling.
Things are fairly comfortable for Tonya now, but she would like to ramp up her freelancing. Her net worth is at an all-time high, and she would like to earn more.
On the whole, the Frugalwoods are privileged and lucky to live where they do. There has been no preschool or daycare since March. It is great from a financial perspective, but challenges come because of it, specifically with balancing work and childcare.
Liz stopped freelancing when she was writing her book. Most of her revenue is now affiliate revenue. This took a big hit initially, because a number of her affiliate companies reduced their programs, but it has since bounced back.
Liz is with her kids a lot, which is great but exhausting. Liz has quite a few friends going through divorces right now, and she is thankful she is not at that place with her relationship.
Unfortunately, one of the things that went by the wayside is their monthly date night. Liz and her husband go to the grocery store once a month, but otherwise they don’t go out.
If you are going to invest your money for five to ten years, get into the market and don’t try to time it. The market is a very optimistic place. Every year, there are new entrants to the market and you will always have highs.
The pandemic is a good testament of having a cash emergency fund.
For Melanie, from March to June, everything was normal. Since June and all of the protests, she has seen clients cut back on content. Her capacity to take on work is also different, because she isn’t able to hold in-person workshops. She is now testing out digital workshops.
Melanie is cutting back her budget to bare bones and she is trying to increase her emergency fund to one year of expenses.
The last six months have shined a light on passive income. When you go through times like this, passive income can relieve a lot of stress.
Trauma of COVID is compounding faster than student loan interest. Surge capacity is what we draw on to survive short-term, stressful situations.
Shannon and her boyfriend decided to end their relationship about two months ago, and about two weeks ago she decided to start dating again. She went on four dates last week. Shannon reviewed the dates with the ladies.
The Gym was down over 22% in revenue, month after month, but it looks like they are coming out of it. Shannon is looking at raising money again and there are some exciting tech projects they want to work on, but hiring engineers is expensive.
Pre-COVID, Shannon’s annual salary was $100,000. When the pandemic happened, Shannon asked her staff if they would take salary cuts, and she cut her own salary to $60,000. She had to dip into her savings to make ends meet.
Since The Gym received a PPP loan, Shannon had to increase her salary to $77,000, in order to get forgiveness for the loan. She is on a bare-bones budget and the salary is working for now.
Her goal is to raise enough money to give her team a bonus to make up for the pay cut they took. Even with the pay cut, Shannon feels privileged, because she has control over her job. Government is a sector that is Shannon’s next concern for job cuts.
Netflix recommendations: Cobra Kai, Lovesick, Trinkets.
Melanie’s mantra: “I am healthy, I am safe”.
This pandemic is making us all stronger.
TAKEAWAY: My biggest takeaway is that there are financial winners and losers, because of this pandemic, and if you feel like you’re suffering financially, you’re not alone. If you feel like you’re succeeding, I hope you’re taking the time to plan for how you can continue to build on the financial success you’ve had. I also want to remind people that if you have any feedback on things that we’ve shared on the show, I hope you’ll always share that feedback to help us learn and grow as individuals.
This pandemic has impacted all of us in a number of ways, and in particular, it’s taken a toll on our business at The Financial Gym. With a number of our clients impacted by layoffs and furloughs and others concerned for their financial future, The Financial Gym could use as much help as possible. If you’ve considered joining, there’s no better time than now, as we have a number of promotions happening. If you’ve ever thought about gifting a membership, you can now do so through our website, or if you’d like to contribute to our Black Lives scholarship program, you can find more information on our website. So head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com.
If you have any topics you would like for us to talk about during happy hour, please feel free to email me at shannon@fingyms.com or tweet to me at blonde_finance or join the private martinis and your money Facebook group and let us know. Until next time, take care!!