Life Kit - Coping With Coronavirus: Tips For Your Wallet And Kitchen

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

Staying at home means new challenges for your daily habits. This episode, we talk about budget tips and cooking hacks for your self-quarantine time.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Indicator is a podcast where daily economic news is about what matters to you. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation. So as a new administration promises action on the cost of living, taxes, and home prices. The S&P 500 biggest post-election day spike ever. Follow all the big changes and what they mean for you. Make America affordable again. Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR. Hey LifeKit, I love your program so this is kind of fun, although I never use the phone anymore.

That's listener Elizabeth Baker from Kensington, California. She's got our coronavirus coping tip for this episode. See, she's got a bit of a full house right now. And we have a family of four with my mom living downstairs and my half-sister who's at UC Berkeley joining us. So we're up to six people and all different ages from one to 80. And the most fun thing we're doing every day is the rose and thorn ritual at dinner. That's basically where people go around the dinner table and say the best part about their day. That's the rose.

And the not-so-great part about their day. That's the rose. And the not so great part about their day. That's the thorn. Forces you to find something good each day. And it also, some people add the bud so that you force yourself to look forward to something for the next day. Never been more effective or necessary as now. I have to say, getting all your tips about how you all are getting through this pandemic is such a bright spot for us. So please keep them coming. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823. Just tell us your full name, where you're from, and your tip for getting through all of this craziness, and a number where we can reach you. Or just send us an email, lifekit at npr.org, and thank you.

Anyway, thanks for all your programming. Love you guys. Bye. Coronavirus has changed our daily lives in so many ways, from our daily stress and worries to what we give thanks for each day, from how and whether we're working to how and where our kids are learning. This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Michelle Martin, host of All Things Considered. Most weekends, we try to spend a few minutes thinking about the way we all live. We're going to share some tips we learned with Life Kit listeners. We'll give some cooking tips in a moment, but first, let's turn to personal finance. It's probably safe to assume that the steps being taken to control the coronavirus outbreak is

affecting your finances. On the one hand, you might be saving on your commute. On the other, you might be spending more, stocking up on food and cleaning supplies or books and games and activity sets for the kids. And a lot of people are making less money or seeing income dry up completely because so many workplaces have shut down. That got us wondering about what we should be doing with our money during this time. So we've called Kimberly Palmer. She is a writer at NerdWallet. That's a site dedicated to giving financial advice. And she's going to give us some money management tips. Kimberly Palmer,

thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Well, first of all, I think it's accurate to say that a lot of people are nervous right now. And that seems to be leading to some panic buying at the grocery store, the drug store. Do you have some advice on what people should try to keep in mind as they stock up for self-isolation? It can be a good idea to buy groceries to help you last through any time period you have to spend in your house, which for a lot of people is a week or more. So we are buying more than we're used to, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it does put a strain on a lot of people's budgets in the short term. And so this is what really underscores why it's so important to have an emergency savings fund so we can cover

situations like that when we see our expenses suddenly shoot up. But there's no need to go to the extent that we've seen with people overbuying things like toilet paper, paper products, canned goods that could last for months. And so you definitely want to apply a sense of reason. So you really don't need all the food you could imagine for the next six months. Well, you talked about the importance of an emergency fund, but the Labor Department reported a jump of 70,000 new claims for unemployment since last week. I'm just going to assume that some of these folks don't have an emergency fund. So is there something that people who find their income suddenly cut off could be doing right now? Yes. In a lot of cases, people have to very quickly prioritize which bills they're going to pay this month. In some cases,

it's just not possible to pay all of them. And so if you can't make your credit card payment, for example, call your credit card issuer and see if they can give you more time, if they can waive interest. Because of the situation right now, some companies are proactively making those kinds of offers to consumers. So you have to call and ask. So that can be a first step. It can give you a little bit more time to get you that help. And then also, in some cases, some people, if you have good credit, you can use your credit card to make purchases. You still want to be sure to make your minimum payments every month so you can protect your credit score. But that can give you a little leeway if you have that option, if you have a

credit card that you can use. Kimalee, are there any specific changes you're making right now? Yes. We have three kids, and so we are naturally cutting back in areas like kids' activities. We usually are spending a lot right now on sports for springtime, dance classes for my daughter, so we're cutting back because we have to. Those have been canceled. So all of that spending that we used to do, we are now putting into savings because it just helps give us a little bit more buffer since there's so much uncertainty right now. Or do you say to yourself, oh, I would be ordering out Friday night takeout, but instead I'm going to transfer this amount to my savings? Do you have some system for keeping track of what you're actually saving?

We use the 50-30-20 budget. So basically 50% we dedicate to needs. So that's like our mortgage and groceries. 30% is wants, and that's the restaurant spending or ordering takeout. And then 20% is debt payments and savings. But it's that 30% that's changing right now. And so where we used to have that restaurant spending, personal care spending, getting haircuts and activities for my kids, that's what we can now transfer into savings. Because there's so much uncertainty, we want to build up our emergency savings like so many people. That was Kimberly Palmer. She is a personal finance writer at

NerdWallet. Kimberly Palmer, thank you so much for joining us and good luck to you too. Thank you. What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Do you make resolutions in January? We do. Specifically, we make pop culture resolutions. We also check in on what we resolved to do this last year. Did we catch up on all those classic movies or finally write that novel? Find out on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. One of the things we all need to keep doing, even as we self-isolate, is eat and cook. But what to do if you go to the store and the food items you really want aren't there?

