wow! It's too quiet in here today!!!

lostinrates

!!!!!!? wrote: »

If you've been conducting your financial affairs sensibly and aren't in debt, you have something to lose from all this banking instability.

If OTOH you're in debt up to your eyeballs - who cares? Firstly, you clearly don't care about being in debt. Plus, all the turbulence and banks going bust might even buy you some extra time to pay it off or maybe you were just planning on going bankrupt anyway......

I think we all have something to lose now.

For me the present issue is stasis. I'm not good at NOT improving, or in this case accumulating. Its very clear that inflation is really starting to catch up with us. I've made the decision to stop taking the non-NHS medication I take on private prescription, which certainly wont impair my health, just not help make further improvements. I function, which in times like this is IMO good enough. I'm also making some other relatively minor cutbacks. For the first time since my teens I'm going to find out what my natural hair colour really is (DH loves me blonde, but you know, I really don't mind, and I do mind losing the money).

Dithering_Dad

lostinrates wrote: »

Well, I was at the IFA yesterday morning. DH has a holiday, and surprise surprise, might as well be at work as all this happpening is making lots of lawyer type activity happen. Its a relief he's still got weork, but I have to confess to spending yesterday feeling extremely ill.

We didn't get through everything yesterday with IFA and have to go back to try and finish later this week, but I was feeling more and more ill with each set of figures we looked at. The thing is, we are compatritively alright, largish cash reserve, DH has secure (as it can be) well paid employment, and I have been sickened by how bad it is. Quite frankly if we were in debt or less secure situation I think I'd be feeling very much worse, which felt pretty impossible yesterday!

Sorry to hear about your worries lir. My pension has lost about 10% so far, with more falls on the way. I cashed in all my other investments and threw them at my mortgage when I started the MFi3 thread back in April 2006 because I was worried that we were heading so a financial storm. I didn't realise that it'd be such a hurricane.

This is pretty much what I've been saying on this forum, much to the annoyance of some, that certain forum members shouldn't rub their hands together in glee at the thought of a recession, because it affects everyone - yes, the 'greedy' BTL investor, the 'foolish' FTBer who bought a house at the peak, the MEWer who withdrew all their equity but also the ordinary man in the street who has a decent amount of savings (now being eroded by inflation) has a bit put by in his pension and has other investments he has scrimped to put away and is now watching them fall in value on the stockmarket.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There isn't much use in having low house prices if you don't have a job or are in fear of losing it. Worse still is the possibility that your deposit will be eaten up by having to fund your own unemployment (due to benefits means testing).

Pobby

Cut back a lot here already due to turnover nose diving. Got to be saving around £400 per month and it doesn`t hurt to much. I finally realised, on top of all this, that my regular pub trips were bang out of order when my pint is now £2.80. Stay at home, lots of things to do, have a smoke in the warm and pay a whole lot less for a beer or sixteen. No brainer !

Pobby

DD, tried to thank you for that post Sir but no button. Wise move if I may say so, getting that mortgage down. I have no idea how my pension is affected, not much I can do. I have a goodly chunk in cash, but most of what I have is ``on the market``. It was reviewed last year and bar a smallish amount it is all in very diversified cautious funds. They have lost a bit but not as much as they would have.

With retirement looming in the next few years I have concern to worry. The main part of my investment I guess I could hold for the next 10 years so have plenty of recovery time.

neverdespairgirl

fatpig wrote: »

dithering dad fainted earlier on hearing the news.

To be fair, I don't think DD is a raging bull, that's certainly not the impression I've got from his posts.

neverdespairgirl

chucky wrote: »

i'll ask the question without the insult then...

A question for you and the other people on this board who rejoice in the house prices crash and implicitly the crash of the whole UK economy. Once you bought a property, would you still wish for prices to drop? Would you still wish for your hard earned 10% deposit that people on here hail as holy grail, to vanish away in 2 weeks only to find yourself in negative equity?

Speaking personally, I wish we'd never got here - that HPI hadn't got so out of control in the first place, rather than it bounding out beyond all reason and then crashing. I'd prefer stability.

neverdespairgirl

moanymoany wrote: »

I read the posts where people say their kids won't eat lentil daal and such like food that is cheap and nourishing so they can't save money on food

We don't have any of that nonsense chez NDG. I make rather a nice lentil curry, if I say so myself. We allow Isaac a certain amount of choice, because everyone has foods they aren't so fond of. But we don't let him dictate a narrow menu. He doesn't like spuds or raw toms, and we don't give him anything really spicey, but he eats most things.