Are you richer or poorer ?? in this weird year 2020 has been

[Paul]

Just wondering how folk are doing out there after this weird year we have been through

As anything that is constituted "FUN" has been banned this year. Ive been able to save so much more money to what i normally do

Just holiday savings alone has netted me a few extra oz of gold. Keeping out of the pub has saved me more cash £ 

Business has been good for me and up year on year. (im in a none customer facing outdoors unrelated/unaffected business, which im very grateful for)

im not doing this post out to brag but just wondering how have others years been coming into the end of the year? doing well? business down? lost hours? 

Will be interesting seeing comments from those overseas, outside the UK see how things are affected there - see if the world is all in the same boat

[Squashie]

Had a bad year overall financially. Am in the aviation sector, been on furlough since March and not much sign of it improving. Made considerably worse by the purchase of a juicy, powerful car 18 months ago on finance... doh! Hindsight really is beautiful. Never mind.

[Derv]

I'm currently out of work just now due to the flu and general wear and tear on the body over the years. I'm barely forty, but to be honest I've been wanting out of the manual game for a while . So I'm down on income, but I've used my time wisely...ish to do a bell of a lot of reading and learning. 

I've made cutbacks and savings and to be honest I quite enjoy knowing how little it actually takes to sustain me and my family. 

Just now, Derv said:

I'm currently out of work just now due to the flu and general wear and tear on the body over the years. I'm barely forty, but to be honest I've been wanting out of the manual game for a while . So I'm down on income, but I've used my time wisely...ish to do a bell of a lot of reading and learning. 

I've made cutbacks and savings and to be honest I quite enjoy knowing how little it actually takes to sustain me and my family. 

Flu , read , covid lockdowns ect

[Blockhead]

Short answer: richer.

Lockdown and the threat of covid looming over my family, friends and me (however real or not that turns out to be) has sped up a few issues that were brewing in my work and personal life. 

I now have a job I am much happier with, although it's hard to learn it and build relationships with your team via a laptop. I have saved a lot of money on no commuting costs and little in the way of socialising. Have bought more gold than I thought I would and can prioritise other things on my to do list in 2021.

Things have certainly improved from where they were 12 mo this ago for me, but they got a lot worse this year before they got better. I cannot be sure my job is safe (I'm sure that's the same for most of us) and the gold may come in handy if the worst happens and I can't get something else quickly. 

I wish everyone on this forum the best of luck with whatever 2021 brings. 

[Norskgeld]

Financially better off.

Still got a job.

Richer after seeing many people being forced awake to the evil that is threatening us...most notably my own brother.

Poorer after seeing how easily people have been turned against each other.

[JunkBond]

I moved house and saved £15k stamp duty which was nice. 😀

[KDave]

I have managed to save a good amount despite working less for the same reasons but the main benefit was definitely in the additional time with family, I would be quite happy for that to continue and take the pay cut. Being forced to home school over the summer was also great I have been meaning to make my own lessons up on economics and history for them for ages so I used it as an opportunity to add in a few topics to their homework. Stuff they would otherwise not be exposed to at school, ancient history, economics, gold, politics, religion, hopefully some of it sticks.  

[Pete]

Spent very little on petrol and nothing on holidays.
Sold some silver so recovered earlier losses.
Pension pot and ISAs hammered but bounced back with more upside.
Financially a good year.

[HerefordBullyun]

Richer

Saved 6k on commuting to work.

Don't miss the commute!

Don't go the pub no more.

That's gone into mining stocks and some are up by 139%

Still working being IT scum. 

Avoided redundancy.

Lovely Jubbly.

Happy Xmas coinsters🤣👍👍👍

 

[ZigZag]

Richer for family time, it means everything to me, spent a lot of time with teenagers and got closer to my eldest son than I had for a long time; mainly because I’ve spent less time working or working from home.

Poorer I miss travelling, though it was nice to visit Devon and Cornwall early July AND get some reasonable weather, nothing beats this country in places, if the weather is fair. Socially miss concerts, sports and most of all a pint with mates and family meals out of late. Money and time spent around the house instead to good effect overall.

Financially a little better off paper assets including ISA’s share portfolios, added a few other assets. Pension ok I guess bit meh about it, as  I’ve got to get there anyway and I don’t depend on it.

Lockdown 1 I found TSF and a new hobby, including stacking for my kids, it s not been so bad I guess. Feel sorry for some though, I can see people affected and it’s grinding on me being restricted but I’ll never grumble for others have it worse than me.

Life is for living, no prizes being the richest man in the cemetery 😉

[JasonDavies]

I'm a plumber and work has not really changed apart from easier to get around for the first 3 months. I could have claimed and stayed at home, but I made the right decision as boredom would have set in. I am grateful to have been in a position to make that decision because I know many people had no choice. 

I spent nothing on holidays or festivals (except 1 week in the IOW, which I class as overseas LOL). Both mortgage and van loan paid off (as they were going to be anyway).

As far as C19 is concerned I'm probably about where I would have been.

Nothing to do with C19, but the biggest saving results from giving up smoking in June 2019. I was collecting the QB 1/4 Gold and the 1 & 10 oz silver. Giving up smoking enabled me to collect and complete the 1oz gold QB set as well.
(Yes, I was a heavy smoker.)
 

[HerefordBullyun]

2 minutes ago, JasonDavies said:

I'm a plumber and work has not really changed apart from easier to get around for the first 3 months. I could have claimed and stayed at home, but I made the right decision as boredom would have set in. I am grateful to have been in a position to make that decision because I know many people had no choice. 

