It is surreal how differently this current virus crisis impacts families. Right now, when most of us do not know a single person who has been diagnosed with convid19, this is a financial and logistics threat, and not yet a personal health issue.
For people with children it is a daycare crisis. For people with jobs that have been converted to working from home it’s a very awkward “how do I do my job this way” time. For people who have been sent home without a work from home option it’s a time of concern over whether their jobs will be reinstated later. For those whose jobs have been eliminated it is a time of confusion over how to access government bridging benefits. For senior adults, especially those with underlying health issues, it is a time of fear of infection. For kids it is a scary time when routines have been upended and Mom and Dad seem worried and distracted, and maybe not very adept at home schooling.
For FIRE (financial independence, retire early) aspirants who were nearing or just reaching their FI (financial independence) target of passive income or investments that appeared sufficient to fund their lives indefinitely it can be a time of great dismay or depression. For people well into their financial independence journey it is a frightening and disconcerting time watching their assets fall by double digits in a single day. For people with an excess of wealth beyond their projected needs, even with a 70% stock market crash (not likely but who knows?), it is more of a matter of watching hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in reduction of their net worth, knowing they’ll still have more than enough to maintain their lifestyle.
Later when there will be plenty of people you know and care about suffering from covid19, maybe even your family, this will become something much different and more frightening. Obviously this is already the case for hundreds of thousands of people across the globe.
Personally I’m one of the lucky few on the money side and one of the not so lucky on the other. I exceeded my FI number years before I retired and when my corporate pay and stock options soared the last three years of my job I saved and invested most of the money. I also received a large inheritance a few years ago so my assets were padded greatly due to circumstances I had very little to do with. I’ve lost some $750,000 in investments over the last six weeks but it is money I can afford to lose and also money I expect to get back some day. I haven’t sold a thing and haven’t pulled any money out of investments for my living expenses. I know that isn’t most peoples’ experience and I do realize I’m blessed and should use my secure financial position to help others around me in need.
My day to day life has not changed much. I only work a day a week and that was largely remote work from my home. I don’t need the money, its for my entertainment only, and if it does not survive the virus I will not consider it a great loss. In fact it will be an opportunity to reinvent myself again. My wife and my hobbies remain unchanged. We do not have any kind of shelter in place rules here so there are no problems with our morning runs, our outdoor tennis games, hiking, off-roading or fishing. We never get close to anybody on those adventures, I’d venture it is a safer environment than being indoors at home. As a side benefit we have stocked up the freezer with a whole lot of filets from all the fish we are catching. Not having any kids at home, with ours all grown and gone, means that the school situation is not impacting us.
As lucky as I am on the financial side I’m in a very precarious position with my health. First I’m a senior, I’ll turn 65 this year so that alone puts my risk in the elevated category. On the plus side I’ve always been fairly athletic, I ran 15 marathons in my late forties through my late 50’s and still run fifteen miles a week. I also am a fairly competitive tennis player, competing on teams and at tournaments, or I did before the virus cancelled them all. And we are pretty extreme hikers and enjoy pickle ball. But what may outweigh those positives is the fact that I do have asthma, one of the high risk factors for covid19. More troubling still, I’ve also got a rare complication that restricts the amount of air I can hold in my lungs. The combination of these two ended my marathon career and makes all my athletic pursuits more difficult than they would be for a normal person my age. I still run and play hard because of my determination to not let physical problems or pain rule my life. As long as I can go, I’m going to go hard even when it hurts.
Covid19 kills maybe 1% of its victims, I think that number is still in flux since this is pretty new. But most of what I’ve read shows it kills around 10% of people like me. Actually there are probably not many people like me, with my particular combination of issues, so I’d guess my own personal risk could be even higher. I’m fit and have made a science of obtaining reasonable athletic performance on a limited air supply so maybe that gives me an edge over sedentary types. Since my health situation is complicated I just do not know what my chances are of surviving the virus if I get it.
All this tells me we are each fighting different battles in this war against an invisible foe. Some people are running out of money and the pantry shelves are bare. Some are quarantined in nursing homes with sick people just down the hall. Some are fighting depression and loneliness in their isolation. Others are treating the whole thing like a fun family camping adventure. This is one of the most individual existential crises we have faced in most of our lifetimes and our individual circumstances make this unique to each of us. I’m not worried personally on either the financial or health fronts because I’m not a worrier. I’ve always had high stress jobs but rarely felt the stress because I was generally able to look at my career as a game, and if it fell apart I could start another game. As far as health goes, I’m in my sixties, with very active hobbies so like any other older athlete I could die any time I go for a run or chase down a tennis ball. Life has been great but nobody lives forever and at my age I realize that I have already lived most of my life, I just accept that fact. I know that isn’t particularly profound but I’ve never been a deep thinker.
What about you? Are you more worried financially or health wise for yourself or your loved ones?
If you had an office job but are working from home now, how is that going?
What do you think your kids are feeling about this whole thing?