Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Sara S

Here in the Northwest, we’re in Coronavirus mode. It showed up close to home far faster than I expected. We’ve had some cases in our immediate area, and it’s put everyone on high alert. It certainly motivated us to pay the price of stocking up last minute on essentials, including some of the basics Hope mentioned when preparing for a pandemic.

I know this has become a controversial topic for a lot of people, but I think we can all agree it never hurts to be prepared. Here is one of our main concerns: what would we do if we were quarantined for 14 days? That’s already happened with some families, and we know it’s a very real possibility.

So this weekend we focused on:

– Stocking up enough food for 14 days
– Getting sufficient medicines, especially for my asthma
– Creating a plan for our business

Stocking up on Food

I ran to the store early Saturday morning, buying two weeks’ worth of what we’d normally eat. We usually have a lot of dry goods and canned foods in our garage, but with moving on our mind we’ve been eating through it. Dangit. So I begrudgingly restocked some of those staples, juuuust in case. This bonus grocery trip cost us nearly $100, but it did mean I can avoid the stores this week.

By Saturday evening, apparently, store shelves were becoming bare. Rice, beans, and soup cans were gone. A friend went to Costco and texted that they were in line all the way to the BACK of the store. Toilet paper and water were the hot items, although people were also joking about the wine and beer in their carts.

I’ve since seen stores are cleaned out (pun intended) of hand sanitizer and cleaners like Lysol and Clorox Wipes. There’s been some price gouging, so I’m grateful we already had enough of these non-food items.

Keeping Medicines on Hand

We made sure we had fever reducers for us and the kids, and then I started getting more of my asthma and sinus prescriptions. They’re so expensive and because of insurance limits I often don’t get extra. Calling in all my meds at once reminded me just how much we pay for my medications each month!

– Asthma pills $14/month
– Allergy pills $30/month
– Nasal Rinse $45/month
– Steroid Inhaler $45
– Rescue Inhaler $45

That’s a total of $179.00. And those don’t include a few over-the-counter vitamins and pills I take. Oof!

(I have to put in perspective that before I started this cocktail of prescriptions about five years ago, I was having non-stop sinus and respiratory problems. I needed regular sinus surgeries, I wasn’t sleeping well, and I was really struggling. So I’d rather pay for my better lifestyle now than endure that miserable existence again.)

That total was bothering me though. I already take all the generics that I can, so I decided to finally look into online coupons. I came to the pharmacy with a coupon I found on GoodRx.com that I thought would make one of my $45 inhalers only $18. Unfortunately it wasn’t for the exact same one, and the kind pharmacy tech searched and couldn’t find a coupon that would work either. If you have any coupon advice, I’d love to hear it.

Planning for our Business

We’ve had some cancelations at work either because people weren’t feeling well or they were being cautious. We are bracing ourselves for a possibly slower March and April due to all of this. We’ve been tweaking how we schedule and getting even more strict with our cleanliness and hygiene.

We also may have to close our business down for a time if my husband or too many of the employees get sick or quarantined. If only we could work from home! We’ve been bracing ourselves for what that could mean for our bank accounts.

All this prep has really reset our typical budget, but it’s money we would have spent eventually in the month so we’re making it work. Plus, I suppose this is a time to be grateful for emergency funds. Stocking up and preparing has given us some peace of mind, so it’s definitely been worth the price.