How Will Your Wallet Survive The Covid-19 Pandemic?

Are you financially prepared for the next few months?

- Joe Ferreria

“Death by starvation is slow and undramatic, and in the annals of war or when war is represented in popular books and films, it is largely ignored. In contrast to slaughter in combat, death from hunger ‘is very dull,’” wrote a campaigning journalist during the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed 3 million Indians. Yet at least 20 million people died as a result of malnutrition and its associated diseases during the Second World War. Those killed in combat totaled approximately 19.5 million.

The world is turned upside down by this COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a World War-type of problem that kills without regard for social status, nationality, or faith. It has no borders, no political beliefs, and one can only guess when the end will come.

Some things are obviously not in place such as work, social interaction, traveling, even our sleeping habits brought about by the quarantine.

What is hidden from view however is how this pandemic has turned our financial life topsy-turvy.

Today, people suddenly are aware of the meaning of an emergency fund. Anxiety is in the back of our minds as we deal with the realities of a drastically changed money situation. We ask “ How long will my money last?”

While employed individuals may have something to fall back on with the continuation of salary, not everybody is in the same comfortable boat. Day workers who literally survive paycheck to paycheck quickly understood the coming tidal wave of suffering. No work, no pay, no eat is a recurring theme in their minds every minute of each idled day. When the coffers run dry, hunger beckons.