Join me and the amazing Anna Whitehouse, the founder of Mother Pukka and flexible working champ, tomorrow at 12pm for a LIVE clinic on LinkedIn, where I’ll be taking all your questions on personal finance.
We’ll be tackling the big money issues arising from Covid-19, as new research from LinkedIn shows a startling country of two halves when it comes to our finances…
PLEASE NOTE: This is a paid partnership with LinkedIn to help provide information to the public at this time and subsidise the non-profit content of Young Money Blog.
Almost half of Britons (47%) say they have been financially better off since the coronavirus pandemic hit, saving an extra £300 on average in the past month.
The new research from LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, suggests that coronavirus is splitting the nation when it comes to our finances. Although one sixth (16%) of workers polled said they had been furloughed and have had to make cutbacks to their usual spending, 83% who have managed to save are already making plans for major purchases and shopping sprees.
A quarter of those saving money intend to splash out on a holiday when lockdown is over, 14% plan on eating out more often and 8% even say they will put it towards finding a new home. Younger people – i.e. 18 to 34 year olds – were the most likely to be saving extra money under lockdown (63%), with 1 in 8 (13%) planning to put it towards making their wedding more lavish.
In contrast, more than a quarter (28%) of Britons have been forced to dip into their savings to make ends meet, 7% have applied for universal credit, and 6% are taking a mortgage holiday. 22% of those on furlough are struggling to afford their rent or mortgage repayments, and 7% have had to seek out a second job to make up the loss of income.
Iona says:
These are strange and worrying times for all of us but this research from LinkedIn shows that the coronavirus lockdown is definitely not affecting everybody’s finances in the same way. On the one hand, we’re seeing many workers whose only adjustment has been a bigger shift to ‘WFH’ (was that even an acronym a few weeks back?), who can actually take advantage of the lockdown by spending less and saving more. On the other hand, workers who have been furloughed, forced to close down businesses, seen their pay cut or their freelance careers dry up have been forced into survival mode. I want to help both camps figure out what they can do and make sense of this crazy new world. That’s why I’m so pleased to have been invited as the guest expert for this special finance clinic.
To help people gain greater control of their finances regardless of their employment situation, Iona Bain will be joining Anna Whitehouse (aka Mother Pukka) for a LinkedIn Live Q&A session this Wednesday 29 April at 12.pm.
