Preparedness for when

sb44

boultdj wrote: »

Can say I'v never been happer since moving in and the tree's are growing better in the ground than they were in the tub's.

That's nice and I bet you get a few feathered friends in/on them now they are growing more sturdy.

GreyQueen

BettiePage, I'm sorry to hear about your recent bereavement.

For me, prepping is being able to have options. I've been in places where I didn't have £20 in all the world to buy me any options at all, and it's frightening how constricting absolute poverty feels - and really is. About how your health goes downhill when you don't eat well enough/ often enough, when your home isn't warm enough, and how you can get in a spiral of despair.

Was talking this aft with a dear friend. On paper, they're much better off than me; salary x 3 of mine, home-owner, car-owner. In reality, in debt up to eyebrows and hovering on the brink of disaster. Not good. Hope their health and employment holds until they can dig themselves out from under.

Some things are possible but improbable, and some things are so common as to be entirely predictable that most of us will encounter them at some point in our lives. Such as leaks from internal plumbing - have you got buckets, bowls and towelly rags to mop up with? Have you got things which need to be kept dry, such as powders, in plastic containers if they live under the sink, where a lot of internal water leaks happen?

Being able to empty an undersink cupboard with change from 10 seconds is a useful skill to have; entirely possible if stuff is contained in caddies.

And knowing where the stop-tap is, and how to use it. The whereabouts of the trip switch and how to re-set that, the safe duration of food when the power is off to your freezer. Having spare keys with a trusted friend or relation who lives nearby. Having hardcopy of the numbers stored on your phone, in case it's stolen or just dies on you.

Part of my prepping is my allotment. In a true economy-wide SHTF situation, standing crop would be looted. Most folk would know a spud or a strawberry, a fair few wouldn't recognise chard or spinach as edible. Having a well-worked plot gives me HG organic veg cheaply and, if my income dried up entirely, I wouldn't starve as long as I had my plot. It would be more efficient not to have home and 'garden' 1.25 miles apart, but the price for combining that area of garden with a home would be the best part of £200k, and that's well beyond my reach.

I like to keep flexible, to keep my eyes and ears open, and to spend my time with like-minded souls, rather than people who can't see past the latest tranche of celebri-drivel. Bad things happen to people who ignore the wider trends in history.

mardatha

The other thing that's just as important as having money is having your health.

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

The other thing that's just as important as having money is having your health.

Couldn't agree more, and as one ME-sufferer to another, I can say that I have relative good health. I'm in the pink, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but have the tendancy to run out of bounce sooner that I would otherwise.

For which some people who knew me pre-ME might be thankful, as I could be a bit like Tigger. On speed.:rotfl:

Perplexed_Pineapple

fuddle wrote: »

Ok, a basic preparation is to get rid of debt and mortgage. I don't have either.

What I do have is rent to pay and at 35 I am losing the ability to 'prep' for my retirement. I am looking to get mortgaged to the hilt to 'prep' for my elder years. I am behind everyone else. Time is of the essence and it's my bad for making poor life decisions but hey, face up, relearn, grow and do something about it! I am trying to.

I think the idea that the most basic and first bits of prepping is to rid of all debt including the mortgage is an ignorant view based on idealisms. It's not at all 'basic' in real terms. To prep for SHTF is much more about bread and butter than surplus money to buy people off. I think anyway.

I can see both sides of the coin. Having a mortgage effectively means that you are tied down to a particular location. If you have transferrable skills you might be better placed to deal with SHTF type events by renting. We spent many years renting and just moving to the next job, sometimes taking on a short-term contract just to make ends meet but being able to pack up our limited possesions and take on a short-term rental contract for somewhere to live (the shortest let we took was for six weeks). On the other hand unless you plan on working indefinitely, can save enough for a personal pension, or are willing to gamble on the state's support there is no long-term security in that. One thing to be aware of, for people looking to get a mortgage later in life, is that lenders are not always willing to give 25 year mortgages to people over 40. Or if they are, you will be seen as higher risk and you won't get the best deals.

Frugalsod

fuddle wrote: »

I think the idea that the most basic and first bits of prepping is to rid of all debt including the mortgage is an ignorant view based on idealisms. It's not at all 'basic' in real terms. To prep for SHTF is much more about bread and butter than surplus money to buy people off. I think anyway.