Last week, we asked David Tamarkin from the cooking website Epicurious for some shopping and meal planning tips for these uncertain times. He had several, like when you go food shopping, have a plan so you don't end up panic buying. We thought you might want to hear some more of his tips today, starting with this one. Think fresh and get creative. Pasta and frozen vegetables, those things are in short supply at grocery stores right now. But what's interesting is that all the fresh stuff is still there. And what people I think are not doing is they're not thinking about, oh, if you want to go and get frozen greens, you can get the fresh greens, chop them up and put them in your freezer. You know, I mean, there are ways to get

the fresh fruit and still preserve it at home. So I think one recommendation I would make to people is not to overlook the fresh food. There are lots of hearty fresh foods that will last several weeks, like squash and sweet potatoes, onions, apples, carrots will last a long time. But even shorter life things like greens, you can, you know, chop those up, cook them down in a bunch of olive oil and put them either in your freezer or in your fridge. If there's enough salt and olive oil in there, they'll last a long while. Tamarkin says that same approach can help home cooks keep their dishes tasty and colorful for long stretches of time. This is the sort of chef-y side of me saying this.

It's not really important, but it's important to me. If you have herbs, those herbs are going to go really fast. So blitz those herbs in the blender with garlic and olive oil and maybe some chili flake and some other spices, definitely salt and make a sauce, make a pesto-ish type sauce or make a real pesto with some cheese in there, some nuts. That sauce is going to last you weeks, whereas the herbs are only going to last a few days. And I know that when I'm, you know, self-isolating like right now, I really want something fresh on my food. I want to see that bright green color on my food. And I just want that punch of fresh flavor.

So those herb sauces are going to get me that even if I can't, you know, have access to the fresh herbs that I would normally use. He also suggests stocking up on canned vegetables whenever possible because you can use them in so many ways. Take canned tomatoes, for example. I prefer those big cans of the whole tomatoes, but if you only have room for smaller cans, those work too. I'm going to make shakshuka with that, you know, that Tunisian tomatoey, peppery stew that you often put eggs into. I'm going to buy canned tomatoes. I'm going to buy jars of roasted red peppers. And assuming I have onions and garlic, I can easily make a shakshuka and slip some eggs into that. If I don't have eggs, shelf-stable tofu will be fine there. I like the idea of shelf-stable tofu because

when I run out of eggs, I'm going to want a sort of creamy-ish protein source. And silken tofu is sort of like an egg if you close your eyes and you don't taste too much. Sometimes though, you might want to make something that just takes a long time to, you know, pass the time. Tamarkin has a suggestion for that too. If you have not gotten into bread making, this could be a very good time to do that.

I will tell you something, I'm in my sourdough phase right now and it takes a long time. It's very distracting. You know, you have to fold that bread every 30 minutes for four hours. So there's no time to get into the news because every 25 minutes, your timer is going off and you have to run to the kitchen and fold that bread. And you can do it while you listen to NPR. Yeah. How perfect is that?

And I always do. That was David Tamarkin of the cooking website Epicurious with some of his tips for everybody who's spending a lot more time in the kitchen during this crisis. Now, what if you're ready to make a recipe and you're missing a few key ingredients? Quarantine cooking requires a little creativity when it comes to ingredient substitutions. So Morning Edition host Noelle King ran through some pantry substitution suggestions with Chef and Food Network star Amanda Freitag. Okay, if I don't have eggs, what can I use?

Ooh, well, you're probably now stocked with some beans or maybe even some chickpeas in a can. And chickpeas, the liquid that they're in is called aquafaba. And that's actually an amazing egg substitute. Aquafaba, if you were to whip it by hand or in a stand mixer, whips up just like meringue. You just drain out the liquid that the chickpeas have been cooked in. It doesn't give off bean flavor and it really works. That is extraordinary. Can we agree there's no substitute for garlic? Oh my God. Well, I always talk about this for those garlic naysayers out there, but you can use onion if you like onion or a scallion or a shallot.

Fry Tag also says if you run out of heavy cream, try coconut milk. Or how about this? You can even use a little vanilla ice cream instead. NPR's Life Kit also wants to hear your tips. What are your tricks for coping during this time of coronavirus? Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us at lifekit at npr.org. There's more coronavirus advice from LifeKit. Check out the episode for first-time homeschoolers or the episode about how to work from home. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. Also, I'll be hosting NPR special nightly coverage. It's called the National Conversation with All Things Considered. It's your opportunity to ask questions and get answers about this ongoing pandemic. That's each weeknight at 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight

Time. I'm Michelle Martin. Thank you for listening. This message comes from Grammarly. 89% of business leaders say AI is a top priority. The right choice is crucial, which is why teams at one-third of Fortune 500 companies use Grammarly. With top-tier security credentials and 15 years of experience in responsible AI, Grammarly isn't just another AI communication assistant. It's how companies like yours increase productivity while keeping data protected and private. See why 70,000 teams trust Grammarly at grammarly.com slash enterprise.