This blog is about our retirement under a pandemic crisis. How are we doing? How are we coping? What changes have we made to our life and our lifestyle? What, if any advice would we give or tell ourselves or others so that we all can do better or better prepare?
The main basic advice I would tell anyone is that you should always have a savings account. Forget the 6 to 8 month rule. Under this pandemic it’s obvious that we may need up to two years of savings to get us by. That’s a lot of money to some; us included. It may be well into the end of 2021 before any semblance of order has been restored. Thankfully, we have around 5 to 6 years of liquid savings available to us, so that’s a very good thing.
My main mode of employment for many, many years was Budget Administer to several prestigious law firms. I am very familiar with setting up budgets and sticking to them. I’m not afraid of handling large sums of money, sometimes in the millions. Money doesn’t scare me. Lack of money does. My main quality is wanting top quality products but paying for them at bottom basement pricing. Attorneys loved that about me. That always meant they had the latest equipment, fastest computers and internet services and any and all maintenance repairs were handled with ease, competence and the bank was never broken. I’ve applied these same principals to my own life. To the outside world, we may look like we’re rich but to the budget spreadsheet we’re practically dirt poor. No one would ever guess we live on $25,000 to $29,000 a year. I consider this my greatest accomplishment in life: living high on low.
Enter the pandemic crisis and all those corresponding rising costs. I’m still sticking to a bare minimum budget but it’s costing us $34,380 a year in expenses! Everything, and I do mean everything is going up, up, up in costs. Thankfully, we passively take in $36,000 a year BUT we just took a $3,600 annual negative hit with my daughter paying off her 14 year loan to me (click here for that info). Hubby, who worked for Walt Disney Imagineering for 12 years, has a smallish pension from them (with wife/widow benefits) but if you’ve read the news lately, Disney is laying off thousands and thousands of their employees (28,000 Disney park employees being fired and that’s just a start. click here). Most of the theme parks are closed, thus no revenue is coming in. Disney is hoping streaming will save them (click here). If not, hubs and I anticipate his Disney Pension to be gone.

Should hubby’s Disney pension disappear that will leave just our Social Security income and our investment income coming in monthly. And we all know how little a safe investment income brings in nowadays. So, in other words, this pandemic may bring a financial crisis to our door. What to do?
Hubby’s answer is always that he can go out and get a job. He states he could work at a McDonald’s and a basic pay scale will earn him enough money to always pay the property taxes. Really, I asked him? He just applied for a part time, seasonal job at Fed Ex and UPS. Both times he was politely told ‘thanks a lot….we’ll keep your application on file….have a nice day‘. In other words, the computer algorithms calculated he was way too old. Good luck with that!
My answer is to continue NOW to cut back and save, save, save what ever we can.
During the early onslaught of the pandemic, I watched our $500 monthly grocery bill soar above $700+ for months on end. This month, thankfully, I think I’m going to come in at $400. We’ve been eating more vegetables lately and less red meat. Monday is always Meatless Monday. Tuesday is always Taco Tuesday (chopped turkey vs chopped beef). Friday is always pizza night ($3.00 total) and Sunday is always pasta. Now with the colder weather, we’ve been enjoying soup nights, a side salad and a few slices of fresh, locally baked baguettes and we’re happily satiated.

Hubby does ALL maintenance and repairs. Thankfully Amazon carries most any part he needs (lawn, vehicle, home). I’ve stopped getting my hair professionally cut as hubby gives me a buzz cut every 6 to 8 weeks. We’re back to wearing tee shirts and jeans outside, flannels and tees when inside. No outside activity whatsoever, other than walking, hiking and attending any free event someone, somewhere may host (which is rare). We haven’t seen any friend, family or foe and it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing either for the upcoming holidays. I’m turning 70 next month and I was so hoping for a big birthday party. Ain’t gonna happen. Not even my own kids will drive up to see me. I’m sick of FaceTime and Zoom.
The only things I’ve updated since February 2020 is our internet access (faster modem but at the same price of $55 a month) and hubby needed a new iPhone @$399 (financed at zero percent for 6 months). Other than those two, we haven’t spent money on anything else.