I think the crucial point is timing. I would not buy a home right now because I see them as seriously over priced. With fewer people actually being able to buy it means that it will soon become a buyers market and many sellers will have to drop prices to sell. Then there is the interest rate. These are absolutely at historic lows and can only go up, but I do not see that happening until the financial system breaks again. Then consider deflation can make mortgages unsustainable even if you could afford it at the start. With falling house prices you might have to over pay considerably to get back into a position of having equity again. If house prices were closer to normal levels in relation to income and interest rates were already about 7% then yes get a mortgage. Can you imagine how tough it will be to pay a mega mortgage that has risen from 2.5% to 7%, let alone if they rose even higher. If in the end you are unable to pay the mortgage off and are repossessed then you were no better off than renting.

If you bought at a sensible price then mortgages can be perfectly normal.

GreyQueen

I think the issue about mortgages is to consider what you want to achieve by home ownership. Owning one's own home is such a central part of British life that we often don't consider that it's an option to do otherwise. It's positively heretical to question the home-ownership meme, it just isn't done.

Also, regardless of the age at which a lender is prepared to extend a mortgage offer to you, what is your aim in having one? If you start out young enough, you could perhaps aim to be mortgage-free in your forties and look forward to several years before you die with no direct housing costs beyond maintenance and improvements.

But you will always have maintenance costs, a house or other form of home doesn't just sit there inertly, things are wearing out. You could be in the position at the latter part of your life where you are a property-owner but cash-poor and are unable to afford to maintain your home. And, if you will be paying a mortgage into your sixties and dying (probably) in your eighties, how much benefit will you accrue from those mortgage-free years?

Of course, some people have their eye on posterity in that they'd like to leave their property to their children, but if you have more than one heir, what you leave is liable to be so carved-up that it won't be a life-changing amount of money to your offspring. Your careful husbandry of your resources might equal a couple of nice holibobs and a new car for your heirs.

TPTB love home ownership because they take a piece of the action when property is bought and sold. It also ties you down and controls your behaviour. I could get out of my tenancy in 4 weeks and I don't know anyone IRL who has managed to complete the sale of their home that fast.

I know people who have been put in terrible positions because they needed to move and couldn't sell, or couldn't sell at what they believed was the right price for their home, and all their 'wealth' was tied up in bricks and mortar. Your work could move to the other side of the country, your present location could go down the tubes and become a dangerous slum or an economic desert, you could need to relocate to provide support for family members, or to recieve such support, and not be able to do so.

There are plenty of negatives to home-ownership and, because it's such a sacred cow in our culture, I think it's important to think those through, rather than just blindly reaching towards it.

Frugalsod

I would like to add that debt is fine when things are hunky dory. Though during uncertain times then debts can become a huge millstone. We might need to borrow to buy that car or get through a crisis. So having access to credit can be useful, as long as you appreciate that the cost is that you will have to give up on something else as you repay it, assuming nothing else changes.

greenbee

GreyQueen wrote: »

But you will always have maintenance costs, a house or other form of home doesn't just sit there inertly, things are wearing out.

I wish someone had told my vendors that... they owned this house for most of the 30 years since it was built, and as far as I can tell might have decorated each room once... if that. Even the surveyor commented on the lack of maintenance, and pointed out that keeping a house in good decorative order was actually important from the point of view of protecting and preserving the materials and structure of the house.

I suspect the kitchen was held together by dirt, but as I ripped it all out within a couple of months (doors came off within a week, and most units were out within a month, the rest had to wait until after Christmas as I had to get someone to help me remove the sink) I didn't investigate too closely. It stank though. And the lino on the floor was so filthy even an electric floor cleaner couldn't get through it... when we took it up it was equally sticky on the top and bottom...

... and when I took everything out, it was oddly itchy in the kitchen up to about mid-calf level.. nothing visible but probably house dust mites that had been made homeless... makes my skin crawl thinking about it...

Thankfully the heating, windows and roof are done. And the downstairs loo. And quite a bit of painting. I just need to do some maths and work out the next stage...

katep23

greenbee wrote: »

I wish someone had told my vendors that... they owned this house for most of the 30 years since it was built, and as far as I can tell might have decorated each room once... if that. Even the surveyor commented on the lack of maintenance, and pointed out that keeping a house in good decorative order was actually important from the point of view of protecting and preserving the materials and structure of the house.

The house we have bought was last sold in 1974 when an awful lot of work was done and money spent on it. Since then... nothing.

We have a rockery around the (corner) fireplace complete with solid fuel parkray which seems to have been built in so can't be swept or removed, a lovely orange bathroom suite with (now replaced) lethal 1970's power shower, fake beams, rubbish electrics, concrete render which makes the whole house damp and a (badly flashed) veranda roof over the barrel bays.

The whole house is leaking like a sieve but the previous owner probably felt like they had spent a lot of money on "quality" work so it didn't need any upkeep :cool: