Last week an Emma user kindly messaged us to say that we’d been helping her manage her money during furlough.
We chatted to her a little more about her experience on furlough, which you can read here.
Has anyone here been furloughed at any point during this pandemic? Did you have to make any big changes to your finances?
I haven’t been furloughed but my fiancé was. Helpfully by not travelling to work, he saved a lot, but we spent more on food and Disney+ and the like, so it evened out.
As a household we saved not going out to dinner with friends so much, or to brunch etc…
He managed to put more towards paying me back which was helpful, but I wouldn’t say it was overly easy for him. Very demotivating too.
Yeah it does seem that a lot of people have been able to balance out the reduced income by cutting down on travel and eating out. Can’t be easy for anyone that didn’t spend money on these things in the first place though.
I can imagine it must have been super demotivating. Is he back now?
He got made redundant after months on furlough (hospitality sector) but picked up another job just 2 weeks before his redundancy date so he was fine.
Now less pay for more hours but a job is a job and he makes me so proud as he works so hard giving so much effort. 
I think it really put things into perspective for us @rebekah - Money does so much emotionally as well as materially and when you are at home so much a garden is worth so much more than being able to afford takeaways and the like.
When our children eventually are on this planet, I’ve said at the next sign of a global pandemic; we are upping sticks to New Zealand and living by the sea or in the forest ha ha.
Oh definitely! Money can make you feel so many emotions - guilt, shame, envy, joy, excitement…
That sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it @Joel 
Sorry, I missed this because at the time I was in New Zealand living life by the sea & forest
I’ll try not to be jealous.
