How Are Your Personal Finances Since the Covidcon?

I’m assuming not too many people who read my humble substack are Moderna executives or public health authorities, but if anyone got rich in a hopefully ethical manner, do tell!

I unfortunately haven’t done that well since Covid came along. In late 2020 I came back to Thailand with a very modest savings and an uncertain but flexible future outlook. The savings was helped along by some Covid money in the form of stimulus and unemployment, but in the end the lack of work with Factset, my contract job as an editor and publisher for over a decade, had evened the year out. I made about the same amount in 2019 working as I did in 2020, but half of it came from the government in the first Covid year, with a smattering from delivery gigs.

I was confident that my editing and publishing would come back once things returned to normal. I had humble plans that involved perhaps finding a distressed bar or restaurant to try to reopen, figuring out what to do with my husband’s visa to America, which had just started again after an 8 month hiatus, and determining what to do with our land in Isaan in the northeast of Thailand. I was not sure where I wanted to be long term with the Covid landscape, and told anyone who asked me how long I planned on staying in Thailand “Three weeks, three months, or three years. Who knows?” My ticking biological clock also played a role. I had lost almost eight months separated from my husband between age 40 and 41 due to Covid shutdowns. Thailand has some of the best fertility clinics in the world and I was hoping to at least get checked out.

By the fall of 2020 I was hopeful that Covid hysteria would soon be behind us. I wasn’t paying heed to the more cynical and shrill of the antivaxxer contingent, who insisted that the entire exercise would be extended in order to get jabs in as many arms as possible. I was tired of the fearmongering and was thinking that most other people were too.

I got clubbed like a baby seal.

The masks came back with a vengeance in January of 2021. That took out any chance of going to a fertility clinic in Phuket. For reasons involving a brutal assault in my background, I cannot wear a facemask covering my nose for longer than I can hold my breath. My husband and I had talked about getting checked out after New Year’s. It seemed like every time we made plans for our future Covid stopped everything. It became a learned helplessness. Why bother with anything when they’ll just destroy it?

Money was becoming a worry anyways. My publishing at Factset did not come back, and seemed to be on a steady decline, first about 50% of 2019 levels in 2020, then down to 30% in 2021. We looked at a few bar and restaurant ideas but most were a lost cause. It was obvious there would be no tourists for a long time. Naithong Beach looked like a zombie apocalypse had struck in early 2021, with signs warning everyone not to swim due to novel coronavirus. The entire strip was completely abandoned and looked like it had been since the Ides of March 2020. Naiyang beach was holding up best as it always attracted Thais and many jogged facemask free on the beach road. It was clear you would need a lot of capital to hold out.

Then the jabs ramped up in Phuket, followed by waves of Covid and ever increasing restrictions right afterwards. It was so obvious to me that the damned shots were leading to outbreaks that I wanted to scream it in the streets. Instead, as a hated non facemask wearing farang, I was isolated to my little plot of land. Going anywhere was a risky endeavor.

Obviously I wasn’t taking the God forsaken jabs. I couldn’t even wear a facemask, so I wouldn’t be able to work away from home anyways. I wasn’t scared of Covid in the least. I was afraid of the genocide I feared would come as a result of the totalitarian response to it. I was afraid that they were destroying all that was beautiful and kind in the world and replacing it with something brutal and vile. I was terrified of the future especially for my children and I was devoted to making sure that horrific one never happened.

Unfortunately my writing never sold and I got scammed on a few things (question: should I write about that?) and credit card debt started to mount with no way to pay it. One credit card— American Express, shut my card down with a $0 balance. Soon they all cascaded, shutting my credit down to exactly what I had spent on them, even though I had killed myself to make every minimum payment on time. I think all of us feel the bad tidings all around us. Some things I have noticed:

1. I lost my Bank of America debit card in an ATM some months ago. It was really stupid of me my daughter was trying to count my cash and I was worried she was going to drop it. Nobody retrieved the card, and the ATM machine was removed a few weeks later, one of three to disappear in our area.

