I am terrified - these are my life-long savings

Fly_Baby

I would be grateful for any views/advice - simply starting to panic now.

We've moved to the UK 7 years ago and all these years were saving heavily - to be able to buy a property either here (if we stay) or back in our home country. We've saved about 70,000 for now- that's at a cost of living in a small cheap accommodation (privately rented), me working despite having children etc. We live in an expensive area and the only way for us to buy a property was to have a big deposit.

Now that the pound is dropping I am terrified about what is going to happen with our money. If we stay in the UK then I guess it is fine. But if we are to go back to our home country (with the current climate, my husband's contract may not be renewed this year) then our savings are going to be worth much, much less than what I planned - in view of buying propery there.

There must be people here who are more financially savvy and who are older and speak from experience. Is pound likely to go back up in value? What are my best options for now?

I may be good in saving money but are all these years of sacrifices going to be worthless? It is killing me.

movilogo

What is your home country? It depends a lot on where you originally came from.
Is the economy good or bad there?

Fly_Baby

movilogo, we come from Russia. Property prices have escalated there over the past 5 years and our savings would not be enough to buy our own place for cash there - and even less so now, with pound dropping.

Mortgage lending system in Russia is still far from perfect - you are virtually becoming a slave to the bank for 25 + years with little or no rights, and that comes with a 13-15% interest rate.

tweet

That's the risk you take swapping currencies I'm afraid - you'll have lost out while others will have benefitted equally, happens to thousands of people every day sadly.

The £ looks like it'll only get weaker so either cut your losses now or think about how long you want to stay in the UK for - it will probably rise again but who knows when.

tomstickland

Your first mistake was being sensible and saving.

Fly_Baby

tomstickland wrote: »

Your first mistake was being sensible and saving.

What should I have been doing?

Fly_Baby

tweet wrote: »

That's the risk you take swapping currencies I'm afraid - you'll have lost out while others will have benefitted equally, happens to thousands of people every day sadly.

The £ looks like it'll only get weaker so either cut your losses now or think about how long you want to stay in the UK for - it will probably rise again but who knows when.

Would converting some into euros be a wise thing to do then?

apt

It is not easy to predict what the pound will do against the euro or the dollar still less the Russian currency. Maybe George Osborne should predict a sterling crisis everyday then the pound will go back up. I would be tempted to wait until you know whether you are staying in Britain or not. If you are then you have not really lost out, and might even benefit from the fall in house prices. If you are not staying in Britain you could still keep your money here and wait for the pound to go back up.

gozomark

tweet wrote: »

The £ looks like it'll only get weaker .

none of us know - its as likely to go up as down

Fly_Baby

apt, thanks for your opinion! Is that really what is predicted - that the pound going back up (not quite so high maybe but still up) is a matter of time? I wish I had the time and knowledge to follow all financial news.

blackswan2

Fly_Baby wrote: »

Would converting some into euros be a wise thing to do then?

The pound is already at a low against the euro, do you want to assume it will fall significantly further or sit tight and hope it bounces back a bit?

Perhaps at some stage you could start a regular euro savings account so you transfer some of your sterling to euros in small regular amounts, minimising your exposure to short term currency fluctations?