Full Disclosure: when we got our stimulus check, we bought a kiddie sized pool $470 (12 ft X 30 inches deep) and 1,710 gallons of water ($454) with the money. We had a very enjoyable summer despite it all!!
I take this pandemic very seriously. I have to. On April 13, 2020 my brother died of the coronavirus. He was 76 years old, a retired doctor, living in Florida and just “cured” of bladder cancer. He had to fly to NYC to see a cancer specialist. He was aware of the pandemic. As an ex-doctor he thought he took all the precautions. Obviously, he didn’t. Because of my own bother’s death, I will not go to a doctors office nor a hospital. I didn’t get my mammogram this year, get an annual physical nor see nor speak with my General Practitioner. I have a minor heart condition and am still taking my meds BUT I haven’t seen nor spoken to my cardiologist in 2 years. Seeing him just isn’t worth the risk. Hubby did see his cardiologist in May but the process he went through was almost on the verge of ridiculous.
We did get our flu shots. If I have a medical emergency, I’ll go to an ER. Other than that, hubs and I stay home. The only time we leave is to go walking or hiking. We go food shopping twice or three times a month. Most of our other shopping is done online. Including our doggie needs. It’s a constant, constant financial stressor to constantly, constantly keep our expenses in check. We simply can not make a mistake.
Each day I thank God we have a home to live in, mortgage-free. 40 million Americans will be facing evictions and homelessness next month (click here). I never realized the importance of owning your own, paid-for home in retirement would be. If we had to pay rent, we’d be broke in no time. Our retirement may go well in to our 90’s. We don’t have enough savings or passive income to afford rent for the next thirty years. Many people don’t think of that. We did. I always recommended buying your smallish, forever home no later than age 35, paying off the 30 year mortgage, never ever borrowing out the equity so that by the time you are 65 you can have both a roof over your head AND enough equity (cash) to hold you in your retirement years. Not a bad strategy. It’s painless.

I’m also very grateful that we have a backyard big enough to support a modest vegetable garden. We’ve planted a few fruit trees and I am hoping next year or the year afterward, some fruit will be mature enough to be picked. I’m also very thankful that we live in the valley overlooking the Catskill and Adirondack mountains of upstate New York. Hiking, biking and country walks are abundant and free. So are all the state parks to NY residents! Which translates into low cost camping fees we are hoping to enjoy next year!
When we first planned out our retirement strategy back in our 30s, I had no idea we would wind up like this. Message: go with the flow. Prepare but prepare for your plans to change. On a dime.
Till then, happy trails to us:

Hi Cindi, All Marriages have their highs and lows, sorry to here yours is at one of its lows.
I want to share some ideas with you to replace that $300 a monthly deficit from your daughter paying you back.
1. Plan your bill paying using a rewards credit card. I now pay my utilities, taxes, and insurances with them. Most of the travel rewards credit cards are allowing You to use the rewards for groceries.
Do you have a Chase credit card? If not they just increase their bonus on their Sapphire Preferred to 80,000 bonus points with $4000 spend in 3 months. It can be applied to grocery purchases and they announced also a free Door Dash pass. This amounts to $1200- $95 annual fee. I read two articles on this at CNBC.
You can each get your own card after you satisfy the first ones spending requirement. ($2400). I time getting them six weeks ahead for my property tax payments and my estimated income taxes. I pay my house insurance yearly and my car insurance every six months. It is very easy to take a look at your Last year spreadsheet and determine the regular bills you will be paying to reach $4000 in 3 months. You can also take advantage of Capital One offers that CNBC.com has an article comparing the Chase and Capital One Card’s. There you have more then your $3600 back in rewards with not touching the $6,000 from your daughter.
2. My next suggestion is to take that $6000 and the $7000 you saved and invest in a preferred stock with a monthly dividend over 10% yield, so It will give you $1300 in dividends more then a hundred a month. I use DRIPs which is dividend reinvestment plan to continue to increase my passive income stream. I invest with no commissions and can buy small quantities.
