COVID-19 Archives - Our Bill Pickle

My summer 2020 review

September 15, 2020

One thing that became obvious when I started working on this summer 2020 review is this summer didn’t really go how I thought it would.

It feels fitting. I think it’s safe to say 2020 as a whole has not gone the way most of us expected. Still, after how long spring felt, it’s hard to believe how quickly summer came and went.

This post is not really a personal finance post. But considering I basically fell off the face of the internet for the entire summer, I wanted to talk a bit about what I got up to during this very different summer.

So here we go.

The United States response to COVID-19: It’s not all bad! (guest post)

July 2, 2020

The United States response to COVID-19: Three things some states did to slow the spread and make a difference.

There are two things we’re all about here at Our Bill Pickle: keeping it real and sharing this space with those who can provide perspective on matters outside our expertise.

Today I am thrilled to have Melanie from Partners In Fire here with a guest post on the United States response to COVID-19.

Specifically, things that have gone well.

Before reading this, I didn’t know if anything was going well in the United States when it came to COVID-19.

In fact, apart from the stimulus cheques, I did not know much about the US response apart from the statistics we see daily.

Melanie does a great job talking about some of the things I didn’t really know about the US response. If this is something you’ve wondered about, this post is for you.

(Interested in guest posting at Our Bill Pickle? Click here for more details!)

Five ways I would use a stimulus cheque

May 19, 2020

Five ways I would spend a $1,200 stimulus cheque

How would I spent a stimulus cheque?

Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the American government’s economic stimulus package. Both in the blog world and on social media, I’ve read a lot of different accounts from individuals about how they’ve spent or plan to spend the money.

Reading these accounts made me wonder: what would I do with an extra $1,200?

After spending some time thinking about it, here’s what I can up with.

Four ways we are trying to help our community right now

May 14, 2020

Four small ways we're helping our community right now

How can I help our community right now?

I’ll be honest: I didn’t think too much about that at the start of the COVID-19 response efforts.

Due to my job, I felt the impact of the response a little sooner than some of the folks around me. It hit the department I work in about a week or so before things really started changing. That time period, for me, was very much a fight or flight kind of thing.

But the deeper we moved into response efforts, I found myself thinking more about this question.

Over the last few weeks, we have been taking some steps to, well…try to help.

They are admittedly small things, so much so that I debated whether I should write about them at all. But after reading a few posts by others about what they’re doing, I decided…well, why not? Doing something small is still doing something. It all counts.

So here’s a snapshot of some of the things we’re doing to try to help our community right now.

Why we stopped making payments on our student loan

May 7, 2020

Why we stopped making payments during the Canada Student Loan suspension

The last time we made a regular payment on our Canada Student Loan was March 6, 2020.

That day, we sent $150 toward the loan. It was the second of four planned payments for the month.

Eleven days later, the government announced an interest-free suspension of Canada Student Loan payments until September in response to COVID-19.

And even though we have the option (and ability) to continue making payments, we decided against it.

I’ve mentioned it a couple times since, but today, I wanted to share a little more about the thought process.

So…here we go.