My Emergency Savings are GONE!

Before I had my children, I made sure I had some emergency savings in place, it was actually one of a few targets I had put in place for myself to achieve before having children.

Now I find myself working through the last of those savings, and with a £2k credit card debt hanging heavy around my neck.
I’ve been working as an independent contractor (aka self-employed) since around November last year, less than a year, which also means I’m not eligible for any financial support from the new government schemes put in place to support people financially through the covid-19 pandemic.

I am the only person responsible for seeing myself and my family through this financial crisis, and I am so grateful to my former self that she had the wherewithal to plan ahead and put this financial cushion in place, I honestly don’t know what I would do financially if I didn’t have access to those emergency savings right now.

I’m also feeling a little scared about this new financial position I find myself in, it’s been many many years since I’ve struggled to pay a bill. Not long after I moved into my home I left a very toxic job and found myself using credit cards to pay my bills, writing cheques to fill my car with fuel, so I had a couple of extra days to find the money before they cleared, being up to my limit on my overdraft and three different credit cards, and selling my possessions at car boot sales just to bring in enough money so I could eat.

It took me years to turn things around, working full time whilst also studying to improve my career prospects, then working a second job in the evenings and weekends to bring in as much money as possible. But I did it, and I guess I need to take that silver lining and proof that I can turn things around with me into this new financial future.

Although my personal situation is different now, I have two young children at home so can’t work out of the home in the evenings and weekends like I did before, the world is also different now – there’s eBay and Facebook marketplace and I have a home full of 16 years of accumulated ‘stuff’ which I am certain can help to soften the blow my finances have taken over the last few months.

As the global pandemic is lessening in my home country and the rate of infection has declined to below 1.0, it appears that best guesses are that we will have another month of lock-down before we are phased back into our new normal lives.

It is now time to turn my attention to the future and how I’m going to reinstate my financial position, get that credit card paid off and begin building up my emergency savings financial cushion once again. I have some ideas, starting with increasing my working hours for my independent role and clearing old items from our home, but it feels like this will be a long tough road to navigate.

Perhaps we can help each other along this journey, can you share how this global pandemic has affected you financially and if you’ve started planning or thinking to the future yet and how you might bounce back financially?