How is your job being affected right now?

[dougdirt]

Doug, I heard that AllState is reducing insurance premiums by 15% now since nobody's driving. It's not a ton, but it's something. Call your auto insurance and see if they can cut you a deal or lessen your coverage, as you mentioned.

A water bill is usually a place where you can cut costs too. Stretch out your laundry, wash dishes instead of using the dishwasher if you have one, and not to be gross, but there's no reason to shower every day unless you exercise/sweat excessively.

My cooking's definitely gotten very creative. The other day I mixed up sauteed canned sardines, ricotta, and cooked frozen peas, put it on grilled bread, and topped with dried dill. It looked disgusting but was actually delicious. There was a period of my life where I had a food budget of $1.39 a day (and a much longer period when it was more than that, but not much), and it's totally doable, if not probably the best diet for years at a time... Also, alcohol is expensive. If you drink, I'd never recommend giving it up right now, but find out what you drink slowest. I drink wine much slower than I drink liquor or beer. The liquor stores in Pennsylvania are closed and that'll teach you to ration your alcohol real fast

I haven't broken down my daily food budget - but I also think that I can realistically go 2-3 months without buying food if I really wanted to/needed to right now. Whenever there's meat on sale, I will grab a few extra pounds of it (ground turkey, ground beef, chicken breasts are what I tend to go with), and my freezer is stocked from that from well before this all started going down. Between that, the pasta and rice I typically eat (meaning I've got plenty) - I should really be saving money on food expenses in the short term.

Alcohol is a no for me. Never had it. But, I do have a problem with soda. I've been limiting myself to two a day, but that's still working out to something like $5 a week when I could just have filtered water from my fridge. That one might get me. Is it unhealthy? Yes. Can I go without it? Yes. IS it worth it? I'm not so sure about that one lol.

[vaticanplum]

I haven't broken down my daily food budget - but I also think that I can realistically go 2-3 months without buying food if I really wanted to/needed to right now. Whenever there's meat on sale, I will grab a few extra pounds of it (ground turkey, ground beef, chicken breasts are what I tend to go with), and my freezer is stocked from that from well before this all started going down. Between that, the pasta and rice I typically eat (meaning I've got plenty) - I should really be saving money on food expenses in the short term.

Alcohol is a no for me. Never had it. But, I do have a problem with soda. I've been limiting myself to two a day, but that's still working out to something like $5 a week when I could just have filtered water from my fridge. That one might get me. Is it unhealthy? Yes. Can I go without it? Yes. IS it worth it? I'm not so sure about that one lol.

Maybe one a day I know saving money is important but I don't recommend people cut their comfort things right now. You can probably find $5 to save somewhere else if you decided you need the pop.

[dougdirt]

Maybe one a day I know saving money is important but I don't recommend people cut their comfort things right now. You can probably find $5 to save somewhere else if you decided you need the pop.

That's where I'm at right now. At this specific moment in time, $5 a week to keep me hopefully sane, is worth it.

[RedsfaninMT]

I definitely wasn't going to cut off car insurance - that's illegal. But I was thinking of dropping my coverage quite a bit.

Food wise, I don't think I've eaten food from somewhere that wasn't prepared in my kitchen since February? Even when things were right, I'd only eat out maybe once a week.

Air conditioning is a bit tougher - though I fully understand what you're saying because of your location. I've got asthma, so there are times, starting soon, when the combination of humidity and heat make it tougher for me to breath - air conditioning solves that. It's one of those things where I can't just "tough it out" by utilizing fans/curtains/shade - AC is kind of an actual life saver during the year for me. Right now, it's not an issue. But soon enough it will be.

Along with my MS I also have athsma, so this virus is no bueno for me. I'm struggling breathing now with a using a nubulizer. I'm hoping the snowpack remains high and we don't battle to much wood smoke this summer. It's a completely different set of worries out here, though I did witness a "cold funner" for my first Montana twister last summer.

