As a treasured member of my community and a small business owner or instructor, I wanted to take a moment to recognise you and let you know that we are all in this together. You are not alone. 

You may be feeling overwhelmed and terrified as to the impacts the COVID-19 measures will have on your business and your income and wondering how on earth you will get through this.

As an accountant that melds together the practical and spiritual aspects of money, I wanted to offer you some support to help you through this uncertainty. I’ve outlined some practical tips that may help to alleviate the financial pressures you are facing. I’ve also outlined some spiritual and mindset practices you may find useful during this time of uncertainty.

Practical tips to alleviate financial pressures

The biggest issue you might be facing is how you are going to pay all your bills and outgoings if you don’t have any cash coming in. If you are feeling a financial pinch at the moment, here are some practical tips that may help to give you some breathing space. If you need assistance with anything, please feel free to reach out for a free Money Health Check.

• If you are a casual employee or sole trader and have lost your income, you can apply for the JobSeeker allowance. The government has announced a Coronavirus supplement, bringing the amount to $1,115 per fortnight. You may also be entitled to rental assistance on top of this. https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/jobseeker-payment
  
  
• The Government is allowing you to access $10,000 from your superannuation fund before 30 June, and again next financial year after 1 July. This will be tax free and does not affect the JobSeeker payment above. 
  
  
• If you are a small business that has employees, there is a cash boost available from $20,000 up to $100,000. This is paid through your next Business Activity Statement. If you would like some assistance with this, please contact me.
  
  
• If you have some tax payments owing, give the ATO a call to see what they can do to help you. If you are a client, reach out as I can talk to the ATO on your behalf. 
  
  The ATO has announced some measures to help businesses impacted by COVID-19 including deferring payments due on your BAS (GST and PAYG) for up to 4 months, changing your reporting cycle to get access to GST refunds quicker, allowing you to vary PAYG instalments to zero and claim a refund for any instalments already made this financial year, remitting any interest and penalties on tax debts and allowing businesses to enter into low-interest payment plans for tax debts. 
  
  
• If you have a lease, contact your landlord to renegotiate it, appeal to their compassionate side and ask for leniency in this time. Negotiate as hard as you can for free rent until the situation changes. You can provide evidence of your good record to date and financial evidence of the impact COVID-19 has had on your business. A landlord would prefer to keep a good tenant in their space then to lose them and have their property vacant.
  
  
• If you have a mortgage or any borrowings from a bank including a credit card, contact their financial hardship line. They can press pause on your mortgage, credit card and loan repayments giving you some breathing space in your cash outflow.
  
  
• Contact all the companies that you have bills and direct debits with including phone, internet, insurances and utilities and apply for financial hardship. See what terms you can negotiate to delay payments or set up a payment plan. The key is to stop as much cash going out as you can.
  
  
• Contact your suppliers to renegotiate the terms of payment. Have an honest conversation with them to see what can be done so that you can both survive this. 
  
  
• Contact the National Debt Hotline (www.ndh.org.au). They are are a not-for-profit service that gives you free financial counselling and confidential advice. 
  
  
• Think laterally. Now is the time to make a pivot in your business. Get your creative juices flowing. How can you bring your services online? Can you provide your services over Zoom? Can you offer online products such as an online course?
  
  
• Try not to worry. What you are worried about has not happened yet. Worrying does not achieve anything. Worrying will not change your outcome. Your future will not change as a result of worrying about it. Worry creates stress in your body blocking your creative power, and this is what you need most now. Try to stay present by calling on your spiritual tools. This brings me to the spiritual aspects of money.

Spiritual perspective

I wrote in my chapter in the ‘Change Makers’ book that I believe it is our soul purpose to grow and evolve. Everyone faces challenges in their life and these challenges are designed to teach us how to choose love over fear in each moment. Each life experience is there to show us the road inwards, the way home to ourselves.

COVID-19 is a challenge that is facing us on a global scale. Perhaps this is the Universe’s way to enable the collective to slow down, turn inwards, understand what is truly important, and to learn to choose love over fear in each moment. The fear and panic buying we have witnessed is a clear indicator of how prevalent a lack and scarcity mindset is in society and how much this lesson is needed as a collective. 

The Universe has a way of throwing massive curve balls that smack us in the face, so that we have no choice but to finally stand up and choose to go inwards to find the peace within. This time the curve ball has been thrown at us on a global scale. It took an extremely challenging experience in my life to learn that out of darkness, the light can enter. For a rainbow to exist, you first need a storm. Know that this challenge we are all facing is temporary. It too shall pass. It will be OK. And what we learn from this experience will enable the light to find its way through the cracks. 

Shifting to an abundance mindset in times of uncertainty

To obtain an abundance mindset is simply a shift in perspective and consciousness. Let me share a story of a group of Bangladeshi women I met whilst on a leadership and immersion programme with a charity called The Hunger Project.

The Hunger Project focused on empowering village women to step into leadership roles and believe they have the power to change their situations. As a result, this group of Bangladeshi women had started growing fruits and vegetables to feed their families and then went to market and sold what was left over. They began to generate an income that soon surpassed the money their husbands were earning. The food grown by the women was enough to feed their families, and the income generated enabled the children to go to school. The empathy and compassion inherent in the female collective meant that the whole community was positively impacted, shifting and mobilising everyone from a poverty mindset to an abundance mindset. It was amazing to see how this shift could have such a massive impact, not only on the women’s own lives but the whole village of people around them. 

We can learn a lot from these Bangladeshi women, who went from living in complete poverty to feeling incredibly abundant. Love, empathy, compassion for others and mobilising as a community is what is needed right now. 

COVID-19 has shaken the foundations of what we know to be true. There are incredible amounts of uncertainty and we feel like we no longer have control over what will happen. The truth is, you never really had control to begin with. The one thing in this world you can control is your energy. It is normal to feel fearful and know that whatever you are feeling is completely OK. The challenge is to learn how to shift your energy from one of scarcity and fear, to one of abundance and love.

12 Step Heal Thy Money Method

I have created the Heal Thy Money Method which does just that – it gives you the exact tools you need to help shift your energy from scarcity and fear, to abundance and love. If you feel now is the perfect time to take in this learning, you can find out more about the 12 step method here.

Free meditations to shift fear

To help support you in this time, I have pulled together a selection of meditations from the Heal Thy Money Method that you can use to help shift your energy from fear to love. You can access the free meditations here. 

Journal prompt

And I invite you to journal on the following question:

“If you knew you would be OK and fully supported, what would you do?”