3. And lastly, Be open to using rewards, coupons, and rebates. I got my high dose flu shot at CVS by calling on Friday to see if they got any in. I then went to CVS.com and loaded all my CVS rewards and digital coupons. I had a $15 off any item from purchasing a blood pressure machine, that I use on Nature Bounty vitamins BOGO sale . I got a $5 coupon on the flu shot. I purchased $46.59 of items for 6 cents including hand sanitizers, vitamins, mouthwash, toothpaste, and a thermometer.
Return home and cash redeemed $125 in rewards on my Bank America rewards cards.
Check my emails and had a $5 thank you reward from Amazon on getting an Order from Whole Foods. So I went to Amazon to buy smaller underwear and got a pop up to get $15 dollars credit to make Discover my preferred charge at Amazon. No problem. Underwear totally free and Two Christmas gifts for my grandson, too.
Over two hundred dollars in a day! Cha Ching! Sincerely, Lara
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Lara, you certainly are the queen of rewards. You play them like a fiddle!
We got our flu shots for free.
To get that $300 deficit to balance out our budget, we paid off 2 zero interest loans. That freed up around $350 a month! I still have 1 more to go which will free up another $300. I’ll be using that now extra income to put into a money market account. I don’t think I’ll be investing anything in the stock market. It’s too unsettling for me.
I do have a Chase Card and they just switched me to the Freedom Card. It’s silly because we only use 1 or 2 cards and on one of them I get 5% back on purchases, which I redeem the points as cash and use it towards reducing the balance due. That’s about all I do with rewards!
Hubby and I looked over our finances and budget yesterday and we were astounded to see that I socked away so much into savings, that when we totaled it up, I had saved around $21,000. I had no idea! I just kept sending money to the savings account every chance I got. Plus finally, we lowered our food bill to under $400 ($397 for this month!) down from $700 all the other previous months. Lastly, for the first time ever, our monthly charge card went from $2000+ a month, to only $859 this month. I have stopped so much spending it isn’t funny! Plus, when I buy something, if I don’t like it or want it, I return it pronto and get a full refund. There’s no waste here anymore. I finally got my budget under control. Plus we’re home all the time! That helps! LOL.
Lastly, when I coordinate my shipping days on Amazon, they give me a reward. A few dollars or so. I use that money to rent videos on Prime or I buy ebooks for free! Right now, I’ve accumulated $7 in rewards which means I can see a few inexpensive movies (like Casablanca for $2.99) and buy a few cheap ebooks like that How To Be Cheap book for only thirteen cents after rewards.
Thanks for your tips. You certainly have a few in there that I need to seriously look at. 🙂
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$21,000- now that is AWESOME 👏. We are so very different two years ago, I started the DRIP program in May 2018, my mentor told me about and also harvesting capital gains since they all have a natural channel closely coordinated to their dividends payouts. These investments now pay double of all my other monthly income combined. (SS, pensions, money markets, savings!) Dave Ramsey uses the snowball effect for debt payment probably similar to what your doing. I like to think this strategy been an avalanche in the opposite direction. Each month reinvestment increases the next months income. Let it snow! Let it snow! The only debt I carry is the .09% Subaru Outback loan , which I decided not to pay cash for and invested in 10.75% monthly preferred dividend stock. Reinvesting the dividends from this money alone will double that money. Sincerely, Lara
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I’m done with those zero interest loans. They put a strain on my budget. From hereinafter I’m just buying outright. Enough!!
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If you have an emergency need like a broken down appliance I still think a zero interest loan could be a good option if money is tight., or the smaller amount is easier on your monthly cash flow. My preferred method is gather the rewards and dividends and invest for increase cash flow constantly . It starts to be exponential.
I have bought over $250 worth of merchandise in CVS rewards and coupons And paid $29 dollars. I join their Care Pass for $48 annually which gives a $10 reward monthly and free shipping. I am stockpiled again if we have to totally isolate again. Sincerely, Lara
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If we have a big item emergency, then by all means I’ll get a zero interest credit. What I’ve done is get the amount due low enough that I can just pay it off. This last one I wrote a check of $2500 and just paid it off in full. Done!! That freed up $362 off monthly budget. Yay!
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