- Time, time, and more time! Sometimes I love the stillness and the ability to just be with my family rather than racing about.
- The money savings from cooking and baking.
- Discovering that my graying roots look pretty good with my strawberry blonde hair. And the extra length actually is nicer than I anticipated.
Agree with @abasket . While my paid job is busier than ever due to the pandemic, I don’t have my commute (saves a total hour or so) and I don’t have to get ready and dressed in the morning. I just roll up to my first call after I run. I am getting out to run an hour later than I did before WFH. I work a little later into the evening (and sometimes MUCH later), but it all seems more flexible. I can walk the dogs mid-morning if I don’t have a video meeting. No organizing closets or anything. Also- no business lunches, business travel or social functions.
I’m in the same boat as @surfcity - converting my classes to online formats has been very time consuming as I’m learning lots of new skills and spending my summer recording lectures and trying to find digital replacements for the in person discussions and activities that worked well in a face to face learning environment. Granted, I’m getting up at 7:00 rather than the ungodly 4:45 the alarm used to be set at due to my hour long commute. But I’m not having a “summer” and have put things like research - never mind cooking new cuisines or learning a language or doing anything beyond my basic exercise routine - on the back burner as I’m racing to be ready for the fall semester.
The only benefit I’ve had is bittersweet. I live alone and have felt extremely isolated working from home. My niece is staying with me since last week and it’s been wonderful–but that’s because the Manhattan restaurant where she was beverage manager is still closed and her apartment lease was up. So she is en route to her mom’s house to wait it out. I feel so bad for her but I am grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with her. I got an extra few days because she was booked on a packed flight on American Airlines yesterday and canceled; she will leave Thursday morning on JetBlue.
I saved about an hour and a half from my commute each day. I also saved about 12 hours a week from not taking DS to his extracurricular. There was also time savings in having no tests to develop or grade. Some of the time saved was spent on baking. My closet reorganizing didn’t happen until after classes were finished. A lot of time was spent catching up on sleep.
I’m now at a time deficit because of the pandemic though. DS was supposed to go to a sleep away summer program and leave me totally alone. His summer program is now virtual. He’s at home. We have to leave the house at 5:30 am to get to the place where he streams his program classes. I’m back to sleep deprivation and losing about 6 hours out of my day. This will last until school reopens.
- My partner was laid off so we unexpectedly got PTO after I gave birth. He had no paid leave time otherwise.
- As a disabled academic, I (and many others) have been fighting for years for conferences and other events to be put online. We were always told that they didn't have the capacity for that. Well gee, looks like they do now... And now we can use that in the future.
- I didn't have to think of a way to get my MIL out of the house when she overstayed her welcome after the birth like she did with all of her other grandkids. Can't overstay your welcome if you're not allowed over in the first place.
@romanigypsyeyes, great on your second point and hilarious on point 3. Congrats on point 1.
@surfcity, time saved as follows:
- Travel. I usually travel about half the month. A typical month could include work in London, San Francisco, Calgary and NY. Plus vacation travel. I have many more hours per month to allocate to focused work. In February, I was out of town 2.5 weeks.
- Shopping. We do a fair bit of entertaining. ShawWife does most of the cooking and I do the shopping and cleaning. So, I would often make a weekly trip to Costco. We are now having Instacart deliver from Costco and are getting fish delivered from a guy who has built up a business going to the harbor and picking up fish each day and delivering to folks' homes. So several hours a week avoided.
- Social events. I see in my February calendar several dinner parties at our house and at others' houses and dinners at restaurants.
- Art Exhibitions. My wife is a very talented artist. She had a show scheduled in May-June at a museum in Western Canada. No travel for that (or a second trip to help her bring some of the work).
- At least two weddings rescheduled. No travel. I think for both, we bought a present online and sent it.
- Medical and Personal Care. I haven't been to a doctor since January. We postponed a bunch of appointments. No massages. Will have to go to the eye surgeon for a follow-up visit and dentist at some point.
In our case, we moved in March and so have spent a lot of time getting things set up at the new house and getting the old house ready for sale. So some of the saved time has been allocated to the transition.
- lots of time to bake bread. (Downside - put on 5 lbs)
- lots of visits with DD and grandbaby.
