Financially how much better or worse off are you this year?

as a result of covid.

 

I reckon I have saved about £25k more than I would otherwise have done.

Much better off. Saved loads of money and overpaid quite a lot of mortgage.

also the London exodus has caused house prices around me to rocket so according to Zoopla and places going on the market near me (and then immediately being snapped off the market) I’ve made a fair bit of money on house price rises too.

Big hols to NZ which cost loads wiped out any savings, but that's still £10k better off than I would have been I reckon.

Bonuses looking like they will be at normal levels, but no pay rise this year so there's that

Fairly neutral. The money I saved on going out I just ended up spending on way more food and booze for home, takeaways, and buying stuff to pass the time. 

I do now some nice stuff I wouldn't have had otherwise though.

It's remarkable how creative we have been in finding new ways to spend the money we would otherwise have spent on holidays but still up a fair bit because we haven't travelled.  We weren't locked down for long here though so the effect is not massive. Earnings stable against last year give or take. 

Ebit they're all gone now and done and dusted apart from a couple of finishing touches.  Landscaping boys will be tidying up shortly ready for a summer of socialising.

Cash wise probably neutral - saved loads on not travelling & socialising & no kids activities but against that we rented a second home, and also bought a car for the first time in 20 years so those two things offset the non spending. 

On a long term value basis arguably incredibly positive as my business (which I have a large amount of stock in) was very positively impacted by the pandemic and its value went up massively. Remains to be seen if any of that value will/can be liquidated though, we’re still aways off IPO. Also have just changed jobs into a different industry that has been impacted but is now coming back so again that could be good for me as my stock grant will have hopefully been done at the bottom of the curve. 

better off. Income stable, outgoings down.

(but not as much as it should, Aubergine and truffle pesto FFS. Mr Waitrose, that is just middle-class bait).

I've also got off my backside and got back out running. So I'm fitter too.

If anyone bothered to check their pensions beforehand to make sure they weren't invested in dog default funds then they should be circa 50% better off by a far larger amount than they'll have made dicking about in Bitcoin or following RoF share "tips". 

i dont understand how you lot have saved money! i guess my work related expenses have maybe fallen a bit as we arent paying for desks in central london and i am travelling less but personally...any savings have been more than made up for in increased spend due to being fooking bored.

i do have a rather magnificent gut and alcohol problem now, tho

Certainly lost some money from airbnb as the Edinburgh festival was usually a good money maker for me. Otherwise not really lost anything else. Pay has gone on as normal. Saved money as can't travel anywhere.

We've been pretty rubbish saving any extra money from commuting etc - we spend far more on good quality food being at home all the time (but I'm fine with that). We took 2 trips which were much more expensive than our normal ones due to where we could actually travel and the last minute nature of booking (and a bit of s0d this who knows when we will get away again). Also had a chunky promotion pushed back so although that wasn't "lost" income it was a pretty big chunk of uplift over 6 months we didn't get. 

Worse because I moved house, work deferred some bonus payments due to covid and I had some unexpected additional expenses.

Otherwise I'd have saved up a bit.

We had a plan to live pretty parsimoniously over last 12 months anyway, lockdown has made that easier as nothing fun to do or spend it on to tempt us off track. 

Tuscan it’s because normally I waste a huge amount of money eating and drinking in twotty  overpriced london restaurants and bars (which I love and can’t wait to get back to). Not having to pay mark up on alcohol by drinking at home is huge. Also go on loads of holidays / foreign weddings etc etc. No spending on clothes as nowhere to go. 
 

basically have just swapped high cost trash with low cost trash (Netflix and home drinking). 

"On a long term value basis arguably incredibly positive as my business (which I have a large amount of stock in) was very positively impacted by the pandemic and its value went up massively."

Wanna swap ? The non-law business I am director and part owner of has probably halved in value due to people WFH :(

unless you want to/are able to cash in your chips now I think businesses that have collapsed or done very well due to lockdown will revert to balance in next 12 months unless they were spectacular/crap businesses in the first place.

