3 Money Lessons I Learnt From The COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted: March 30, 2021

As we relive the lockdown days, I pause and reflect to appreciate the simple money lessons that this pandemic has taught me.

We all have heard multiple times that every challenge brings an opportunity. But, have you ever given this statement a serious thought? Some might even say, “Give me a break, this is good to hear but difficult to implement.”

I was no different! I also thought that this statement is theoretical until the COIVD-19 pandemic struck and we were forced to press pause and reset. When we talk about business and money, we read and hear that billionaire Mukesh Ambani made fortunes in 2020. A year when many faced hardships, job losses and financial constraints! But then, we can justify this and say that he already had a large capital base.

So, let me give you another example. An example for the common folk like us. All of us are aware that Sensex was at 25600 points in March 2020 and is now nearly double so anyone who leveraged this opportunity would be counting profits. And then there was plethora of new business ideas, new online set ups and the surge in online sales kept the ball rolling for 2020.

While majority of us were talking about challenges, this kind of news is definitely inspiring and reinstates the fact that every challenge indeed brings an opportunity!

Why some did better than others

I was keen to go a bit deeper and understood that there are two key reasons driving these. Firstly, a positive mindset to find an opportunity amidst adversities and secondly, availability of funds to encash the opportunity. In absence of any one of these, one really cannot capitalize on the opportunity.

While a positive mindset is self explanatory, I will explain the availability of funds aspect a bit more. The COVID-19 pandemic gave us a wonderful opportunity to realise what is really important in our lives. It taught us to distinguish between our essential expenses and non-essential ones, what we can forgo and still live happily or maybe happier than before! Loop back to positive mindset.

This is exactly what I did! When we all were in lock down from March to June, it gave us a good benchmark on what is the minimum spend you need to maintain for your family. Keeping this benchmark in mind, I capitalised on my ‘risk taking’ funds to make use of any sudden money making opportunity that came my way.

What I learnt during this time

So, in a nutshell, here are my learnings from this pandemic when it comes to money planning:

You have at least some part of your earnings in liquid funds available for use for any ’emergency purpose’ like COVID-19
Keep a ‘Risk taking’ fund aside which you are ready to loose if your decision turns bad on any opportunity that were trying to explore.
And before taking up any risk opportunity, get the required knowledge or skill and take baby steps, start with small and achieve bigger heights!

COVID-19 forced us to hit a pause button in our lives, giving us a moment to think and reflect and push a restart to make new beginnings….make the most of it.

Image via Getty images