What will you change after Covid?

jeeper

Currently without Jeep
Location
So Jo, Ut
I think this virus has thrown us a curve ball that none of us really thought would happen. Sure, many folks are 'prepped' for the end of the world zombie attacks.. but I doubt any one is currently hiding in their bunkers eating their MRE's, and thinking this whole thing is awesome.
I have always THOUGHT about what would happen if I broke a leg and couldn't work.. or if I had a major slow down with work, and lost a lot of income. But I haven't been awesome at DOING something to prepare for it.
2008 and following years were hard on my family, but we were able to be smart and get through it.
Waking up to an earthquake a while back was a kick in the pant's. I realized that what we had at that moment had the potential to be all we would have for a few weeks if things had been any worse. I was in the heart of Hurricane Katrina, and I should know better than to not be prepared.
I've always thought I would be prepared for a major disaster. I have multiple chaninsaws, trailers, winches, tons of tools, and a good know how.. but that doesn't provide income, or feed the family in a virus situation like we are in.
I have made some goals to be better prepared in the future.
1- I want to get our food storage up to a solid 3 months. We thought we had a lot.. but in reality, eating every meal at home is a LOT more food than we realized. Not being able to run to the store for some of the staples is more difficult than we anticipated. and I was very under prepared in the Mountain Dew stash. Water was also a big oops on my part. I have since resolved the water shortage.
2-I want to build up more of a savings account. I have learned already that my work is fluid, and I have been a saver to help with the slow months. I think I would like to build up a dedicated 6 months of expenses to keep safe for the future.
3- I have learned that I can be a better neighbor. I see all the neighbors once a week at church, and thought I was being a good friend. I have not reached out to or checked on hardly any of them. I need to step up my game on checking on people that I care about. neighbors, friends, and family.

What life lessons have you learned? What will you do better?
 
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SoopaHick

Certified Weld Judger
Moderator
It was a big reality check for me as well. I’m just in my first year of marriage and finding my way into adult hood so I really wasn’t planning for events like this at all.

it really kicked my wife and I into gear for planning for our future. We made goals for savings as well as for the first time really paid attention to what we had in our apartment food and water wise.

Luckily neither of our jobs situations were affected by the Coronavirus so we haven’t been hit hard at all but it’s really guides us to starting a lot of good habits.
 

TJustin

Porch Dog
Supporting Member
Location
Payson, UT
2-I want to build up more of a savings account. I have learned already that my work is fluid, and I have been a saver to help with the slow months. I think I would like to build up a dedicated 6 months of expenses to keep safe for the future.

What life lessons have you learned? What will you do better?

I have more or less been living the Dave Ramsey lifestyle for the last number of years, but haven't been a potential dire straits situation to obtain a "testimony" of the lifestyle he propagates. The Covid situation has helped me contrast how I was living before we applied his principles, and made me appreciate the changes we have made. Where some of my friends were more or less freaking out because they don't have much money beyond what is needed for the immediate paycheck, we were able to breathe because of the preparations we have made. It shifts emergencies to inconveniences.

My wife and I talked about a few other things, and we too want to bolster our food storage situation, and likely even our toilet paper stash.
 

glockman

I hate Jeep trucks
Location
Pleasant Grove
I've learned a lot about how tribal people are. I have been trying for a while to not be tribal and to listen to people I don't always agree with. I am going to double down on that.
I have also not been the best friend or family member. It was over a month before I checked on my dad who is older and has asthma. Things got busy when the Rona hit.
I'm also going to just sit in a place and appreciate just how lucky I am to be alive and have all things and people I have in my life. We are pretty much all blessed beyond belief.
 

4x4_Welder

Well-Known Member
Location
Twin Falls, ID
Well, I was just starting to get my head back above water after dealing with the cancer and chemo last year, and we were (hopefully still are) planning on getting our house properly financed later this year. Due to my job I pretty much can't take time off right now, they're running things the way they would during peak season due to ridiculous volume, so even though I'm pretty sure I had a mild form of this earlier this month I'm still at it. I mean, I worked 40 hour weeks on chemo, so I'm not going to shut it down over this.

The stimulus stuff helped a lot, got parts to get my own vehicles back to functional so hopefully we can get away from being a one car family in the next couple weeks. It's weird to see so few cars on the road though.

If they do run more of the stimulus crap they are talking about, I'm going to soak that money straight into developing my growing system. If I can get it to the price point I'm shooting for, then it'll be an affordable way for people to put fresh food on their table year round regardless of climate and gardening skill level. I was originally planning for this to be a small scale prototype to work as a proof of concept, but if my numbers are close to right this should provide for the majority of the needs of a family of four, more if they don't like their kids much.
 

Kevin B.

Not often wrong. Never quite right.
Moderator
Location
Vehicular limbo
My hair style. I needed a haircut pre-Covid and now I'm ready to buy a suck-cut and make some changes.

Say hello to my little friend.

s-l1000.jpg


Hair on the head is highly overrated.
 

Kevin B.

Not often wrong. Never quite right.
Moderator
Location
Vehicular limbo
I’ve learned that:

I spend WAY too much money every month.

I can’t always just work more hours to make more money.

I’m fortunate to have great friend and family all around me

My friends are better at being a friend than I am

I’m a little too codependent on amazon

Wait, are we talking about you or me? Because I felt this in my soul.

This and the earthquake have been a nice wakeup, in terms of emergency prep. Just enough to get you thinking about it without making you actually need it. I said before I was mostly happy with my food storage and I still am, but I'm going to stretch it out to five or six months, I think. We don't have a ton of space so that's gonna mean a lot of beans and rice and such. I'm going to put the pieces together for a more robust power backup in case of extended outages. We don't have a lot of savings, and we won't until our debt is eliminated, being debt free is part of our emergency prep strategy and I'm going to double down on it. And yeah, I normally have a case of Costco toilet paper on the shelf, I think I'm going to have two from now on.

Skills are an area we've neglected. I've got guns, I'm not that good a shooter. Might have to change that. We're not very good gardeners either - like, we try, but we suck and had kinda given up on it. I think we need to try again.
 

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
Moderator
Vendor
Location
Sandy, Ut
Hair on the head is highly overrated.

... said no man that had a full head of it. :D


I considered asking my lovely wife Candace to give me a trim. Then I recalled the one time I asked her to give me a little trim above the ears with an electric razor. Now I’ve done many a stupid things that I thought would end in divorce but that quick trim nearly did. She went a little higher and tighter than I planned, words were said... now I can park snowcats on the lawn before I’ll ask for a haircuts ;)
 

jeeper

Currently without Jeep
Location
So Jo, Ut
... said no man that had a full head of it. :D


I considered asking my lovely wife Candace to give me a trim. Then I recalled the one time I asked her to give me a little trim above the ears with an electric razor. Now I’ve done many a stupid things that I thought would end in divorce but that quick trim nearly did. She went a little higher and tighter than I planned, words were said... now I can park snowcats on the lawn before I’ll ask for a haircuts ;)

Many years ago as a poor missionary I learned to cut my own hair. I've been doing it ever since. I bet I have paid to have it done less than 5 times in the past 15 years or so. Just like anything, some times I get it better than others.. but even when I mess it up it seems to grow right back 🤷‍♂️
The last time I paid for a cut I nearly puked at the cost. I thought hair cuts were supposed to be like $7. But candy bars are also supposed to be $0.50..
 
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