I spent nothing on holidays or festivals (except 1 week in the IOW, which I class as overseas LOL). Both mortgage and van loan paid off (as they were going to be anyway).

As far as C19 is concerned I'm probably about where I would have been.

Nothing to do with C19, but the biggest saving results from giving up smoking in June 2019. I was collecting the QB 1/4 Gold and the 1 & 10 oz silver. Giving up smoking enabled me to collect and complete the 1oz gold QB set as well.
(Yes, I was a heavy smoker.)
 

Well done for packing up the cigs. It's not easy. I vape still but don't miss them. Happy stacking with your savings.

[JasonDavies]

Oh I vape. The addiction has not gone but the difference in money and health is unbelievable.

 

[MancunianStacker]

Probably broke even. Lost a few months pay during lockdown but my PMs did well enough to replace that. 

[MancunianStacker]

2 hours ago, JunkBond said:

I moved house and saved £15k stamp duty which was nice. 😀

If you are old enough, you know!

[jultorsk]

Overall can't complain; everyone I love are healthy and safe.

Somewhat paradoxically I have traveled more this year than during the past 6 years combined. Visited the Grand Canyon, Zurich, the Champagne region in France, went twice to London (abroad for me).. and got to visit my parents at my home country. So definitely richer by that way. 

Investments wise I took a punt and sold some laggard shares to buy some older sovs. Some of them will be graded - if they're duds I'll be poorer and if they're good I may, with any luck in auctions, be a few quid better off. Nothing to break the bank, though. 

[HighlandTiger]

Strange year for me. The business I work in, is in the only industry in the country that has had to deal with 4 months of zero income, but with 100% of expenses staying the same.

I'm classed as a key worker, and I've had just 10 days off since March. Luckily, we have had plenty of support from the Government and the general public, which has allowed us to limp on. But we do need to get back to normal by Easter in order to survive. Hopefully the anti-vaxxers don't get much traction or support and we get enough people to take the vaccine, and we can reduce the infections to a managable level, and re-open the country.  

Personally my finances have improved, I was paid 100% during the lockdowns, although I've averaged about 60 hours per week, 20 of them unpaid. As I've just hit my 55th birthday, I've been able to release some money out of my pension pots, which has cleared a couple of debts, and allowed me to re-invest them in things where I'm hoping will get me a much better return.     

[Abyss]

Richer to me equates to Family, Health (mental and physical), and Wealth the three pillars of true wealth. Any one these out of sync or in imbalance will lead to a poorer life. In 2020 preserved my income streams (job / rental income), preserved capital invested in financial markets, grown value Gold stack nobody in my family caught the bug maintained our health. At the start of the year business critical migration projects that have been ongoing for six years at work have been completed and as result reduced significant amount of stress at work and resulted more free time with the family. Spent significant amount of time in study in the later part of this year hoping it will pay dividends in growing my wealth in 2021 and the years to come.

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

Work for me remained more or less the same though the cost of my raw materials went up massively so thats been tough to cope with. That being said I've come out ahead. In terms of assets I'm richer this year - slightly ahead of where I planned on being mostly because of a lack of holidays, pub, eating out, etc. The assets are nice and its nice feeling like I'm ahead of where I planned on being but this is the first year in some time I've not been able to fly abroad to catch up with family and friends. I think I'd of rather been able to take that trip than be further ahead of where I planned but quarintine requirements at both end mean thats just not practical. Maybe next year

[Calzehbhoy]

Richer for me.

My 2nd chile was born in January, with lockdown I got to spend months working from home and seeing her and my other kid that I'd normally miss out on.

My day job helps companies remotely work so we've had one of our busiest ever years, picked up a nice end of year bonus..

Started my PM journey which I've really enjoyed.

Started with stocks (Invested a month into the first lockdown) which has been amazing.

Started 2 new businesses, a youtube channel and 4 different blogs with my wife all during either the first or second lockdowns, 3 of the blogs have started to take off with views and we're considering starting to monetize them, the YouTube channel is tough, (congrats to @BackyardBullion, you make it seem easy!!) but I'm persevering as my hope is to make it self funding eventually.

 

[Augustus1]

i retired in april this year ,so work was never going to be a issue for me but my old workmates could work from home so not all lost,the covid certainly effected my pension not ony in time to arrange/ get it sorted , and reduced some of my pension values as the stock market crashed! fortunatley i had two good final salary pensions which have put me in a good postion to enjoy a comfotable retirement ( provided i dont go and buy a hyper car😀) started to dispose of some of my metals now so hopefully a bit better off .

[AgD]

I would say I'm both richer and poorer this year 😁 the poorer part is I've just bought my first house (just at the start of lockdown) but richer knowing that my children will have a solid foundation of income for when I'm gone.

My PM stack took a hit in this time but it was my decision to sell them and gain a better deposit and for improvements within the house.

I've still got what I want at the moment and selling some has got me thinking what way I want to go going forward.

I would say that what I sold and saved ( what would have been my pm budget) is in the region of 10k so very happy with that.

I work in the merchant navy sector and have been working all through lockdowns so it's just been normal for me really.

[Oldun]

No change for me. Income unaffected. Have never had restrictions on travel inside the country I live in. Just been unable to visit family and friends abroad last summer although I could do going forward if I had to for any family emergency or just a regular holiday.

[Bars]

Got into stacking last month and invested a decent amount into some coins🙈

Fiat for real!