Covid-19 Is Creating a New Kind of Financial Midlife Crisis
The pandemic has disrupted professional trajectories, forcing people to focus on other areas of life — perhaps for the first time in years.
Stacy Small’s successful high-end travel business was ended by the pandemic. She re-examined her life and opened a cookie business.
Photographer: Mia Shimabuku/Bloomberg
The Covid-19 pandemic has created such a shock to people’s lives, it’s prompted a financial reckoning akin to a midlife crisis.
Just ask Stacy Small, 51. The Maui resident’s profitable high-end travel business had allowed her to buy her dream beach house and drive a Porsche Cayenne. On March 20, she was forced to cancel a year’s worth of bookings, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. Within a week, she cut ties with 28 independent contractors. Around the same time, three close friends were diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, while others battled Covid.