The MoneySmart Covid-19 Survival Guide - How Can We Get Through This?

If you're living in Singapore, your most immediate concern is likely to be how to get through the Covid-19 circuit breaker period. From now until 1 June 2020, we all need to stay at home to reduce community transmission. Everyone's cooperation is important here.

To survive the circuit breaker, we all have to make changes to our lifestyle. We have to substitute restaurant dining with homecooked meals, social gatherings with Zoom hangouts, hitting the gym with livestreamed workouts, and going to the office with working from home. All these changes require a re-think of how you plan your time and allocate your budget.

Whether you are the average salaried employee, a full-time freelancer, or a business owner yourself, most of us trying to make a living in Singapore will suffer some form of income loss due to Covid-19.

Although the pain right now is intense, surely it will end at some point. For immediate relief, you can seek help from the government. There are a lot of relief schemes and payouts for temporary income loss, but the schemes are generally for 3 groups: Employees, the self-employed, and business owners.

If you suffer any income loss at all, you are most likely extremely worried about your debt - how are you going to repay your loans!? Or maybe you are so low on cash that you don't know how you can even get by without borrowing money. In this section, let's talk about your options.

Just a disclaimer: You're going to see some seemingly conflicting advice here. On the one hand, we're asking you to reduce your debts, while on the other, we're presenting personal loan options. This is because we acknowledge that there's no one-size-fits-all financial solution to every case. We ask that you think through your situation, choose the least risky path, and compare the options carefully before committing.

If your income has not been adversely affected by the Covid-19 crisis, you may be wondering if you should start investing. After all, most of us are aware of the coronavirus-led stock market crash. Today's low share prices could mean tomorrow's profit, but only if you are conscious of the risks. Two questions to ask yourself:

Just because you still have your job now doesn't mean it will be there forever. Covid-19 has a domino effect on the economy, and the situation has far from stabilised. Regardless of how well you're doing at work, it's best for every one of us to beef up our emergency cash savings at this point. We recommend keeping at least 6 months' worth of expenses in your cash savings, to tide you over in case you suffer a pay cut or worse.

Investing in pre-coronavirus times was risky enough as it is. But investing during uncertain, rocky periods like this? That takes nerves of steel. If you start investing now, you must be prepared for extreme, nausea-inducing volatility. So be sure you have the stomach for these risks, as well as immense holding power. Those who can profit from market conditions like these are the ones who can hold on to their stocks long after everyone has panic-sold theirs.