2. I wasn’t too worried about that at the time, because I had a linked US Bank Chime card that used to transfer for free next day and 50 cents instantly. BofA, in an effort to make banking 1984 again, unlinked my Chime account. Now it costs $10 for next BUSINESS day transfer from a US bank to another US bank, and that’s if they feel like it. Business day is only Monday-Friday and excludes all holidays. With the time zone difference even this ridiculously expensive option sometimes takes three or four days.

3. A cash withdrawal at a Thailand ATM costs 220 baht flat fee on their side (about $7) and $2.50 from Chime. It’s not a good idea if you have say $20 in your account, as I often do. I thank all of my subscribers on substack, who have kept us and our dogs and cats fed on a few occasions. They get really tired of boiled jackfruit and rice.

4. My checks from FactSet used to clear on the 9th of every month, unless it was a Sunday, then it was the next day. They have switched payment processors to somebody who apparently pays me whenever the Hell they feel like it. Last month money arrived on the 17th. I still haven’t seen anything this month.

5. I’d ask Mom to mail me a few things (like my new debit card) but I’ve noticed mail has slowed substantially. I used to get a package from Las Vegas to us in Thailand in 8-10 days in 2020 and 2021. The last one took over three weeks.

6. Progress on my husband’s visa to the USA stalled, and stopped, and stopped again. I last inquired in June and haven’t heard back. Since I have no money I’m not too concerned, but I am starting to wonder if anyone works there anymore.

7. I sent something to the IRS months ago regarding some uncollected stimulus money for me and my daughter from 2020, when we stayed in the USA most of the year. At the time they said it would process within four weeks of receiving. Now they say it will process within 6 months due to a backlog of returns. And please don’t bother calling them. I’m not eligible for any .gov help that I know of from here. That’s becoming the most compelling reason to come back to the USA: to get on the public dole!

8. It seems to me that all around, things are getting slower, less efficient, and less reliable. They also cost a lot more.

The sinister game of inflation and debt cycles is just getting started. I went from $20,000 in available credit a few short months ago to being denied for an emergency $100 to $500 balance assist loan from Bank of America (customer since 2005) when my pay was extremely late last month. I still pay my minimum payment every month, in part so I can use the credit cards, but my last $35 in available credit had closed out before I anticipated, and we had no food. My mother has been occasionally helping me out financially but she has all she can do to hang in on her own bills. I have never made anything close to a livable wage from any of my artistic endeavors (writing, art, or singing) and have discovered that I am near incapable of promoting myself or asking anyone for money (shameless subscription drive!).

In 2019 I travelled 41,000 miles according to Google. I’ll just name the cities by airports I was in that year: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, Tokyo, Beijing, Bangkok and Phuket. We also took advantage of my mother’s senior National Park Pass and drove to Lake Mead, Willow Bay in Arizona, Valley of Fire and a few other places (Zion is my favorite by the way but I saw that last in 2020). I didn’t have a lot of money or assets, but we definitely got by and I was happy. I didn’t give a hoot who was in charge of anything as long as they left me to live my life.

In 2021 I was not allowed to leave Phuket (not Thailand—just this island) unless I got a jab that I am morally opposed to with every fiber of my being because I was supposed to have a vax pass to return. This prevented us from selling our land in Isaan to a motivated buyer because we would have had to travel there physically to sign the paperwork. We’ve sold off our car and two motorbikes. I haven’t seen my older daughter in two years. My husband of course can’t come to America unless he gets the damned shots.

Of course, part of what makes me reluctant to tell a sad story is that judgement tends to follow it. Everybody has suggestions for what I should have done and a lot have speculation about where the money went but it’s actually a very simple equation. What I was making making was less than what I was spending, for an extended period of time. This is a direct correlate of lockdowns, shutdowns, inflation, mask and jab policies and other things constraining my choices and making it impossible to do business. Anyone who didn’t play ball with the Covid narrative got thrown to the wolves.

My fear is that this could happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. I don’t think they need climate lockdowns to reinstitute the beloved digital ID. They just need a food, water or perhaps electrical crisis in the dead of winter, then make rations contingent on their guidelines. It’s a recipe for hell on Earth.

I want to share my thoughts on how we managed for four days without money, but I’m going to save those observations for a later article. For now I am curious how you all have done in the greatest upward wealth transfer in monetary history.

Any stories to share? I’m not exactly kumbaya about it all…

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