Preparedness for when

maryb

mardatha wrote: »

I suppose that really it's a bit of a cheek for us to move to France and Spain and Portugal and Greece to live and then talk about migrants flooding in here... We want the best for ourselves and our children and so do they. But then, we're a small island and France, Spain, Portugal and Greece aren't. It's a very messy problem isn't it.

The main problem as I see it is that we have a health service that is free at the point of delivery and most other countries don't. If you go to France Spain etc you accept you have to pay towards healthcare. I spent a long evening queuing in a French A&E when DD1 came off her bike. The queue was not to see a doctor - it was to be processed by the receptionist who wanted our payment details. Wouldn't you know that was the one holiday I had left the EHIC cards at home!! Though it wasn't all that expensive - about 100 euros for consultation and X ray (fortunately she hadn't broken her wrist)

If we stay in we will eventually have to move to an insurance based system, the numbers just won't stack up otherwise. And I worry about it having all the shortcomings of the US system. The biggest cause of bankruptcies in the US is medical expenses not covered by insurance. You hear horror stories of people having to pay $1000 dollars a month for essential medicines - and that is after the insurance has covered some of it. If it's more like the French system ie affordable, that would be better. But although we may have postcode lotteries here, you know that you will be treated the same as anyone else in a given hospital. Not necessarily the case if it depends on whether you have basic or enhanced coverage

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

It's odd to constantly comment on other folks choices in life like having children too, it's one viewpoint - compared to someone else's one viewpoint. As posted previously it's 'how' the point is made that is sometimes hard to swallow. I do give credit though that it's NOT done deliberately by any of us.

I do not have children, but certainly do not criticise anyone who does, whatever their circumstances. While some will be cruel and call anyone on benefits with children "breeders" I am fully aware that these children are the people that will be paying taxes that will be funding mine and everyone else's state pension in the future, as we have a pay as you go state pension system.

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

It would be back to 'a womans lot in life' the way it was in all the centuries before contraception and freedom of choice became the modern norm! There are more means of contraception than just the pill and it has been mentioned many, many times before on the prepping thread that if we're ever in the situation of having intermittent power supplies and without the electronic entertainments and diversions that we've all become accustomed to, humans being human by nature then long dark evenings would inevitably lead to the need for contraception. Even the pill isn't 100% effective and people are not very good at 'self control' so perhaps the overall birth rate would go up however, if the modern health services and pharmaceuticals were no longer available as they are today I suspect that the death rate would also go up to become on a par with what was normal before we had the NHS?

Every time we hear of power cuts and such crises there is an inevitable increase in births nine months later. I think there were large numbers born nine months after the three day week in the seventies. I think there was a surge in child births after the last few big storms in the US where people were either snowed in or had to stay in because of a hurricane or storm. So it is not unique to us here.

fuddle

What do you mean about a pay as you go system frugalsod? How do you think it will go? Pensions are one of the things that keep me awake at night. I need to think about setting myself up to pay my nics (plans afoot) and I really need to up my monthly contribution to my private pension. One thing is for certain though - I won't have a big pension pot.

armyknife

Good grief, I thought only men were supposed to be fractious and argumentative on the internet.

[Deleted User]

Bless, we can all play sometimes pet!!!

FUDDLE you will manage and do it with style even on a small pension because you have a very feet on the ground attitude to life. You'll manage because you know many tricks to make one pound do the work of two, you'll manage because you've learned many OS ways to do, grow, cook, sew, make, manage many things particularly your finances but mostly you'll manage extremely well because you're not one to give up or give in, you're a dogged little tryer and will make good whatever situation you find yourselves in because you've already done it all, how could you fail???

Frugalsod

fuddle wrote: »

What do you mean about a pay as you go system frugalsod? How do you think it will go? Pensions are one of the things that keep me awake at night. I need to think about setting myself up to pay my nics (plans afoot) and I really need to up my monthly contribution to my private pension. One thing is for certain though - I won't have a big pension pot.

Very simply the pensions that are being paid put this year are being paid for by taxes that are collected this year which basically is what a pay as you go system is. Private pensions also can operate like this. London Fire Brigade is also paid for by the contributions of current employees but when you slash the workforce you also undermine the pension system. Though many private pensions also put money into investments and once the person reaches retirement their pension pot is converted into an annuity which guarantees an income for life. Sometimes it does this by drawing down the accumulated pension pot to keep you going, until that pot reaches zero, then the pension fund is paying out of its own pocket and gets that little closer to insolvency. With zero interest rates for seven years private pensions are rapidly becoming insolvent as they expected to earn around 7 to 8% income per year, but are only earning 2-3% and that is with high risk like sub prime mortgages, and fracking bonds. How are they making up the shortfall? Now we all know where these are going so when these high risk bonds start to default it will not show up in banks straight away but in pension funds collapsing. You can already see the stresses in hedge funds closing.

