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Post by Peachy on Apr 12, 2020 19:40:04 GMT -5
When this pandemic is over and we’re able to go back to our normal lives, will you be doing anything differently? I’ve seen a meme floating around about how we shouldn’t be so quick to get *everything* back because frankly, it wasn’t all that great to begin with. It just made me wonder if anything in my personal life will change after this is over.
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Post by Eli on Apr 12, 2020 20:07:18 GMT -5
Ideally, I'll be better about building my savings and will probably be stockpiling toilet paper and Lysol wipes. But I will still have to work and pay bills, so I don't see any major life changes.
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Post by justthinking on Apr 12, 2020 20:34:30 GMT -5
I have always volunteered a lot at my kids' school. This year, we needed to revamp the fundraiser for the music parents. The event happened at about the same time as the competition for a paid coach/coordinator position I typically worked, but I felt strongly enough about the fundraising event I didn't do the paid job.
The fundraising event was a blast, we increased our income by about 20%, and I developed a good flow chart for coordinating the event in the future. We had our debrief meeting and were able to immediately fund a last minute need for the high school music department and place an order for the elementary music teachers. The rest we were going to report out on after a few more tweaks. Right about when we would have been able to get our reports to the music teachers, the covid situation blew up. Our treasurer is the IT guy for the district, so to say he was swamped would be an understatement. All of us were working as hard as we could to transition our jobs to work from home.
In the meantime the long-time music teachers (high school choir, middle school choir, and one of the elementary teachers), started raising havoc and recreating the event into something completely different for next year and just told us what the date would be and what time the event would take place...and their format does not work with our traditional fundraiser at all.
I am all for revisiting traditions, but since all the work I did this year was developing a blueprint for people to do the type of event we had this year, my blue print is no long usable. Next year is my son's last year. I just don't have the energy to put in to creating a whole new type of event for next year and train a replacement on a new event, so I politely informed them I was looking forward to enjoying the event as a spectator next year.
That cancels a lot of meetings in November, December, January, and February! I fee lighter already.
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Post by alicechalmers on Apr 12, 2020 20:58:43 GMT -5
My next goal is to have a minimum of six months worth of supplies and groceries at all times.
We are developing strategies to grow our business based on interest in local food.
I plan to keep reading to my girls every night, though I am sure that will get sporadic as their activities start again.
If I get the opportunity to work from home at times I wouldn’t say no.
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Post by villanelle on Apr 12, 2020 21:16:21 GMT -5
I'm hopeful that I will continue to cook more. I also think some of the housekeeping habits I'm developing (how did this take 40+ years, Despite my mom's best efforts!?) might stick around.
In general, I think it will make us even more motivated to save for retirement. I think it's going to be very hard for DH to go back to work full time. (He's working from home and does seem to be getting a lot done, but there is down time, of course. So I am hopeful that we will be better about saving so that he can leave the rat race a bit sooner. We've long been saving with retiring a bit early as a goal, but I can see this accelerating that a bit.
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Post by marianparoo on Apr 13, 2020 4:15:25 GMT -5
Hard to say. This started just when I moved to Scotland, so I didn't have a chance to get into a normal routine
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Post by katy on Apr 13, 2020 5:42:06 GMT -5
Hard to say. This started just when I moved to Scotland, so I didn't have a chance to get into a normal routine Where are you in Scotland?
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Post by Tpatt100 on Apr 13, 2020 8:57:42 GMT -5
My wife was wondering why we had more money than usual especially in savings. I said our dining out budget decreased by 99 percent...
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Post by deeniereenie on Apr 13, 2020 9:29:08 GMT -5
We have been playing games as a family every single evening. I would like to continue that at least a few nights a week, can't really do it on football game nights, etc.
Also- using my Class Dojo to share videos with parents will continue, so I can model how to practice certain skills.
I already cooked more often than we went out, but I am looking forward to getting to go eat at sit down places again. In particular, our local Mexican food place, and I plan to inhale their queso. LOL
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Post by GiftOfFlavor on Apr 13, 2020 10:13:21 GMT -5
Depending on how much the government decides to increase regulation in my business I may be forced into retirement. In that case I will sell my practice and building, sell my house and retire somewhere cheap like the Phillipenes.
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Post by mimi on Apr 13, 2020 10:17:51 GMT -5
I’ll probably continue to use the sourdough starter & bake lots of bread. I’ve been baking every few days & ive been enjoying it.
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mare
Full Member
Posts: 2,517
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Post by mare on Apr 13, 2020 10:35:26 GMT -5
I will try to continue to cook more and eat out less. Not that I want to stop supporting restaurants, but we ate out way too much. Not good for the budget or waistline.
