Best way to protect £50,000 - convert to Euros pre-Brexit?

Albermarle

stevecruise said:

Without high jacking the thread. My partner and I are in a similar position on trying to preserve saving against the pound maybe plummeting. Some time ago we made plans to buy a boat and sail the far east in retirement. Having identified a 100k yacht Covid delayed our plans to finalise the deal. Looks like next year at the earliest now and with the pound already dropping 1% today it puts our plans in real jeopardy. And one have any ideas how to protect 100k, well 99k now!  

It is exactly the same question as the OP asked , so just read through the thread. I have  just made a small modification to what .you said 

Another_Saver

stevecruise said:

Without high jacking the thread. My partner and I are in a similar position on trying to preserve saving against the pound plummeting. Some time ago we made plans to buy a boat and sail the far east in retirement. Having identified a 100k yacht Covid delayed our plans to finalise the deal. Looks like next year at the earliest now and with the pound already dropping 1% today it puts our plans in real jeopardy. And one have any ideas how to protect 100k, well 99k now!  

I think that's the most first-world first-world problem I've ever heard. You've even got in a standard moan in about the country you live in which, had you not been born in, your chances of being so fortunate would have been slim to none; and dramatised the potential "jeopardy" you're in. Someone could make a meme out of this.

1. You could buy one in £ from someone in the UK.

2. If you are so sure in your declinism that the £ is "plummeting" (correction: has already fallen to historic lows) then go ahead and save euros in a euro bank account, or you could move this £100k to an investment account, say iWeb and buy unhedged Euro assets (within that timeframe something like 10-30% of an unhedged Europe ex UK stock index fund, and 70-90% of an unhedged European government bond fund seems sensible, vanguard do both of these). 

Apodemus

stevecruise said:

Without high jacking the thread. My partner and I are in a similar position on trying to preserve saving against the pound plummeting. Some time ago we made plans to buy a boat and sail the far east in retirement. Having identified a 100k yacht Covid delayed our plans to finalise the deal. Looks like next year at the earliest now and with the pound already dropping 1% today it puts our plans in real jeopardy. And one have any ideas how to protect 100k, well 99k now!  

Retirement planning is always tricky, but in all my modelling I would want sufficient contingency to guard against anything being "jeopardised" by a 1% change to any of my assumptions.

Eco_Miser

stevecruise said:

Looks like next year at the earliest now and with the pound already dropping 1% today it puts our plans in real jeopardy. And one have any ideas how to protect 100k, well 99k now!  

It's still £100k, and will still be £100k when you buy that boat; but you'll probably need to spend £101k+. That's the way inflation/devaluation works.

wizzards

Seeing all these posts about saving cash and the sums involved.  There is always one option you can always spend the cash and enjoy life.  Yes you need something for retirement.  At the end of the day at least in the UK old persons homes gobble cash at an amazing weekly rate.  Those with large sums resting in the bank invariably have to use that cash first.  Really a bit of financial planning is required.  You can always leave it all to your relatives or the Cats protection league.  Its easy just to leave it in the bank.  At 0.1 % you could just as well stuff your mattress.  Only downside of that is its a fire risk and insurance I doubt covers stuffed mattresses.

I would put some of it in Premium bonds.  At least its safe.  Things like ZOPA  peer to peer and so on are higher risk and like the lovely ratesetter when/if the things get really tough you might struggle to get cash back in a hurry.  Even buying property is fraught at the moment but depend on the term and risk you want to take etc....

Albermarle

Things like ZOPA  peer to peer and so on are higher risk and like the lovely ratesetter when/if the things get really tough you might struggle to get cash back in a hurry.  Even buying property is fraught at the moment but depend on the term and risk you want to take etc....

If you were happy to take longer term P2P or property risk , you would be better off investing in Stocks and shares anyway.

JJAM

dipsomaniac said:

Why euros?

To transfer back to sterling post the inevitable pound crash in January. 

Another_Saver

JJAM said:

dipsomaniac said:

Why euros?

To transfer back to sterling post the inevitable pound crash in January. 

I think @dipsomaniac is asking why euros specifically.
And if you truly believe the £ will crash "inevitably" in January then either move all your money to a different currency bank account or move it to an investment account and buy unhedged short term government bonds/bond funds in whatever currencies you think will rally when the £ crashes.
Or you could emigrate, apparently the Dutch love moaning about their country even more than we love moaning about old blighty.

Good luck, you're gonna need it 

planteria

fwiw if i was moving the money out of sterling i'd convert it to dollars rather than euros..
but Premium Bonds are a decent shout from wizzards, and, accepting that there's no FSCS protection, i keep some cash with my local co-op generating a much better rate than you are achieving at the moment.

letsbetfair

JJAM said:

dipsomaniac said:

Why euros?

To transfer back to sterling post the inevitable pound crash in January. 

If you're certain that the £ will fall against the euro in January you could make a fortune - just moving investments from £s into euros is under-ambitious. There is still uncertainty, though - and the risk from things like Brexit will already be priced into the market.