- Used a program called “acapella” to make some short little music videos with me, myself and I.
Okay, I thought of another one.
Growing my bangs out. I had been debating this for a year, but every time I just caved at the salon and had her trim them. Now, without seeing my stylist since early February, they are pretty much grown out without me having to make that decision!
- H (OB/Gyn) - after a crazy weekend mid March, when Covid testing tents were just being set up, H’s department had a 20ish person quarantine pending test results after a patient and a resident got sick while on Labor and Delivery (all was well in the end) on the same weekend. After that we decided that one of us was probably going to catch this virus. (Not the good part yet.) So we decided that we probably shouldn’t sleep In the same bed. (Still not the good part.)
Anyway, I began sleeping in our son’s old room, which, although he is a 4th year medical student and hasn’t lived here since he left for college, still looked like a teenaged boy’s room.
Ugh! I was faced with the ugly, so I boxed up the personal things he is still “storing” here, and created a yoga studio, which I have used every day since then. So, yay!
- Just finished knitting two Christmas stockings - one for my DIL and one for my medical school son’s very long term GF. They live together and I consider them to be married. I have one more to knit before the holidays - DIL is due with our first grandchild in early October. Yay!
- Since nobody was going to be working inside our house (potential kitchen remodel nixed) we had the cedar siding exterior cleaned bad wood replaced, and re stained/ painted everything. We also had our deck redone. The deck was sooo worth it! We have used it more in the last 4 months than in the past 4 years. Yay!
My time savings is not leaving the house much, not traveling (normally go on at least 4 or more major trips/year), having my kids helping with cooking and cleaning and shopping and errands. This has enabled us to carve out time to help organize my stuff around the house and our kitchen and towels and bedding. So far, so good!
The return of hoop skirts! The perfect social distancing accessory!
Haven’t seen it happen yet, but you heard it here first…
I thought of another one…
Busy schedules with me and my college friends (and large differences in the ages of our kids) have made it very difficult to plan time to get together - someone’s always got something else going on, so we’re missing people.
We zoomed once a week with a glass of wine (maybe 2…) and just had a great time catching up and laughing. The pandemic actually made us have that time for each other, and the friendships are still just as strong after 30 years…we’re now down to maybe once/month, but it’s still great to see them, even if it’s on a screen.
Honorable Mention:
Try-out of some of the largest plant-based meat brands - I felt I’m addicted to them!
We were thinking of the cones you put on dogs that bite. Would have to be a bit wider though.
- People, loads of people! Out on the streets! I live in a close-in suburb of NYC, and the only time we typically see people walking in the neighborhood is to/from school, to/from train station, and walking dogs. In the summer it's usually desolate during the day, with kids away for the summer and families on vacation. Now, at all hours, sun-up to sundown, adults and children of all ages are walking, bicycling, skateboarding, running, playing. It's a constant stream of people. Yesterday I saw a bunch of college kids setting up a volleyball net in the schoolyard.
- Entrepreneurship! Amazing to see so many HS and college students figuring out creative ways to keep busy and earn money this summer. Running backyard camps for little kids, power-washing, mowing, weeding, car detailing, cleaning out garages and attics, shopping for elderly, tutoring, teaching coding, helping younger kids with sports skills, giving music lessons.
- I am spending about $1500 less per month. No commuter train tickets, subway fare, gas/tolls, entertainment, eating out, cleaning person.
We are spending tons less by not eating out! Our S is “helping” us organize and clean our home. It’s really looking MUCH better than it’s looked in ages and we can find things much more easily. The best thing is that he’s making it so it’s easy to maintain when he is gone.
We are HOPING he may bring GF when he comes back after going back to DC to take care of things that have been piling up in his absence–taxes, deliveries, etc.
Saving money. I am donating more to food banks and food drives.
Although a hair, dentist or medical appointment might take longer to set up, once you get there there is no waiting!
My bank opened yesterday for walk in service. Once I got my temp taken, used the hand sanitizer and checked in, there was no line for the teller. Took about 3 minutes. Sadly, no cookies or lollipops.
My kids have spent a lot more time talking to one another and are closer than ever. That makes me very happy! 