Covid-19 has created a financial mess – for people’s income, savings, investments, and big life moments. Although, we are frugal spenders, we try not to have such a rough relationship with our finances. In a previous post we wrote about How COVID-19 changed our financial habits. Check out how we saved during the COVID-19 lock down.
Transportation | $214 |
Men’s Haircuts | $20 |
Coffee Expense | $150 |
Dining Out | $500 |
Shopping/Recreational | $200 |
Total Saved | $1,057 |
Transportation
Every month we would pay $107 per person for a two-zone bus pass. That is $214 for both of us. This is self-explanatory, with work from home orders still in place for us we have no need to purchase our monthly bus passes.
Coffee Expense
I used to find comfort in going to a coffee shop, most probably Starbucks, to sit and take a break during my lunch break. I found it a time for me decompress during the day and kind of separate my days. Unfortunately, I have hulked up a hefty expense through this. I would spend about $150 a month on coffee. Read my post on how I learned from that financial mistake.
Dining Out
My husband and I would try to go on a date night at least once a week. Sometimes after work we would spontaneously check out a cute coffee shop in the City before heading home or grab a bit to eat. This would force us to cough up about $500 a month. New York City is expensive so we would mix up our dates to places in New Jersey as well, but it’s still pricey.
Shopping/Recreational
Going with the above date night theme, we don’t always center our dates around food. Sometimes as mentioned above we would briefly check out some shops in the City after work. Or we would find ourselves going to the cinema or bowling for example. This would put us back at about $200 a month.
If you are interest in getting a rough estimate of how much money you may have saved during coronavirus, check out this website. When I did the basic questions it calculated that I would save about $572 a month during quarantine.
Let me know below if you started saving during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Wow, that’s great! I feel like we replaced some of what would usually spend with other things. We didn’t spend as much on gas, but it felt like we spent way more on groceries and home improvement stuff around the house.
Yes, absolutely! Not eating out nor shopping as usual definitely helps boost savings in this pandemic time period.
I saved so much money too on transportation!
I agree that there has been some savings esp eating out and gas. We took no vacation in summer, which is rare. But the grocery bill has increased to almost double!
This is very useful. I was able to pay off my credit card debt during COVID-19.
We really found that we saved a bunch of money during lockdown on things like eating out and daily coffee, if was amazing how it all adds up over a period of time.
Yes!! This is great!! Cutting out my trips to the coffee shop has been hard but saved me so much money in the long run!
This is great! I’ve cut back my expenses a ton during covid as well mostly in dinning out, entertainment, and gas costs. This allows me to maintain my emergency fund while I’m still out of work.
This was so helpful! I have also saved so much money during this time- not eating out has really helped me to save hundreds.
Well, this is very useful and very educational. I have saved a lot of money doing lockdown. But I think I need more because the bills are piling up and I lost my job and only my husband is working and I’m trying to do some side hustles.