Self employed person here. As it stands, we can get about £74 per week from the government, whereas employees can get 80% of their salaries paid out. Doesn't seem right, but of course, it's harder to quantify a self employed person's salary since it can fluctuate a lot. Maybe this will be changed, as I think a lot of self employed people are upset. In my circles, it's not so much that everyone's in trouble right now, but this crisis could last up to a year and not a lot of people have reserves to deal with that.
The Pilates studio I work at closed on Friday, all classes suspended. Some clients have asked for online training, so as soon as the managers get themselves sorted, I may have 3-4 (of my 20+) classes back. Luckily, I'm also a German teacher and can transfer a lot of my language clients online. Since I spend less than half of my monthly earnings, I can probably still earn 50-80% of what I need to pay for rent, bills and food. Combined with my 6-month emergency fund, I'll be fine, even if the crisis takes a year.
That said, the long-term effects are a bit concerning as well. One of my regular clients has already lost his job, I'm sure others will, too. Will they still be able to pay for Pilates and German lessons after this is over?
On a more positive note, my family, who are back in Switzerland, are starting to take the self quarantine more seriously and hopefully staying in from now on. My mom and I are learning Spanish and we check in every day to see whether we've completed our Duolingo units. We have also both committed to doing our exercise, and I will be setting up a new blog. I've already learned so much about computers in the last 3 days - who knew Google Docs was so awesome?? This is a great opportunity to 'edit' my life, so that once it's over, I'll hopefully get to spend more time with family, have better working hours and maybe even an additional income stream. Maybe it's the same for others, as well?
