Budget wasn’t much changed as a percentage by Covid as it was for medical bills, so Covid I’d say really didn’t factor in to changing savings goals for anything nor timeframes much.
Bought the car to get me out of the truck when I was getting nervous climbing up in it and that was sooner than budgeted but wrangled other things and paid it off.
New washer and dryer were already on the timeline so they got done. Dishwasher was later but decided to just do it. Too much time home cooking to mess with the ancient one anymore.
Still have a vacation trip on the books but it got pushed from Jan 2021 to Nov 2021 so nothing to do there but wait.
Basically no significant plans that weren’t already somewhere in the long term budget. Some things pushed up, others back. The plan never survives first contact with the enemy, so... we’ll see. She tossed some of her trip money for singing conventions and stuff that are all cancelled into a much cheaper mini-vacation for her since she’s been busting butt all along. Went and saw a friend.
If either of us has a job loss, which doesn’t look likely but has happened before... we’d jump into “storm” mode and cease all unnecessary spending and seriously adjust the budget hard core, but so far it’s just been shuffling things around. Not exactly spending the usual massive gas money on the old commuter schedule anymore, for example. Or wasting money on the toll road when we felt like staying out of traffic on the perfectly good side roads.
Also had some maybe deferrable and one non-deferrable auto repairs. Did all of those. Karen’s Ford needed new brakes all the way around at 200K as did the beater Subaru and an AC leak fixed. Two different shops now have misunderstood my specific request to replace the RV trailer socket on her truck as requested estimates instead... accidental... and one tried a screwy cheap repair that would work if both my hands were fully happy 24/7, but I really just want the darn thing replaced and don’t trust my left handed drilling skills yet... so third time to a shop may be a charm on that. Need to tow the cargo trailer for a couple projects! LOL. Frustrating. But whatever...
Also doing best to up the charity stuff as we hear about folks in trouble. As a pastor we were listening to today who was doing a talk on something else mentioned as a side topic, “Don’t bother telling me what your priorities supposedly are in life, just let me see your checkbook and your calendar.”
Kinda takes big number changes or events to knock us off our longer term plans. We are discussing whether there’s any “we really want to do that thing and keep putting it off for stuff we don’t care about as much” items we want to buckle down and go after — just in case we are stuck in ready, aim, aim, aim, aim... mode but we can’t think of anything.
Probably just save a little harder on Karen’s replacement vehicle and then people can laugh at us hanging a snowplow on the front of a Lincoln pickup. Ha.
It’s just a freaking old ass F-150.
Stupid bling truck. Plowing and towing is always nicer with a msssive subwoofer. Haha.
We also always have the risk of my medical junk going totally sideways so plans for big splurges that drain emergency funds aren’t usually wise.
So far the risk of that keeps slowly going lower but it’ll take a couple more years to know for sure.
There is a new house on the market just up the road that has a better location, layout, already has the barn built, and driveways paved, and... but I’m resisting the temptation to even look at what they’re asking. Ha.