I initially titled this post, If this Ain’t Your First Rodeo, Act “As If”, because I wanted to convey that this is not the first time there has been wild drops and volatility in the stock market. (The expression comes from a country song, obviously).
But because the Covid-19 pandemic is causing so much disruption in our world and economy, I did not want to play down the actual effects it is having on people, the health care system, and the economy.
Let me implore you NOT to make any big changes—or really any changes— in money that you may have in a 401(k), IRA, 529 plan, or other savings account that is earmarked for long-term goals.
If you panic now and sell all of your stock funds or other investments, you will lock in your losses, rather than ride out the ups and downs (downs right now!) of the stock market and long-term investing.
If you do not need the money right now, there is no need to change your allocation or where you money is invested. If you need more convincing, read this post from Ron Lieber: The Market is Moving. Most People Should Sit Still.
Despite the recommendations, I know there is a sizeable group of people who have been getting scared or depressed to see the numbers in their retirement or other accounts. This is not helpful!
So let me suggest a few things to do instead of being obsessive about checking and re-checking your accounts, or wondering if you should get even more toilet paper, or watching the news stories about the pandemic or the economy.
In addition, many kids are home from school or college, indefinitely, mny people have been asked to work from home (join the club! It’s great!), and there will be a lot of free time.
I am a veteran homeschooling mom, so I have ideas. And welcome to the family.
I am listing these ideas in the hopes our family will check some of these off the list, too.
Our family owns these games and puzzles, and each has gotten a lot of activity at our house, and I heartily recommend each of them.
Pandemic
- Pandemic: I couldn’t resist this as the first game. It is a cooperative game. Because the players play against the game, play is less cutthroat, but also super fun. We love it.
From the game description: Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out. Players must work together playing to their characters’ strengths and planning their strategy of eradication before the diseases overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. For example the Operation Specialist can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5. But the diseases are out breaking fast and time is running out: the team must try to stem the tide of infection in diseased areas while also towards cures. A truly cooperative game where you all win or you all lose.
Code Names
- CodeNames is entertaining and a relatively quick play game.
From the game description: Codenames is a social word game with a simple premise and challenging game play. Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. The teams compete to see who can contact all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the table. Their teammates try to guess words of their color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin.
Sequence
- Sequence is an easy to learn, speedy game that lends itself well to cooperative play if you have more than two players.
From the description: Play a card from your hand, and place a chip on a corresponding space on the game board. When you have five in a row, it’s a Sequence. Learn to block your opponents or remove their chips, and watch out for the Jacks – they’re wild! With a little strategy and luck, you’ll be a winner.
Settlers of Catan
- Settlers of Catan: This is one of our family favorites. We have not played it awhile since it takes a long time to play, but it’s great and worth the investment of time.
From the game description: The incredibly popular, multi award winning civilization building board game of harvesting and trading resources. Players control their own civilization and look to spread across a modular hex board in a competition for victory points.
Escape Room in a Box
- An escape room game–in-a-box. Local escape rooms may be closed, but there are many versions available as board games. Two of our teens enjoyed playing this one with a group of friends.
Dutch Blitz
- Dutch Blitz is hands down one of our favorite games. Superfast play, easy to learn, and a great energetic game right after dinner.
Chronology
- Chronology: a great game for a variety of ages, and older players tend to do better at it. Always nice when parents can easily beat their kids.
From the game description: Think you know which came first – the invention of mayonnaise or decaffeinated coffee? Lincoln’s Gettysburg address or John Deere’s first plow? Test your knowledge with Chronology — the game of all time! Build your own timeline of cards. Someone will read you a historical event from a card. You decide where that event falls in your timeline. If you are right, keep the card and your timeline grows. The first player to build a timeline of 10 cards wins!
Marrying Mr. Darcy
- Marrying Mr. Darcy: full disclosure: we have not yet played this game, but I hope that extra time at home will help us break it out.
The Pride & Prejudice Board Game
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Ticket to Ride
- The Global Puzzle
- The Global Puzzle: We used to do this one at least once a year. I like to think it makes me slightly better at geography.
Visit Museums
- Virtually Visit Museums. Here is a list of 12 museums that have virtual tours.
Declutter/Spring Cleaning
- Declutter at home. I know there is a lot of Marie Kondo love around lately (and I wrote about how her show is like money coaching, but I happen to have a soft spot for Flylady and her approach to . Some good messages from Flylady: “Your home did not get dirty in one day and it won’t get clean in one day.” You can do anything for 15 minutes. Flylady’s routines and Babysteps are golden.
Hiking
- Hiking. One of our family sayings is “Everything tastes better after a hike.” While places like zoos and museums are closed, you can still go to a forest preserve or nature center and get outside.
Classic Book Covers Puzzle
- Classic Book Covers Puzzle: we love puzzles.
I have more categories (things to watch, things to read, audiobooks to listen to, etc.), but this post is getting too long! Also, the formatting is a little wonky and there are some things that do not show up here.
Let me know if you have any other ideas and I will update this or future posts.
THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE SEE MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.
- The Global Puzzle
