7 Areas Where You Should Continue To Be Financially Conservative

7 Areas Where You Should Continue To Be Financially Conservative While the Economy Recovers

Andrew Lisa   Wed, September 8, 2021

The pandemic forced people to regroup financially and reassess what they were doing right with their money and what they were doing wrong. In most cases, the answer was to be more conservative — to pare back spending, increase savings, be wiser with their investments and take fewer risks.

Now that places are reopening and things are changing, many people are letting their guards down — the problem is that “over” is an overstatement. Millions who could and should be vaccinated are not, the Delta variant is now raging across several states and new lockdown restrictions are being imposed.

In other words, don’t break the fast just yet. The next few months are hopeful but uncertain. These are the places in your financial life where it’s best to keep your guard up for now.

Keep Planning For the Worst

Don’t get lulled into free-and-clear post-pandemic complacency, particularly when it comes to saving for any new emergencies that might pop up in the back end of 2021. For now, stay on a financial war footing.

“If you’ve made it through the pandemic thus far unscathed financially, now is not the time to get lax in your resolve,” said Steffa Mantilla, a certified financial education instructor (CFEI) and founder of the personal finance website Money Tamer. “With the new Delta variant, areas could go back into lockdown, which will affect the job market and potentially your income. Make sure you have an emergency fund of six months’ worth of expenses built up.”

Keep Attacking Debt

Mantilla is so adamant about prioritizing emergency savings that she says you should build a financial cushion even if it means paying just the minimum balance on your debts — but only temporarily.

Then, once you have some money saved, you can go back to debt payoff,” Mantilla said.

Here, too, it’s all about preparing for late 2021 curveballs.

“The more debt you can get rid of, the more income is freed up,” she said. “Should you lose your job and need to take a lesser-paying job, you’ll have an easier time paying all of your monthly bills.”

Resist the Urge for a Celebratory Splurge

With new stories popping up every day about life in post-pandemic America, it’s easy enough for an “I deserve this” celebratory spending mentality to set it — but your kissing-a-sailor-in-Times-Square moment hasn’t arrived just yet. If you reined in spending to play it safe up until now, keep it up.

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