Better off, but most of that is due to paying off my student loan last April and not having paid £50 a month for the gym for most of the last 12 months.

 

but I would much rather have the gym and the swimming pool

Saved money on commuting, eating out, holidays.

More than made up for this by ordering expensive food and booze for home, online shopping, and buying an unnecessarily expensive car.

"Guy Crouchback04 Mar 21 11:42

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....I think businesses that have collapsed or done very well due to lockdown will revert to balance in next 12 months unless they were spectacular/crap businesses in the first place."

Simply not true. We are the best at what we do, and historically have been very profitable, but the pandemic has compressed into a year changes in people's ways of working that would otherwise have taken 10+ years. That's not the same as having a "crap" business.

Dunno. About the same. Offset travel and days out by ordering slightly fancy prepared meals to be delivered so I don't have to do any cooking. 

Reading people talking about saving an extra 20 - 150k makes me feel extremely inadequate.

Saved more from my salary but bought a few bigger ticket items although probably invested a bit more. Just seem to have more of a buffer at the end of the month but nothing amazing.

Saved on holidays but wife normally pays for them out of her income which has dwindled so neutral there.

We didn't do much eating out and spaffing anyway.

I may just about have broken even, but actually probably under. My salary went to 50% (maternity) while fixed outgoings remained the same. Entertainment costs plummeted but groceries and wine/beer rocketed. My husband’s salary has been between 25-50% this year too so def no savings going on there. Spare cash largely gone on the kids because they needed new bedrooms etc. That cash would probably have gone on holidays.

My income is well down as much of what my shop does has a 'success fee' element to it. Conversely, and fortunately for me, my expenditure has also been well down. 

Saved about 30k, used that to pay off some debt, finally fix some stuff on the house and bought a horse.

Unfortunately Mr GHF is not earning as self employed so I haven't been able to re-save that much...

"Actually I've forgotten about pension funds.  I'm sure they have taken some sort of hammering so I expect worse off overall"

You might be pleasantly surprised...

got a payrise but self-employed income tailed off

haven't done any holidays or bought as many clothes as usual and obviosuly access to hair etc curtailed

but somehow I am not rich? dunno why

Current account: massively quids in. No hols, films, theatre, meals out etc. My income was not affected.

Capital account: my shares are down on a year ago, and dividends dried up for a while.

Net I am down.

But most people have more liquid cash than they did, so people are going to party like mad when things open up.

It’s very easy to do Mugen if you live in London and use delivery apps. I’m ashamed to admit that before I decided to go on a diet and kick my delivery habit I was spending around £500 a month on Deliveroo alone.

Mind you, I made some crafty investments when things were bad, e.g. Aviva at 220p (now 387) and Shell at 985 (now 1466).

But I will not mention some less glorious examples of my investment decisions.

Much better - returned to work from Mat leave on first day of lockdown so back to double income and I had a really good year at work so bonus was good.

zero holidays, no going out, no food out, no childcare fees for 4 months, finally finished paying maintenance, no clothes to buy, no houses to buy, no make up, hair, massages, yoga etc.

did some minor bits to the house - sofa, few k of work but didn’t really impact overall as for the first lockdown especially the only spend outside of fixed bills was the supermarket.  

This is the funniest thing about Deliveroo. It's basically the new higher end casual dining restaurant.

*Meets investors from big city with ridiculous amounts of money*

*Shows how people with slightly less ridiculous amounts of money go to it in big cities because time poor*

*Gets massive investment to expand model*

*Finds provincial market restricted to ex-city types with loads of cash i.e. 2% of local population*

*Loses loads of cash while founders cash out*

*Goes bust*

Just for this add in the "disrupter platform" fallacy to get even more investment. 

The comment about Kelvedon bottle banks made me snort. I tried to dispose of over 200 (I had 3.01am count them) in Coggeshall over the weekend. Going to dump them in Feering next time. Or Stisted.

Lost £33k thinking I was riding Gamestock to the moon when actually it transpired that it had already landed and was well on its way back.

Usually by the time I hear about some investment opportunity I have already missed the boat.