[dougdirt]

Along with my MS I also have athsma, so this virus is no bueno for me. I'm struggling breathing now with a using a nubulizer. I'm hoping the snowpack remains high and we don't battle to much wood smoke this summer. It's a completely different set of worries out here, though I did witness a "cold funner" for my first Montana twister last summer.

That's not good - hopefully things will get a little bit easier for you moving forward. We've got enough on our plates as it is to start throwing more at us. I've got a few medical issues going on, but it's the asthma that worries me most with the current world. The others are inconveniences at this point.

[Rantly]

Doug, I heard that AllState is reducing insurance premiums by 15% now since nobody's driving. It's not a ton, but it's something. Call your auto insurance and see if they can cut you a deal or lessen your coverage, as you mentioned.

A water bill is usually a place where you can cut costs too. Stretch out your laundry, wash dishes instead of using the dishwasher if you have one, and not to be gross, but there's no reason to shower every day unless you exercise/sweat excessively.

My cooking's definitely gotten very creative. The other day I mixed up sauteed canned sardines, ricotta, and cooked frozen peas, put it on grilled bread, and topped with dried dill. It looked disgusting but was actually delicious. There was a period of my life where I had a food budget of $1.39 a day (and a much longer period when it was more than that, but not much), and it's totally doable, if not probably the best diet for years at a time... Also, alcohol is expensive. If you drink, I'd never recommend giving it up right now, but find out what you drink slowest. I drink wine much slower than I drink liquor or beer. The liquor stores in Pennsylvania are closed and that'll teach you to ration your alcohol real fast

Geico is as well

[GAC]

If I lived in Ohio I'd be using AC, I lived in a house with no AC summer of 1988 and it was brutal

You're right, but I still don't like central air. There are times I'd like to have the window open for nice breezes and rain storms. In the summer I've actually went out in the middle of the night on the back porch recliner with a couple pillows. My wife would slit your throat if you tried to turn the CA off (lol). Even so, I still have to sleep with a fan on me. I think that's psychological from my childhood when we couldn't afford AC.

[GAC]

As I've read back through some of this thread I consider my wife and I very fortunate. We're retired and financially secure. My prayers go out to all who are suffering hard times economically because of this. To most, that touches (hits) closer to home then the threat of catching the virus itself.

I live rural (central Ohio), and IMO, being remote is the best place to be right now. My wife is totally freaked out about this virus though. To the point of unreasonable. So we don't bring it up (lol). I'm a hyper-active person and hate being cooped up. But I've been a good boy and stayed on my property for the most part doing various projects. Plus my younger brother and I are sharing in the responsibility for our Mom (92) and elderly, disabled sister in very poor health.

My sister blows me away though. Terrible health, can barely get around, but good Christian heart. Her, my niece, and numerous other women got with the local health board on making masks (material, specifications), and have been turning them out and delivering them to nursing homes, elderly, etc, for almost a month now.

People rural, for the most part, have a "be prepared" mentality. We keep freezers full of meat, etc, and stocked up on essentials. I only go into town (groceries) 1-2x a week - and completely avoid Walmart and Kroger because everyone heads there - and hit those outlier IGAs everyone forgets about very early when there is nobody, or only a few, in the store. Easy to practice distancing, I have my gloves on, and a Ziploc bag in my pocket with a wash cloth soaked in Pin Sol. I'm ready (lol)

[Kinsm]

CNBC---

When unemployment claims began to jump nationwide in March, layoffs among small business spiked 1,021% compared to the month before, according to data compiled by human resource provider Gusto.

Overall, headcount among small businesses fell by 3.7% in March, the equivalent of 2.2 million people.

In the United States, the Small Business Administration establishes small business size standards on an industry-by-industry basis, but generally specifies a small business as having fewer than 500 employees for manufacturing businesses and less than $7.5 million in annual receipts for most non-manufacturing businesses. There are more than 30 million small businesses in the U.S., and they employ roughly 59 million people in the U.S., according to the Small Business Administration.