How to Save Money During the Coronavirus Pandemic: 8 Simple Tips on Budgeting
As of the beginning of April, even in countries where the first announced quarantine regime is now nearing its end, it has either been extended or definitely will be. In Europe, the peak of the pandemic has not been passed even in countries that had closed their borders and sent their citizens home when only several dozen cases of COVID-19 were registered.
What is happening?
Today’s crisis is destroying large companies, makes billionaires bankrupt, and forever deprives entire cities and regions of the future. How to survive in all this if you’re an ordinary person? In this article, we will tell you how to survive emotionally and financially while quarantining.
1. Calculate your monthly expenses and income
You need to quickly sort out your current budget as early as possible, as well as distribute it for the most necessary things. Make a table to calculate your expenses and income and fill in this table every day, putting even minor expenses on the list.
This way, you can understand what impulse purchases you make, and consequently decide which products can be replaced with cheaper and at the same time more healthy ones.
2. Start saving money
When people carefully plan their budget, they realize how much money they can spend per month or week on certain goods. It is important not to throw saved money down the drain after the quarantine is over. Instead, set this money aside for something that actually matters.
Give up the little things you can easily live without every day: a daily cup of coffee to go or a pack of cigarettes, restaurant food, or buying plastic bags at the supermarket when you go grocery shopping once again. All these can easily be replaced with coffee in reusable cups that you make at home and reusable tote bags. You can make dinner yourself at home as well. Put all saved money in a piggy bank, either real or virtual.
3. Find additional sources of income
Even if you are short of time, you can find an opportunity to get an additional source of income, albeit a small one. For instance, if you are a good cook, you can start baking and sell pastry and get it delivered. Or you can provide services like manicure, haircuts, etc. Alternatively, you can clear out your wardrobe and sell clothes that you don’t wear anymore.
4. Search for vacancies on large job search websites
These sites always offer remote positions and part-time work. If you don’t have any special skills, note that delivery people and taxi drivers are in high demand now.
5. Attend online therapy counseling
If you struggle to overcome this difficult life situation on your own, and even more so if you are alone in quarantine and there’s simply no one to speak to, there’s such a useful thing as online therapy counseling. It greatly reduced the prices of specialists, making therapy services much more affordable.
6. Plan your meals for a week
It sounds boring, but we spend a lot of money for two main reasons: firstly, when we buy extra food products which then go bad, and secondly, when we go to the nearest store every night where everything is more expensive than in supermarkets.
7. Download free apps
While being in quarantine, people begin to download more phone games. Many of these games have some options for in-app purchases. Choose a free option of the app instead and limit in-app purchases. At first, it seems that $0,99 for in-app purchase is nothing, but think of how much money you can spend per month playing every day! In most cases, the unpaid version works just fine if you can put up with some ads.
8. Forget about 2 for 1 offers
People buy promotional items pretty often. They easily part with money buying things they didn’t plan to buy before. Frequently, promotions don’t even have any benefit, it’s all about our psyche. Having refused an allegedly “very good bargain,” a person is afraid to lose this money in the future.
If you learn to cope with the fear of loss, you can safely refuse the sellers and yourself the desire to buy two chocolates for the price of one, and you can really save a lot of money.