MSE Poll: Can your finances cope with the UK’s gradual shutdown?

MSE_Petar

Poll started 17 March 2020

We are entering a national period of self-isolation and a likely, coronavirus-driven, hopefully short-term recession. How well set up are you (and your family) FINANCIALLY to weather it?

Click here to vote in the poll

Did you vote? Are you surprised at the results so far? Have your say below.
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Thanks!

MovingForwards

Have you even read through the posts where people are on about pulling out their savings, selling stocks and shares, pulling out their property purchases, posts about people clearing shelves in supermarkets?

How many people already live hand to mouth, worry about their zero hour contracts, whether there will be any work for them.

Even MSE have created a warning thread about posts scaremongering people and how it will be dealt with.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6115330/covid-19-coronavirus-posts-on-the-forum

Would OPs post not come under scaremongering? The very thing MSE is trying to prevent.

suki1964

We are getting concerned I have to say

We survive on bare minimum, Work has laid of 3 part timers today and Im the last part timer who at this moment has their full weeks wages next week, the week after, that can all change

Will we survive? Depend on what we are surviving. Yes I can survive a 4-6 week lay off, but if who I work too goes under, as so many businesses here have ( we rely on tourists ) then Im buggered

74jax

Myself and my husband would be fine. We would help family out.
So? How does that help and what does this thread prove. I agree with the first post. Some people are scared, worried and reading replies on here will not help. 
People require facts and we have threads for that. This is not the time for this. 

Pollycat

I agree with Movingforwards and 74jax.

What good is it going to do to people who are struggling financially to read about people who aren't?

74jax

I've reported the thread. 

Fireflyaway

If anything it shows that at some point the unexpected will happen and everyone should try to build up an emergency fund. Have to say I understand in some circumstances that's a hard thing to do though. 

Coveredinbees!!!!

I'm still working but wonder how long I will be able to, then what, I don't know.

gettingtheresometime

74jax said:

I've reported the thread. 

Which ironic really when you think one of the mse team started it.

might be time to engage brains before posting, mse

george4064

Both myself and OH are working from home, fortunately we are largely unaffected and super glad we have an emergency savings fund!

MoneySeeker1

Am I the only one wondering if someone somewhere wants to find out which sections of people think they are personally in the best position here - so as to know more exactly how to specifically target them "after the event" for trying to get money out of them to cover all the costs the country as a whole has in dealing with this?

Okay - I'll put in my own two pennorth on "who to target to cover the cost of this?" and I do have to say that I think this whole thing is very likely to deal a death blow to cash. Lots of people function largely on paying for things by card etc currently anyway (which is, to a fair degree, their own personal choice so to do). 

Well let's bear in mind the "perfect storm" of many people that have chosen to continue using cash to some extent need access to ways to get hold of that cash and that has become a lot more difficult in recent years (all those bank closures!). Then add in a soupcon of people not wanting to pay and/or accept cash (because it's coins and paper and they don't want to physically handle it courtesy of Covid-19) and the likely result imo is a huge pressure for us to turn totally into a cashless society (and - no - I don't like the idea of it looking likely I will find it difficult to pay in cash for things).

Now I get my cash quite legitimately - ie by translating monies I've legitimately earned (ie pensions in my case) into taking some out as cash. But I doubt the Government (sitting there in large urban areas to a great extent) realise just how much income is earned in some parts of the country by "payment in cash" (aka The Black Economy). In some parts of the country the Black Economy is "alive and well" and considered very normal. Roll on all those "unmarked white van men" that currently get paid a lot of their income in cash and somehow "overlook" to pay due tax on it currently. Once UWVM (those "unmarked white van men (and women I expect - but I've not come across any of them myself) ) have to pay tax on all their earnings (because an increasing number of customers won't have cash to pay them in) then the Treasury gets in noticeably higher tax on peoples incomes than they had bargained on. Big positive for the Treasury. Big positive for the rest of us and the Government may not have to worry quite as much as they thought about "Just where is all the money to pay for this going to come from".

EDIT; Right now - never mind a "nosy parker snitching for being out" forum some police have set up (which I disagree with).

 Instead the PTB should think along lines of a "unmarked white van men/women" forum for dobbing in those that are likely to get some/all of their income in cash and not pay tax on it. Don't forget the box to put their vehicle numberplate on. Added benefit for consumers being it should drive the standard up of workmen/women - as they will be less likely to get away with low standard jobs for customers (knowing that an unhappy customer has some sort of way of "punishing" them for it).