Cutting through the Fog of the Pandemic

This website contains affiliate links and sponsored posts. A small commission is earned when you click and purchase via my affiliate links.

Cutting through the Fog of the Pandemic

My plan for getting hyper-focused on finances and family

The week of March 16, 2020, was rough. On Friday the 13th, we were told to take our germ-carrying kids, go home, and don’t come back. As a parent, I have to tell you… I was screaming internally – I wasn’t prepared for this. I get it; for the greater good, I should keep my kids at home, but what do you want me to do with them ALL week? My wife nor I had time to make the appropriate adjustments to handle the additional workload that was placed upon us.

Getting “in the zone”

So, let me get this straight. You want me to “work” from home and homeschool my kids? My wife and I have a 2, 4, and 11-year-old—that’s three different grade levels. Once again, I found myself having to level up for the sake of my family.

I decided that I would stay hyper-focused on separate tasks, one at a time. That’s when I started reflecting on my basketball glory days. I was so focused, man, I miss those days. Back then I would only allow certain information into my space. I could hear my teammates, my coach… and my father screaming demands from the stands. Everything else would fade away; I couldn’t let in the noise that didn’t matter. As I played the game, I was the most efficient in my physical and mental state. I no longer worried about my girlfriend being mad at me or whether or not my parents found out about that party, I snuck off too.

I love that “in-the-zone” feeling.

This is what we must do to get through this—get “in the zone.”

Finances, Stocks, and all in Between

Either you’ve made good decisions, or you’ve made bad decisions. Either you hired an excellent financial advisor, or you hired a bad financial advisor. Unfortunately, you will not really know until all this is over.

Are you prepared for a layoff or reduction in pay?

I know it’s hard not to stare at your 401K and your investments, but at this point, whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Maybe that’s not the advice you want to hear, but it’s the advice I need to give you. Here’s why: I don’t need you to guess when you should be in the market and when you should be in cash. If I were to tell you to be in cash, and you took my advice, I wouldn’t get to be a part of the decision as to when you go back into the market. This is why having a good financial planner who has created a plan specifically for you is best.

Your personal finances should be your focus. This is why I spend a considerable amount of time discussing them.

Hopefully, the fallout for this current situation won’t be substantial, and you’ll be able to assess the holes in your financial plan and seek help for the future.

At the end of the day, you will need to take a look at how prepared you and your family were. Did you have an appropriate amount of emergency savings? Did you have money outside of your bank that you could access? If and when crisis strikes again, are you prepared to be laid off or take a reduction in pay? You may need to seek guidance.

If you follow my cash flow strategy, at a minimum, you would have had $5,000 in savings, and between the two other savings accounts, you would have $1,000 or more in preparation for your next vacation or your next big expenditure. Would that had been enough?

You don’t need to analyze that right now, but I encourage you to take a look at it when things begin to slow down.

We have to prepare for what the future holds.

Cut through the fog

I know there is a lot of information coming at you. The Dow looks red almost every day. All of a sudden, you are paying attention to the futures market. People are telling you to go to cash and buy the dips at the same time. I am not telling you to ignore them, but no matter what you choose to do, think about it, what is the best and worst-case scenario for you and your family—are you prepared for both?

If this is truly doomsday, we’re all screwed, so you don’t need to worry about your 401K anyway. If this isn’t doomsday, then, whatever happens, may set your retirement back a bit. Again, I advise you to seek professional help if you believe this to be true.

Best case scenario, after we get beyond this crisis, the market will pop back to where it was before. This is likely; however, I can’t tell you whether it’s going to take 1 year or 10 years to recover. Cut through the fog and start figuring out what you’re going to do in the aftermath.

Dad Life

Sure, I’m the head of the household, but according to my wife, my decision-making skills are subpar. That being said, I have been hyper-focused on what the family needs, which was really hard for me to do that first week. Between my work, Coronavirus news, figuring out homework, and just the pure shit show of my life, I spent the first week feeling like I was plugging holes in a sinking ship. I actually spent a week accessing where we were at.

1. What’s the food situation?
2. How do I support my girls in their schooling?
3. What is the Coronavirus, and how careful do we need to be?
4. How do I balance work and home, and how long will I have to do this?

Assess the situation

The best advice I can give you is that you don’t have to be right.

I know what you’re thinking…this is a life and death situation here, Armond.  I have to be right.

No, you need to continually access whether you are right or wrong. That is a difference between assessing and obsessing. I have talked to all kinds of people who think this Coronavirus isn’t that big of a deal to those who have their guns ready to light you up if you knock on their door. I get it. The truth is, one of them could be right. You have to accept that. You also need to look for signs of anything that may be cause for concern. Then you need to prepare for the best-case scenario and worst-case scenario—make sure these scenarios are coming from credible people.

Hunker down

For instance, I have heard that we need to be prepared to hunker down from 2 weeks and up to 3 months. Depending on how bad this gets, supply chains could break down, making it hard for food to get to our grocery stores. However, other countries are still operating and getting food to their citizens, so I don’t see signs of this happening yet. I will not assume that it won’t happen, but I will watch for signs and then talk to my wife about what I think our next steps should be.

I’ve heard that we should hit our peak in about 2 weeks, which would be 04/13/2020. I have also heard that we could be dealing with this for 12 to 18 months. Who is right? Hell, I don’t know. I’m just mentally preparing to homeschool my kids for 12 to 18 months. What does that look like? If the school year is canceled, I will have some questions for the school on how they are going to support us. I know I have teachers I can call to help us through it, but how do I change my schedule around to better support my family?

Accept help!

As for the virus itself and what to believe regarding information. My wife is all over this one. Every time I come into the house; I’m getting hit with a Lysol bomb. If she gets an itch in the throat, she thinks she might have that Rona. She is reading information and relaying it to me. Do I think she is going overboard a bit? Yep, but at least it isn’t something I need to worry about. It’s just annoying hearing her yell at me for touching my face. I can’t help it, honey, my face itches!

Some are saying this is not much worse than the flu, and then we have some brilliant people freaking out.

Unfortunately, friends, family members, or even ourselves, will be negatively impacted by this lockdown. The best thing you can do is position your family as best as possible to weather the storm. You are probably going to have to make some hard financial and personal decisions. Word to the wise, pride will not get you very far—there are programs that will help you keep your family afloat. Some companies are allowing you to defer payments until this is over. Pick up the phone and call those companies. Figure out who or what companies will help you out. Call the credit card companies; see what expenses you can cut and which ones you need to keep. Have a game plan if you get sick; how will your spouse be able to handle you being out of commission?

Work-life Balance

Lastly, figure out a way to have a work and home balance while you teach your kids and supervise them throughout the day.

The work-life balance used to be a cool buzzword often used by employers. Now, they are allowing us to really find that balance. If you can work from home, look at the bright side, we don’t have to sit in traffic, and we don’t have to sit around potentially sick people.

I’m figuring out that I can put my kids on their own course and let them work independently for a bit. I’m like many other people, working at the dinner table while sitting right next to my beautiful angels. I am taking this as an opportunity for my kids to get to know me and for me to get to know them better.

I am hyper-focusing on the task at hand. I’m not saying that I’m not stressed out, I’m just saying I’m leveling up; I want to be the person my family needs right now.

If you haven’t already, buy The Financial Effect e-book to get more insight on how to make financial decisions for your family, also subscribe to my blog.

Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash

*Investing involves risk. Depending on the types of investments, there may be varying degrees of risk. Investors should be prepared to bear a loss, including total loss of principal.