How to Survive a Global Recession: Lessons Learned from Covid-19

What started out as rumors of a global recession seems to be more likely than most of us thought possible. We were being told, after all, that the economy was ‘bouncing back nicely’ after it took a hit during the last two years of a global pandemic, but that now appears to have been wishful thinking on the part of market forecasters. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow tracker, we have now seen two straight months of a 1% decline, which constitutes a recession.

As we saw with the Great Recession of 2008-09, the rest of the world is soon to follow. The news isn’t getting better, by the way, because as of July 27, the decline for this month was 1.2%. However, there are survival tips we learned during the Covid-19 lockdowns that just might be our survival if a global recession becomes a reality in the near future.

Surviving Unemployment

During a recession, many companies are forced to lay off or terminate employees because they simply can’t make payroll. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t work out there, it just means some major employers are forced to release a significant part of their workforce. Now then, if you remember correctly, this led to literally millions of workers working from home. Sometimes companies were able to keep them employed if they were able to work from home and other times the unemployed became a part of an ever-growing gig economy.

Working in the Gig Economy

They began working as freelancers and contractors from home. The one thing you may need to think about before it comes to that is updating your home computer to one of the affordable Lenovo Gaming Computers. As during the pandemic, you will find that videoconferencing with clients and suppliers may become a necessity. Why a gaming computer? Because they have the CPU speed and RAM to accommodate streaming media.

Do More with Less

Another important lesson we learned during the pandemic is to do without some of the things we always thought we needed. Instead of eating out a few nights a week because we were tired after working all day, we ate at home. Besides, most of the time restaurants were shut down to mitigate the spread of the virus.

We began cooking larger meals that could be saved and reheated another night of the week and we also learned to seek discounts and coupon codes wherever possible. Although we may need to cut back on expenses, it can be done as we quickly learned during times of unemployment during Covid-19. We learned that we could make a living from home or as a contractor/freelancer and that although the benefits wouldn’t be there, we could survive. Our grandparents and their parents lived through the Great Depression so keep that in mind. Where there’s a will there’s a way and if it means working from home as your own boss, then so be it!

About the author: Dan Cormac

Dan Cormac knows how to make his money go further. A freelance financial journalist, Dan is passionate about personal finance. Whether you hope to escape the chains of debt, to save for a house, or to retire within a decade, Dan explores the most effective ways you can achieve your financial goals.

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