In March 2020, all of our lives changed forever. While some people have managed to ride out the pandemic relatively unscathed, the rest of us are more anxious, jittery, and nervous than ever before. Many Americans lost their jobs while others have experienced even more drastic life changes.
The Cash Crunch
Unemployment remains much higher than the pre-pandemic rate of approximately 3.5%. Jobs in the travel and hospitality industry remain especially affected, but money is tight for many of us. Fortunately, as Novum Opus has discussed before, there are many ways to get a higher-paying job. If you are open to changing career paths, you may even be able to find a lucrative opportunity you love as a UX designer, dental hygienist, or welder, that does not require a college degree.
Other ways to boost your bank account include negotiating a raise at work, participating in focus groups—which can pay up to $300 per session—and leveraging your current skills as a freelancer. You may also consider selling household and personal items you no longer need. Further, making money is not the only way to boost your personal dollar value, and you can cut spending by reducing your cable subscription or looking for new ways to exercise outside of the gym.
Cramped Quarters
Another significant change for many of us is that offices were shut down in March, and a huge chunk of these jobs remain remote. This has left us at home, sometimes with children whose schools are also shuddered, while trying to work and balance all of our responsibilities from one place. Being in such close quarters, it is easy to let tension and negativity turn your happy home into a place you prefer to avoid. While cleaning, decluttering, and changing your perspective on your situation can help tame emotions, it is not always enough.
As DivorceMag.com points out, domestic violence has gone up during the pandemic. So have divorce rates. Despite being together and socially distant from the world, being in the same house all the time has driven many people apart. Reconnecting with a partner can be difficult, sometimes even impossible. It is very easy to lose sight of the fact that everyone has a different love language, and you and your partner may have been in hyperdrive mode for so long that you have forgotten to slow down and communicate.
Staying at home has also led many of us to change our eating habits, particularly for those of us who choose to stay home and have groceries delivered. We have lost the flexibility of making split-second decisions at the grocery store when our list items were out of stock. The good news here is that there are many ways to supplement a healthy diet, even if your delivery arrives with less than expected. Keeping chicken, vegetables, and other foods vacuum-sealed in a deep freezer and having a separate pantry for duplicate items can help fill the gap.
The pandemic has brought numerous challenges, but there is a light at the tunnel. Although the world may never be quite the same again, we have made dozens of difficult adaptations through all of this hardship. I feel confident that we will be better for it when all is said and done.
This post was written by our guest blogger, Jennifer Scott. You can find more of her work at her blog.