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Post by junebug on Apr 13, 2020 10:47:38 GMT -5
Until this happened, I didn't realize that I was hanging on by a thread. Crazy travel schedule, crazy kid schedules, long commute. I was hanging in there with the hope that things would ease up "eventually." This has been an incredible pause for me. Still busy with work during the day (and distance learning is *not* ideal). But I really need to incorporate some of these changes into regular life.
My house is clean, we cook, we read, we play games. I need to find a way to keep at least some of that. Also, I've also been very anti stockpiling (for storage reasons) but I'm starting to come around on that! I'm not sure I'm striving for AC's 6-months, but it's clearly not a bad idea to be more prepared!
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Post by alicechalmers on Apr 13, 2020 11:17:29 GMT -5
To be fair, I have a huge house and seven freezers. 😄
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Post by justthinking on Apr 13, 2020 11:27:59 GMT -5
To be fair, I have a huge house and seven freezers. 😄 What I should change is I should get quarantined at AC's house next time.
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Post by coachgrrl on Apr 13, 2020 11:31:32 GMT -5
I’m going to continue to be proactive in protecting my health. I’m so happy I went out on leave when I did. I felt guilty at first but everything I thought might happen ..has happened (maternity staff pulled to ER/ICU without proper ppe,etc). Dh and I have even started talking about me taking disability and retiring if this continues. For the first time I feel ok with that. I’m liking not being focused on work
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Post by maxmammy on Apr 13, 2020 11:43:17 GMT -5
Depending on how much the government decides to increase regulation in my business I may be forced into retirement. In that case I will sell my practice and building, sell my house and retire somewhere cheap like the Phillipenes. My friend is a hygienist, she’s wondering how they will ever get back to “normal”. Do you think independent dentists are not going to be able to continue financially? I’d like to hear more of your thoughts.
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Post by GiftOfFlavor on Apr 13, 2020 13:28:55 GMT -5
Depending on how much the government decides to increase regulation in my business I may be forced into retirement. In that case I will sell my practice and building, sell my house and retire somewhere cheap like the Phillipenes. My friend is a hygienist, she’s wondering how they will ever get back to “normal”. Do you think independent dentists are not going to be able to continue financially? I’d like to hear more of your thoughts. To be perfectly honest there has been no data regarding transmission in a dental office. Dentists in Germany, Korea and Sweeden have all been working business as usual throughout this time. It seems that our regular PPE (which is significantly more than your average physicians PPE) is adequate because none of them are contracting this disease at a higher rate than any other population. However, the powers that be that control dentistry (the CDC and the state departments of public health) really don’t understand dentistry at all. And they’re the ones making the rules. Pennsylvania last week passed a law saying that negative pressure rooms are now required for dentistry. Negative pressure rooms are like $150,000 to install per room, most hospitals don’t even have them. I think there’s like 2 in my entire city. So then since dentists didn’t have any negative pressure rooms all the dental patients were forced to go to the ER. Then PA rescinded that law. I have no idea. I’ve been seeing emergency patients with proper respirators and PPE this whole time without issue whatsoever. Once the initial panic blows over hopefully the people who make the laws will wise up. Or else there won’t be any dentists at all who can practice legally 🤷♀️ Many are having financial problems and will go out of business tho. I’m really a planner and had a large, cash emergency fund, and I own my building and don’t owe rent to anyone but myself for my office so I’m pretty liquid and will financially most likely survive but many others won’t. The large corporate-type offices are planning a lot of growth right now and in my opinion that’s pretty awful for people who want quality dental treatment. They’re basically the McDonalds of the dental world and everyone knows it 🤷♀️ My professional future rests solely in the hands of pencil pushing beaurocrats who know nothing about my job... 🤷♀️
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Post by Sprockey on Apr 13, 2020 13:49:16 GMT -5
I feel like I already strike a pretty good balance between home life/work life/social life so no changes there. And I have always been a bit of a food hoarder - so good there, too!
I do enjoy spending less money on shit that I don't really need. So maybe that is my lesson. My work hours have been reduced to 32 so I find myself being much more considerate of the money I am spending.
I will also wash my hands more. I can't say I have ever been an avid hand washer. I shower every morning and wash my hands after using the bathroom but not really in between (like after grocery shopping). I will probably become more of a germophobe . Probably not a bad thing.
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Post by deeniereenie on Apr 13, 2020 14:03:40 GMT -5
It sucks. Teachers have been saying this for years. I am hoping it works out better for dentists than it has for my profession.
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