As to what to do? I am at a loss. Topping up state pension contributions would seem to be sensible. If they defaulted then politicians heads would be on pikes outside Parliament. As to private pensions I really do not know what to suggest. Pension funds have to be invested so they are basically investing into the UK stock market and assets which are already overvalued so the scope for gains is slim to none. Keeping the money in the bank has its own risks especially with bail ins. Some might suggest gold but that has its own risks. I did hear that banning gold was possible as part of the plans to go cashless, so that would involve confiscation of gold so that people are trapped in the financial system. I listen to people suggest keeping your gold offshore in third party storage but the same risks can apply there, and with governments getting more and more desperate to raise revenues from the plebs without hitting the rich they will exchange details about your holdings there.

So my personal choice is top up state first and even state bonds as they are far less risk than anything else. If the financial system collapses then bail ins will wipe out any cash there. Assets of every class are overvalued and another credit event could knock values of everything down 50% easily. So if like most people your private pension is not enough to retire on you might do better to be debt free and stock up on food and basic supplies.

Ultimately we will probably get hit by a wave of deflation as another credit crunch wipes out billions of wealth that never really existed. I have heard some are concerned that when the $9 Trillion of emerging market debt returns to the US that it will trigger hyper inflation. What these people ignore is that this money will be used to pay off debts. It will not flow back into the economy. Remember Chinese banks are in trouble and western banks are not really any better. When the losses in the derivative markets get above a level that cannot be hidden the insolvencies will start and it will be counter parties that get hit with huge losses. This will domino through the banks and gradually bigger and bigger banks will fail. Big banks like Barclays and Deutsche Bank will probably collapse because of the scale of their liabilities which are both around the scale of the entire global economy so far too big for any single nation to bail out. Smaller banks without such risks are probably vulnerable because they are very heavily invested in property so a large property revaluation would make them insolvent as well. Though that applies to Building societies as well. Which is why there are no easy answers for an individual.

What everyone is denying is that saving the banks through ultra low interest rates threw savers and the entire pension system under the bus. It is only a matter of time before it collapses entirely.

So for me, clearing debts building a cash pile at home for local transactions might get me through most events but spending money on building food stocks is probably the only reliable pension option available to most of us, as gold and silver is probably in the firing line at some point.

mardatha

Armyknife that's a bit like thinking only wimmen are catty and snide... isn't it

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Bless, we can all play sometimes pet!!!

FUDDLE you will manage and do it with style even on a small pension because you have a very feet on the ground attitude to life. You'll manage because you know many tricks to make one pound do the work of two, you'll manage because you've learned many OS ways to do, grow, cook, sew, make, manage many things particularly your finances but mostly you'll manage extremely well because you're not one to give up or give in, you're a dogged little tryer and will make good whatever situation you find yourselves in because you've already done it all, how could you fail???

Also I suspect that these skills will be the best investment that you can make. Even things like home insulation can have very high payback rates which equate to a rate of return of 100% or more so doing as many of these would beat any investment return. Unfortunately there is a limit to these that each of us can do as we only have one set of windows to draught proof etc. Though doing this enough times around your home you could make significant changes to your costs of living that would be worth tens of thousands of investments. This year I am going to be expanding my use of old school techniques with cleaning methods. It might only save £100 a year but with interest rates of 0.1 % this would be the equivalent of saving £10 000 to give me a continuous return like that.

fuddle

I think it's easy to get carried away with thoughts. Feet on ground Lyn, thank you. I need a roof, warmth and food essentially. I'll becresponsible for myself and if I still have DH he'll have his work pension.

Frugalsod I like the way you think. Although stocking up on food for my returiment at the age of 36 is a bit far I am very very determined to have a lot of food stocks and with a decent rolling system I would like to have enough to see me through a big situation with enough left over to healthily start building again. I will now have retirement in my mind too.

I have my own shed in this house. I keep garden items in there but there's ample space for me to shelve and stock. My water is in there but I eas wondering ehat I should/ should not put in there and coming up with blanks because tins would likely rust?

Frugalsod I would like to follow what you learn with saving on cleaning costs. I clean a lot and so far only transferred to stardrops.