The pandemic’s impact on our life has been pervasive. As I have mentioned before, I have always homeschooled my children. However, I have never homeschooled under these strange circumstances. Contrary to what everyone thinks, quarantine has been hard on homeschool families too. In the past we participated in a variety of weekly activites. Staying home all the time had been hard on my children (and if I am being totally honest, it has been hard on me too). The only bright spot (for me, not the children), is that we’ve been saving lots of money. You see, all those extracurricular activities I mentioned cost money.
For the past few months, we’ve been saving more than usual in our regular savings account. The goal we set at the beginning of the year was $500 per month. However, we’ve saved between $750-$1000 per month since the pandemic started. Additionally, we set up a new vacation fund with the extra money we earned while cleaning out our crawlspace (on a side note, we have now earned $1,120!). It was important for me to give that money a purpose, otherwise it might slip right through our fingers. We also opened an emergency savings account. When we have this account is fully funded, John and I will breathe a huge sigh of relief. John went into more detail about our saving goals a few weeks ago. If you’re interested, check out his post.
I am very excited about all of the savings accounts we have been able to aggressively fund since March. However, I also worry about whether we will be able to continue funding all of these accounts when (if?) the world reopens this coming school year. Signing up for our usual extracurricular activities will surely make it harder. Honestly, worrying about whether we can continue to save at this high rate is probably a waste of my time and energy. It feels like the coronavirus will NEVER end. With cases spiking again and experts predicting another surge in the fall, it feels very defeating. Although I hate to admit it, my children and I will probably be in quarantine until we have an effective vaccine. The pandemic’s impact on our savings accounts will most likely continue into 2021.
Although I love being able to throw more money toward our goals, I would be willing to trade all the extra savings for a return to our normal life. I want to go places, and see people, and plan fun outings for the kids. I want our old life back.