Preparedness for when

milasavesmoney

Yes, Ft. McMurray is what has been on the news (when they can spare a few seconds away from the never ending blather about Trump/Clinton) and I once again saw how dire things can be in such situations. Thanks everyone I will get on it today.

pollyanna_26

Nuatha Re NI number any tax return , payslip or tax return . If you have had any dealings yourself with DWP the number is on the paperwork they send . None of the above and you can go on UGOV online and get it from them .
Sorry meant to say P60 instead of second tax return - I do not function well in humidity !!!
polly

nuatha

pollyanna_26 wrote: »

Nuatha Re NI number any tax return , payslip or tax return . If you have had any dealings yourself with DWP the number is on the paperwork they send . None of the above and you can go on UGOV online and get it from them .
Sorry meant to say P60 instead of second tax return - I do not function well in humidity !!!
polly

Thank you Pollyanna, the complication being I'm self employed and file my returns electronically, and printout is not acceptable.
I should have had some letters from the DWP from a few years back, but it appears I shredded them when I scanned them into the system.
There's an NI helpline but they'll only mail a confirmation letter and my local DWP office just referred me to the same service.
The irony is that I've been waiting for pension forecast and a couple of other letters from DWP for well over a month - I guess they'll be delivered tomorrow (when I'm at the wrong end of the country).
It does mean my office has had its overdue sort, tidy and refile. There's an upside to everything.

[Deleted User]

NewShadow wrote: »

Has it got your face on it?

No. It is a genuine banknote.

GreyQueen

I have my current passport in a small folder of essential info in my go-bag. I also have the old passport, with the corner clipped off the cover, in a folder of useful into at the parental home.

When I renewed by driver's license last autumn, I was supposed to have sent the old photocard license back. I conveniently 'forgot' to do so and have now got that in the folder of info.

Being able to prove your ID is often going to be the last thing on your mind in a crisis but it can be surprisingly important. Hell, I live and work all of 20 miles from my birthplace and still had to evidence to my present employer that I had the right to work in the UK and to the DWP, when I briefly signed on, that I had the rights to benefits. What I would have used if I was one of those people who didn't happen to have a passport, was not explained.

I also have copies of things like the bills of sale for my appliances and the few other things I have of monetary value, in the folder at Mum and Dad's for insurance purposes in case of a total loss of the contents of the flat. Hope never to deploy that in earnest.

I think the issue about these kind of preps is that they can take anything from a few minutes to a few hours to do at your leisure but, when SHTF, you will be beyond grateful that you took that time.

I know from remarks here that I am not the only one who has read this blog by a family man who fled New Orleans just ahead of Katrina; http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/

It's a very interesting read, if you haven't yet had the pleasure. He and his wife and their two young children (one a baby) drove out of the city just ahead of what he memorably described as a freezing wave of fleeing cars. What struck me is that they spent over 12 hours packing their two cars, one of which held both children and presumably was otherwise nearly full of their requisites like nappies etc.

I'm not sure how you can spend so long packing such a small space as a car but, aside from wondering about that, he had a chance, once they'd driven to Texas to stay with family, to take a much better paid job in his existing field. Slight problem; he could neither evidence his credentials nor did he have any business attire with him.

For those of us of working age, these issues are worth considering as it's likely that even if we're camping on someone's floor or in emergency accomodation, we will still have to go to our workplaces/ find new workplaces and will have to have some semblence of appropriate attire, as well as documentation. Having a current CV among our back-up documents mightn't be a bad idea.

Overall, I don't have much that I have an emotional attatchment to but to lose everything would be a heckuva financial blow. Thoughts are with those who have lost their homes in Canada, these are traumas that their families will talk about for generations.

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

I have my current passport in a small folder of essential info in my go-bag. I also have the old passport, with the corner clipped off the cover, in a folder of useful into at the parental home.

When I renewed by driver's license last autumn, I was supposed to have sent the old photocard license back. I conveniently 'forgot' to do so and have now got that in the folder of info.

Being able to prove your ID is often going to be the last thing on your mind in a crisis but it can be surprisingly important. Hell, I live and work all of 20 miles from my birthplace and still had to evidence to my present employer that I had the right to work in the UK and to the DWP, when I briefly signed on, that I had the rights to benefits. What I would have used if I was one of those people who didn't happen to have a passport, was not explained.

Generally I renew my passport with 6 months to go. A series of crisis distracted me somewhat, when I realised it had expired, I decided, since I wouldn't be travelling out of the UK for a while I'd leave it. After this week, I'm regretting that and will be renewing it in the near future.
Proving my identity to the government or its agencies has never been a problem. Its a while since I've had to go through the job hunting and associated rigmarole (and hope its a while yet, if ever).
I've also realised that I've mislaid some qualification certificates, which is a trifle annoying - thankfully they aren't needed at the moment. But it does mean that I've a document case that's gone walkabout, I have digital copies, but I will need to track down or replace the originals.
Still if everything went smoothly I'd assume I'd woken up in the next life or that I hadn't woken up at all and was still dreaming.

I do have a relatively up to date CV in my back up docs, I don't currently have all the bits of paper to prove the qualifications on that CV. And if it hadn't been for needing to prove my nationality to be accepted on a course to add to the bits of paper I wouldn't be aware of it. Object lesson being check and double check, assuming the file is where it should be was a mistake.

GreyQueen

I'm a paperwork paranoic and have official stuff carefully filed. In my prevous welfare advice job role, we came across people who'd been sent letters out of the blue by DWP, HMRC inc tax credits, demanding repayment of extra-ordinarily large amounts of allegedly overpaid benefits, sometimes from 20 + years prior. One person was ordered to pay back £30,000 in 14 days. It was income support over many years and they hadn't got it stashed under a mattress, they'd been using it to feed their children at the time they'd received it.

Sometimes these demand even came to executors.

Oftentimes, we were pretty sure DWP hadn't got sufficient records to back up their demands, particularly when they were chasing money from decades past, but the clients very seldom had the means to challenge officialdom.

greenbee

I tend not to throw out paperwork. In my line of work the person with the best paperwork wins - and this often goes back decades!

However, I do need to have a sort out and do some archiving when I can finally get back into my office.

GreyQueen

greenbee wrote: »

I tend not to throw out paperwork. In my line of work the person with the best paperwork wins - and this often goes back decades!

However, I do need to have a sort out and do some archiving when I can finally get back into my office.

I always used to joke that she who dies with the most paperwork, wins.

I don't keep rubbish, and stuff not presently needing to be referred to is archived and out of the way of everyday life. This makes life convenient for me and, when I eventually fall off the twig, much easier for whomever has to wind up my affairs.

jk0

Very true about record keeping being essential. When my father died we had to get probate for a couple of freeholds that he owned. The Inland Revenue wrote to me to ask what happened to all the rent from those properties. Luckily it was under £10 per year, so there was no back income tax to pay.

In view of this, I have made sure I keep all my rental income records back to 1992 when I first started. I wouldn't put it past HMRC to try something similar when I croak. Also, even though my tax return is submitted online, I always keep a paper copy in the file with that year's items.